Passive Representation Research Articles

Character’s Exclusion and Inclusion Representations in Sinan Antoon's 'The Corpse Washer'

The current study is an attempt to demonstrate how characters are represented in Sinan Antoon’s Self-translated novel ‘The Corpse Washer’. The study adopts a Critical Discourse Analysis framework to analyse major characters' utterances through the use of van Leeuwen's socio-semantic Model ‘Social Actor Representation’. The linguistic analysis of characters' utterances aims at analysing the active and passive representation within the novel as well as the character’s importance by tracking the frequency of representation. The main aim of this study is to check the applicability of Social actor representation to literary social actors within novels since previous studies used this model to analyse non-fictional social actors. The result shows that the characters are included more than excluded and activated more than passivated due to the characters of the novel. Moreover, the chosen model for this study shows its effectiveness in analysing the selected data.

“Representative bureaucracy as a leadership issue: the Canadian case”

PurposeThe public administration literature on representative bureaucracy identifies several advantages from having a diverse public service workforce, but it has not explicitly focused on leadership. For its part, the public sector leadership literature has largely ignored the issue of gender. The purpose of this paper is to rectify these limitations by advancing the argument that having a representative bureaucracy is fundamentally a leadership issue. Moreover, it assesses the extent to which representativeness has been achieved in the Canadian federal public service.Design/methodology/approachThe paper begins with a discussion of the importance of a representative bureaucracy for democratic governance. In the next section, the case is made that representativeness is fundamentally intertwined with the concept of administrative leadership. Then, the article provides an interpretive case study analysis of the federal public service in Canada, which is the global leader in terms of women's representation in public service leadership positions.FindingsThe initial breakthrough for gender representation in the Canadian federal public service was 1995. From that point onward, the proportion of women in the core public administration exceeded workforce availability. However, women continued to be modestly under-represented among the senior leadership cadre throughout the early 2000s. The watershed moment for gender representation in the federal public service was 2011 when the number of women in the executive group exceeded workforce availability for the first time. Significant progress toward greater representativeness in the other target groups has also been made but ongoing vigilance is required.Research limitations/implicationsThe study only determines the passive representation of women in the Public Service of Canada and is not able to comment on the extent to which women are substantively represented in federal policy outcomes.Originality/valueThe paper traces the Canadian federal government's progress toward achieving gender representation over time, while commenting on the extent to which the public service reflects broader diversity. In doing so, it explicitly links representation to leadership, which the existing literature fails to do, by arguing that effective administrative leadership is contingent upon having a diverse public service. Moreover, it highlights the importance of gender for public sector leadership, which hitherto has been neglected.

TRANSFORMATION OF PASSIVE REPRESENTATION INTO SYMBOLIC REPRESENTATION IN THE FRAMEWORK OF REPRESENTATIVE BUREAUCRACY APPROACH: A FIELD RESEARCH ON GENDERMARIE AND POLICE - TEMSİLİ BÜROKRASİ YAKLAŞIMI ÇERÇEVESİNDE PASİF TEMSİLİN SEMBOLİK TEMSİLE DÖNÜŞÜMÜ: JANDARMA VE POLİS TEŞKİLATI ÜZERİNE BİR ARAŞTIRMA

In this study, it is aimed to reveal the transformation of passive representation into symbolic representation and the relationship between symbolic representation and the attitudes of trust, participation and legitimacy of individuals towards public bureaucracy. The perceptions and attitudes towards law enforcement bureaucracy have been tried to determine through individuals living in Nevşehir. The data of research have been collected by means of a questionnaire form from 550 individuals who were selected by cluster sampling method. In the research, it has been determined that the passive representation transformed into symbolic representation. In addition, it has been observed that there were statistically significant and positive, strong relationships between symbolic representation and the attitudes of trust, participation and legitimacy toward public bureaucracy. Therefore, it is possible to assert that the representative bureaucracy approach can be used to increase legitimacy and trust toward public authorities and to gain social support as it is in the sample of law enforcement.

This for That: What EEOC Trends Reveal About Representative Bureaucracy

Representative bureaucracy is one of the mechanisms used to achieve representative democracy. This article assesses how bureaucratic representation affects public access to administrative remedies, a recourse linked with social equity in public service organizations. Representative bureaucracy theory is applied to 14 years of Equal Employment Opportunity Commission demographics and outcomes data. The analysis asks whether passive representation trends parallel trends in active representation outcomes, using longitudinal workforce, charge, suit, and resolution data. Results suggest trends in client driven outcomes (charges) were consistent with passive representation, while organizational outcomes (suits and resolutions) outpaced disability representation but fell short of racial and gender representation. The trend analysis findings, which offer timely insights into the effects of human resource management, suggests organizational priorities and processes affect representation more than previously thought.

Representative Bureaucracy and Attitudes Toward Automated Decision Making

AbstractThe theory of representative bureaucracy posits that citizens will view policy and service delivery more favorably if public servants share their background characteristics. However, automation is changing public service delivery, limiting human involvement in the process. We examine attitudes toward automated decision making through the lens of representative bureaucracy, generating expectations about how a lack of passive representation will affect views toward automated versus human decision making in government. Using a survey experiment, we find evidence that black citizens are more likely to rate automated decision making higher, compared with police officers, on fairness and preference when exposed to a lack of passive representation in a police agency. We do not find evidence of this relationship for white citizens. Our findings provide insight into the way in which passive representation conditions minority citizens’ views toward automation, highlighting the importance of considering representation, or lack thereof, as governments contemplate the adoption of automated services.

Representative Bureaucracy and Public Hiring Preferences: Evidence from a Conjoint Experiment among German Municipal Civil Servants and Private Sector Employees

AbstractDrawing on Weber, this study tests whether the normative principles of merit orientation and impartiality are more prevalent in shaping public hiring preferences among civil servants—both junior and senior—than among private sector employees. In a conjoint experiment, respondents are asked to compare two hypothetical applicants for an office job in a municipal administration and to decide which they would hire. The application profiles vary with respect to a set of meritocratic and nonmeritocratic attributes. The empirical findings suggest that first, in all three samples, hiring decisions are primarily based on meritocratic attributes. Second, there is evidence of ethnic discrimination in the private employee sample, while there is no such effect in either of the two civil servant samples. Third, private employees’ hiring preferences are influenced by personal political beliefs, while civil servants are less likely to let political attitudes affect their hiring choices. Thus, while civil servants hiring preferences are largely consistent with passive representation and nondiscrimination, support for a representative bureaucracy among citizens should be improved.

Youth underrepresentation as a barrier to sexual and reproductive healthcare access in Kasulu district, Tanzania: A qualitative thematic analysis

ObjectivesRepresentation of the key groups in community-level healthcare decisions is a prerequisite for accountable and responsive primary healthcare systems. However, meaningful representation requires both the presence of individuals who represent the key community groups and their capacity to influence the key healthcare plans and decisions. Our study explored how the underrepresentation of the youth in health facility committees, the decentralized community- and facility-level healthcare decision-making forums affects youth access to sexual and reproductive health services.MethodsA multisite case study involving focus group discussions, interviews, and meeting observation was conducted in eight primary healthcare facilities in Kasulu, a rural district in Tanzania. Inductive thematic analysis was used to identify the key emerging themes.ResultsFive major themes were identified in connection with youth underrepresentation and limited access to sexual reproductive health as a ‘taboo’ phenomenon in the communities. These were: numbers do not matter, passive representation, sociopolitical gerontocracy, economic vulnerability, and mistrust and suspicion.ConclusionsGradual emancipatory and transformative efforts are needed to normalize the representation of the youth and their concerns in formal community-level decision-making institutions.

A representative bureaucracy perspective on workforce composition in international organizations: The case of the United Nations Secretariat

AbstractThis article provides a representative bureaucracy perspective on staff composition in international organizations (IOs). Contrary to previous studies in international relations, I argue that staff composition is not only driven by power but international organizations are also concerned with bureaucratic representation. Therefore, I examine one potential barrier and one driver to passive representation, namely the available local labour pool and political representation. The empirical analysis is based on an original database of human resources statistics in the United Nations Secretariat which allows for a differentiation between staff categories. The resulting regression analyses suggest that headquarters locations, political representation and diplomacy are the main determinants of member states’ representation, but these determinants vary in strength depending on the staff categories. This article contributes to the study of staff composition in IOs by examining additional determinants and to the recent discussions on representative bureaucracy at the international level.

소극적 대표성에 대한 재평가: 지방의원의 연령 대표성을 중심으로

소극적 대표성에 대한 재평가: 지방의원의 연령 대표성을 중심으로

The individual level effect of symbolic representation: An experimental study on teacher-student gender congruence and students’ perceived abilities in math

Studies on representative bureaucracy have often confirmed the positive performance effects of bureaucracies mirroring the demographic characteristics of their clientele. However, little is known about the underlying individual level mechanisms leading to these outcomes. In this study, theoretical ideas from representative bureaucracy literature and social and educational psychology are combined in a new model that explains effects of passive representation from the perspective of the individual client in the educational field. It is hypothesized that positive effects of gender congruence on students’ academic self-concepts are mediated by gender stereotypical beliefs of students. This mediation is expected to be moderated by the self-confidence of the teacher. Results of a survey experiment among students in a Dutch high school do not support the hypothesized relationships. The study does reveal gender differences in stereotypical beliefs and academic self-concepts though. Furthermore, the academic self-concept for math of both male and female students is higher if the math teacher is a woman. The study concludes with a discussion of the findings and avenues for future research on the role of stereotypical beliefs in the association between gender representation and student performance.

School Choice and Conflict Narratives: Representative Bureaucracy at the Street Level in East Jerusalem

In representative bureaucracy research, the dominant view holds that passive representation leads to active representation. Much of the research to date has focused on the conditions that influence this process. In this research, we argue that more attention needs to be paid to the manifestation of active representation, rather than simply its presence. We find that although passive representation may indeed lead to active representation, the nature of this active representation is interpreted differently by those sharing a primary identity. We use the lens of representative bureaucracy theory, and Q Methodology, to understand how street-level bureaucrats in East Jerusalem use their discretion within the education system of a contested society.

Passives are not hard to interpret but hard to remember: evidence from online and offline studies

ABSTRACTPassive sentences are considered more difficult to comprehend than active sentences. Previous online-only studies cast doubt on this generalisation. The current paper directly compares online and offline processing of passivization and manipulates verb type: state vs. event. Stative passives are temporarily ambiguous (adjectival vs. verbal), eventive passives are not (always verbal). Across 4 experiments (self-paced reading with comprehension questions), passives were consistently read faster than actives. This contradicts the claim that passives are difficult to parse and/or interpret, as argued by main perspectives of passive processing (heuristic, syntactic, frequentist). The reading time facilitation is compatible with broader expectation/surprisal theories. When comprehension targeted theta-role assignment, passives were more errorful, regardless of verb type. Verbal WM measures correlated with the difference in accuracy, but not online measures. The accuracy effect is argued to reflect a post-interpretive difficulty associated with maintaining/manipulating the passive representation as required by specific tasks.

Does Increasing Racial Minority Representation Contribute to Overall Organizational Performance? The Role of Organizational Mission and Diversity Climate

One underexplored question in the representative bureaucracy literature is whether public employees advocate for their demographic groups at the expense of other groups or their organizational roles. Many studies have focused on the link between passive representation, or the extent to which the public workforce reflects the demographic characteristics of its clients, and active representation, or the extent to which policies advance the interests of those people. However, little research has been done on whether and when increased representation by a certain group enhances overall organizational performance. This study examines the relationship between racial minority representation in U.S. federal agencies and the agencies’ goal achievement while considering the moderating role of organizational mission and diversity climate. The panel data analysis shows that increased minority representation lowers agencies’ goal achievement. However, a positive relationship exists between the two in agencies that mainly work to promote social equity for disadvantaged populations and foster a positive diversity climate in the workplace. These findings suggest that racial minority employees can better contribute to organizational success in agencies where they balance advocacy and organizational roles well and they are treated fairly and respectfully.

The Role of Tangible Interaction to Communicate Tacit Knowledge of Built Heritage

Meanings and values of built heritage vary from factual and explicit meanings which are relatively easy to present, to more tacit knowledge, which is typically more challenging to communicate due to its implicit and often abstract character. In this paper, we investigate how tangible interaction influences the communication of this tacit knowledge of built heritage, and howit affects the experience of visitors. Through a between-group comparative study in a real-world museum context, we examined howthe tangible characteristics of an interactive prototypemuseuminstallation influence how visitors perceive a particular story containing tacit heritage knowledge. The communicated story relates a historical journey in ancient Egypt to the physical and architectural characteristics of the entrance colonnade at the Djoser Complex in Saqqara. Our experimental conditions consisted of an interactive navigation (input) and a passive representation (output) components, ranging from traditional digital displays to fully tangible means of interaction. We report on our findings, which showed various differences and commonalities between our three experimental conditions. We conclude with a number of discussion points and design recommendations: (a) to strive for balance between navigation and representation modalities in terms of affordance and the required cognitive effort; (b) to take advantage of physical representation and grasping, such as conveying particular physical details and characteristics; and (c) to consider design aspects of embodiment, physical abstraction and materiality for future research or potential further development of communicating the meanings and values of heritage.

Microfoundations of Active Representation in Public Bureaucracies: Evidence From a Survey of Personnel Recruitment in the Swiss Federal Civil Service

This article investigates the link between passive (descriptive) and active (substantive) representation in public bureaucracies. Previous studies on this topic mostly focused on the US context, where race and gender are the most salient aspects of bureaucratic representation. In Switzerland, representation of the various cultural communities in the federal bureaucracy is the most salient issue. Active representation is operationalized as administrators’ preferences for minority origin, as well as for skills in minority languages when selecting candidates in personnel recruitment processes. We use a structural equation model to analyze individual-level data from a survey of administrators in the Swiss federal civil service. Findings are that passive representation fosters active representation not only at the level of individual bureaucrats, but also at the level of the agencies as the main bureaucratic work environment. Moreover, we find that effects of passive on active representation are not direct but mediated by administrators’ sensitivity to issues related to minority representation. Sensitivity to minority conditions therefore appears as the main microfoundation for active representation of minority interest, and as a core explanatory factor for active representation outside of demographic congruence.

Mo’ Money, No Problem: The Impact of Financial Shocks on Representation

While scholars have discussed what is necessary for passive representation to translate to active representation, few have considered how context may change the bureaucrat’s decision to act on behalf of clients. This research theoretically explains that as representative bureaucracy translates from passive to active representation, a dynamic organizational context like funding may indirectly hinder or promote bureaucratic behaviors such as active representation. Using U.S. education data, the findings indicate that organizational financial stress can influence the relationship between racial minority bureaucrats and same-race client outcomes. Specifically, as more resources are allocated to the technical core of the organization, minority bureaucrats positively influence minority client outcomes. The results, however, are inconsistent when observing broad patterns of total revenue.

The Impact of Representative Hiring on Employee Perceptions and Discrimination Complaints Over Time

Since 1978, the federal government has formally been implementing passive representation though initiatives like the Federal Equal Opportunity Recruitment Program. Despite this, the representative ...

Representative Bureaucracy: Examining the Effects of Female Teachers on Girls’ Education in Ghana

ABSTRACTScholars have examined representative bureaucracy as a viable means to make the bureaucracy more responsive to citizens in a democratic society. The theory argues that a diverse public service that mirrors the social demographics of its population in terms of gender, race, and ethnicity (passive representation) is more likely to be responsive to the needs of all citizens (active representation). Although a substantial body of empirical research exists, a comparative understanding of the theory is lacking in Africa. This study expands the empirical research on the theory to Ghana. It investigates whether passive representation of female teachers makes the education bureaucracy more responsive to girls. The analysis of a nationally representative data set on senior high schools (SHS) within the 216 districts of Ghana revealed that increasing the presence of female teachers is positively associated with the performance of girls on math and science exit exams.

Families of adult people with disability: Their experience in the use of services run by social cooperatives in Italy

Social cooperation has historically played a pivotal role in developing socio‐educational services for people with disability, thereby contributing to counteracting the social isolation often associated with this condition. Using a mixed‐method methodology, this study maps the diversity of perspectives on how the use of disability‐related services run by social cooperatives impacts on and becomes meaningful to family life. One hundred twenty‐nine interviews with family members of adults with different kinds of disability were studied using emotional textual analysis. It provides a multi‐dimensional model to read and map the multiplicity of emotional meanings related to disability and the use of services, shedding light on key diversities in how family members emotionally make sense of care and support. The results reveal the importance of supporting family‐carers on two main issues: accessing a less passive representation of their relative with disability; and being able to test and acknowledge limits without succumbing to a sense of powerlessness.

The Effect of the External Environment on Bureaucratic Representation: Assessing the Passive to Active Representation Link

The literature on the link between passive and active representation is well established, but there is still some debate on why and how passive representation translates into active representation in some settings and not others. Some scholars suggest the salience of the policy issue and discretion to act yields a linkage between passive and active representation, while others contend researchers are simply identifying correlates of the two concepts not linkages. However, many studies miss the dynamic relationship between representation and the external environment, so this research explains the manner in which external, environmental pressures influence bureaucratic discretion and active representation. Interdependences between service organizations and the external environment can restrict bureaucratic discretion through resource dependence and cues of expectations and professional norms, or bureaucrats may use the relationship to enhance their discretion. Using an original dataset of the 1,800 largest U.S. school districts over two school terms, I compare the level of disparity in academic grouping across racial groups in two distinct external environments, racially balanced and imbalanced school districts, and find that minority bureaucrats use their discretion to improve the odds of minority students’ assignment to gifted education, but external, environmental control moderates the significance of active representation. The passive to active representation link is weakened based on the operating policy environment. This work offers some insight on the restrictions and limits to active representation, and the empirical findings hold implications for the governance of public organizations and the outcomes of public policies.