Does personalization of officeholders undermine the legitimacy of the office? On perceptions of objectivity in legal decisionmaking

Public legitimation of legal decisionmaking can be promoted through various strategies. We examine strategies that are premised on personalizing the public image agents. A personalized administration emphasizes individual decisionmakers and seeks legitimacy familiarity with character, identity, virtues agents, whereas a non-personalized projects an ethos technocratic decisionmaking, seeking institutional objectivity impartiality. conducted experiment to efficacy personalization in context politically charged affair: criminal cases involving prime minister Israel, Benjamin Netanyahu. focus people's perceived office Israeli attorney general (AG), given exposure (vs. no exposure) different types personal information about AG, while manipulating salience contrasting decisions concerning Netanyahu (indicting him several counts corruption versus exculpating others). find AG decreased his office, compared information, regardless type decision salience, respondents' political leanings. Our findings, therefore, support legitimating potential non-personalization decisionmakers, show it pertains people positioned as both “losers” “winners” regard impact decision. The study further reflects capacity nonabstract real-world, real-time, analyses shed light drivers trust polarized contexts—an issue pertinence many contemporary democracies.