Representative Bureaucracy Research Articles

Critical thoughts about critical mass in representative bureaucracy: A theoretical exploration and empirical illustration

AbstractStudies of representative bureaucracy frequently reference the need for a critical mass before an underrepresented group can influence policy outputs or outcomes, but the empirical literature is modest and presents mixed findings. This article presents a theoretical exploration to illustrate how critical mass can link individual behavior to organizational contexts. By examining both active representation and symbolic representation at both the individual and organizational level and specifying the different microprocesses of active representation, a series of testable hypotheses are presented. The logic suggests that the concept of critical mass might also be a useful contextual variable to examine other aspects of administrative behavior. Based on the theory, two empirical illustrations from China are presented.

Interrogating hegemonic embraces: Representative bureaucracy, methodological Whiteness, and non‐West exclusions

AbstractThe United States' racial history infrequently defines the representativeness of bureaucracies outside of the United States. This article explores how selective historical memories and insufficiently critical concept importations limit disciplinary understandings. We articulate how policy transfer assumptions, narrow administrative histories, methodological Whiteness, and incomplete considerations of non‐West administration alter our understanding of what is or is not representative bureaucracy. We encourage scholars to recall how concepts like representative bureaucracy may lack exact comparability outside the West and to be open to its potential alteration by contextual circumstances. The implications for further exploration of the representative bureaucracy concept and the challenges for pedagogy are also discussed.Evidence for Practice West‐derived hegemonic understandings of the public administration discipline limit the development of public administration practice and scholarship outside the West. Insufficient historical and comparative circumspection is a frequent output of West‐based scholars seeking to implement their concepts in non‐West administrations. The discipline and practice of public administration may increase its global dialogues by conversing with non‐West actors and recognizing the limitations of Western data and theories. Like many administrative concepts, the representative bureaucracy concept as developed in the West may not operate similarly in other contexts.

Blue First and Foremost: Female Descriptive Representation, Rape, and the Justice Gap

The degree to which female political actors influence policy is hotly debated in political science. However, relatively little research considers how women’s representation in the police influences policing outcomes. We argue that increasing women’s representation should be associated with increases in rape report rates but should not be associated with changes in rape arrest rates. We expect public perceptions of female police to affect victims’ willingness to report and cooperate with the police, but the masculine, hierarchical, and complex nature of police investigations of rape will make it difficult for those increases in reporting to translate into increases in arrests for those crimes. We leverage unique police administrative data from 1987 to 2016 and find that although women’s representation is associated with increased rape report rates, there is no relationship with rape arrest rates, highlighting an important justice gap. Our article has implications not only for the study of female representation and representative bureaucracy but also provides insights into how descriptive representation may be limited by institutional culture, norms, practices, and procedures.

Gender and the State Politics of Policy Implementation in Education: The Interaction of Bureaucratic and Legislative Representation in India

AbstractRepresentation frequently links state politics to policy. Current research, however, overlooks the interplay between bureaucratic and legislative representation and how local representation may be influenced by state policy environments. There is also a need to test current theories of state politics and policy, driven by the study of US federalism, in different national contexts to indicate how general such theories might be and to provide new insights into the study of US politics and policy. This article studies how gender representation and local policy implementation interacts with state environment factors to affect representation outcomes in K–12 education across 28 states in India. The research points to the generalizability of current theories of representation and state politics across national federal contexts, the conditional nature of the influence of bureaucratic representation on state policy implementation, and the need to better understand the interdependence of representation across political institutions.

The Behavioral Foundations of Representative Bureaucracy

AbstractRepresentative bureaucracy is a values-based theory of bureaucratic decision making. Its key assumption is that a bureaucrat’s demography shapes her pre-organizational socialization, values, and ultimately her decisions, in a way that can advance the interests of a represented client or group (i.e., active representation). However, scholars have not critically examined the presumed links among these four factors. We review the literature and make an argument for representative bureaucracy scholars to incorporate a psychological perspective to better understand the behavioral mechanisms that influence active representation. We discuss the tripartite classification of the mind, dual-process theories of decision making, identity theory and the deservingness heuristic as theoretical perspectives scholars can use to investigate the behavioral foundations of representative bureaucracy.

Bureaucratic Representation, Accountability, and Democracy: A Qualitative Study of Indigenous Bureaucrats in Australia and Canada

AbstractUsing a qualitative study of Indigenous public servants in Canada and Australia, this article helps open the “black box” of bureaucratic representation. Findings dispel any idea that active representation is unproblematic for minority bureaucrats themselves. In fact, it exacts a high price with respect to working in isolation, confronting racism, facing formidable obstacles to pursue, or challenge policy processes and outcomes aligned with the interests of the communities from which they come and ultimately leading many to exit the bureaucracy or forego career opportunities. Despite this, our findings show that Indigenous bureaucrats bring about policy change that would not otherwise occur, and mechanisms of accountability are at work, within government and between bureaucrats and the communities from which they are drawn. Indigenous bureaucratic leadership is valuable in bridging understanding between elected officials and communities and navigating respectfully the intersections of culture and power across the policy making process to the benefit of all citizens, to “country” and across generations. These findings imply that new inclusive models of representative bureaucracy are both necessary and desirable to make bureaucracy serve multicultural societies and constructively confront environmental crises in the modern era.Evidence for Practice Concepts that equate bureaucratic “partiality” with favoritism, oversimplify the way in which public servants consider, and manage tensions between minority interests they are assumed to “represent” and the wider public interest and democratic accountability. Participants in our research are acutely aware of the need to balance two “lines of accountability” (to government and to their communities), and when the tension between the two cannot be managed, they beat a tactical retreat and wait for a more favorable opportunity, or, if this seems unlikely, they leave the public service. Indigenous public servants promote the democratic project by actively involving otherwise disenfranchised members of society, including the perspectives of time and the land itself, in the policy making process. They make government and its processes understandable and help (re)build trust.

Application of Representative Bureaucracy in Nigeria: Implications for Development and National Cohesion

Application of Representative Bureaucracy in Nigeria: Implications for Development and National Cohesion

“As Expected”: Theoretical Implications for Racialized Administrative Power as the Status Quo

AbstractThis article posits that racialized administrative power is the status quo in the United States and results from a wicked problem broadly construed as institutional racism. Acknowledging a baseline reality of racialized administrative power in the United States allows public administration theory to more directly grapple with the institutional racism that paradoxically may seem too big and complex to empirically study yet simultaneously too important and urgent to ignore. This article offers three contributions to the development of public administration theory from this conceptual frame of racialized administrative power as the status quo. First, by conceptualizing institutional racism as a wicked problem, a case is outlined to replace an assumption of neutral administrative power with a baseline assumption of racialized administrative power in the United States. Second, the article explores two prominent areas of theory in public administration—representative bureaucracy and administrative burden—to demonstrate how a baseline assumption of racialized administrative power can reorient and expand theoretical questions and research. Third, the article discusses the epistemological implications for public administration theory and research based on an assumption that racialized administrative power is the status quo. These contributions offer a step forward in addressing the need for public administration theory to better account for the institutional racism that pervades the management and performance of public organizations in the United States.

Does Ethnicity Affect Allocation of Unemployment-Related Benefits to Job Center Clients? A Survey-Experimental Study of Representative Bureaucracy in Denmark

The role of street-level bureaucracy in social policy has been taken up by two relatively distinct streams of research, based on Lipsky’s foundational work (2010). One group of literature has focused on the organizational working conditions, practices and coping mechanisms of street-level bureaucrats, their impact on the implementation of political programs and reforms, and the scope for discretion in the face of political pressures and institutional demands (Brodkin and Marston, 2013; Jessen and Tufte, 2014; Breit et al., 2016; Van Berkel et al., 2017; van Berkel, 2020). Starting from a focus on interaction with clients and the direct impact of discretionary decisions ‘on people’s lives’ (Lipsky, 2010, 8), a second group of studies has focused more on differences in allocation of benefits caused by perceived ‘deservingness’ and discrimination among street-level bureaucrats (Altreiter and Leibetseder, 2014; Terum et al., 2018; Jilke and Tummers, 2018).

Representative Bureaucracy Theory and the Implicit Embrace of Whiteness and Masculinity

AbstractThroughout much of representative bureaucracy literature, scholars have primarily focused on the representation of people seen as other in the professional workforce—people of color and women. However, whiteness and masculinity have been central to the development of public administration as a field of scholarship and practice. As a field, we have often avoided explicit discussions regarding the impact whiteness and masculinity. We argue that silences around race and gender have significant implications. Using representative bureaucracy as a frame, we seek to highlight how acknowledging whiteness and masculinity in our scholarship can help provide a more comprehensive understanding of race and gender in public administration.

Does an Increased Share of Black Police Officers Decrease Racial Discrimination in Law Enforcement?

Based on representative bureaucracy theory, the current study investigates whether increasing Black representation in police forces is negatively associated with racial discrimination in law enforcement. This study additionally investigates how associations may differ according to the organizational or environmental contexts of the forces. Results show that an increased share of Black officers is associated with decreased police-involved deaths of Black residents, but is not significantly associated with a change in order maintenance arrests of Black suspects. In addition, the negative association between Black representation and police-involved deaths of Black residents disappears when the percent of Black officers surpasses about 15 percent, especially in organizations where White officers comprise a larger share. These findings support the potential negative role of organizational socialization on the effectiveness of increasing the share of Black officers in policing, implying that additional long-term efforts to change organizational culture are needed to realize the benefits of enhancing Black representation.

O golpe de Estado, a burocracia e a teoria marxista do Estado

The term coup d’État is an expression commonly used by Marxist analysts to characterize a sort of phenomena. Despite being widely used, the term, however, still does not have a rigorous and consensual definition within the Marxist theory. In this sense, the aim of this article is to argue in favor of a restricted definition of a coup d’État which in our view is coherent with a Marxist theory of the bourgeois state. The theoretical treatment proposed is to take the concept of coup d’État as a political practice of a particular type in which the bureaucracy participates in the usurpation of political power in one or more branches of the state apparatus. This definition’s main implication is to attest the parliamentary coup as a theoretical contradiction, as it would not observe the structural hierarchy between bureaucratic representation and political representation within the bourgeois state apparatus. In addition to this main consequence, some analytical possibilities offered by the concept of coup as a political practice of a particular type are outlined at the end of the essay.

Gender Perceptions towards Diversity Management Practices in the Public Sector

This study aims to examine the differences in the perception of male and female employees towards diversity management and their work outcomes in a highly male-dominated culture in the Public Sector. A quantitative survey of 114 public sector employees was analysed using structural equation modelling. Overall, the findings reveal that diversity management has a positive and significant impact on both genders’ work outcomes of affective commitment, organisational commitment, job satisfaction, work group performance and inclusiveness of organisational culture. However, the male employees reported lower levels of organisational commitment than the female employees. This study highlights key suggestions for policymakers and public managers, such as diversity strategy, top leadership commitment, diversity training programs, team bonding exercises, strengthening of family-friendly programs and other suggestions. The theoretical contribution of this research is the integration of representative bureaucracy theory, commitment management theory and social cognitive theory for a robust argument for diversity management in the public sector. Studies on gender perceptions in developing small island countries are rare. This study is the first of its kind in the subject country. It identifies the distinct gender norms in society and the role of diversity management.

Representative Bureaucracy, Institutional Support, and Clientele Need: The Case of Undocumented Students

The theory of representative bureaucracy posits that passive representation is associated with improvements in policy outcomes for represented groups. This research examines the institutional conditions under which representative bureaucracy is enhanced or limited. It posits that the benefits of representation will be enhanced when institutional supports are stronger and when clientele need is greatest. Using a unique longitudinal, multi-level dataset, this paper tests competing theoretical conditions (including resource constraints, and task difficulty) under which representative bureaucracy is enhanced or constrained. The analysis tracks student-level performance of 400,000 undocumented students in Texas public schools from 2003 to 2011 providing a powerful empirical test as well as practical policy implications for administrators. It finds that the effects of representation are strongest when resources are abundant and clientele need is greatest. This suggests representative may be even more valuable to organizations than previously thought.

Best person or best mix? How public sector managers understand the merit principle

AbstractAs public sector organisations around the world enact strategies to progress gender equality, managers are forced to navigate the apparent conflict between making employment decisions on individual‐level ‘merit’ and considering the collective constraints and disadvantage that occur along gender lines. In this paper, we investigate how managers’ understandings of merit contribute to this tension. Analysing data collected in focus groups with 273 mid‐level public sector managers in four Australian jurisdictions where efforts to promote gender equality were actively under way, we found that many managers adhered to a highly individualised understanding of merit which precluded them from considering gender or addressing gendered inequality in their employment decisions. Only a small proportion of managers who believed that creating a more representative bureaucracy was a legitimate public sector objective were able to justify considering a candidate's gender as a source of merit. We argue that public sector organisations seeking to promote gender equality should focus managers’ attention on the benefits of achieving a more representative bureaucracy and give managers greater normative and regulatory certainty about how to assess and apply merit in that context.

An Application of the Theory of Representative Bureaucracy, Gender Concordance, and Symbolic Representation in the Health Care Context

Although the United States spends more on health care than comparable nations, many Americans suffer from poor health. Many factors are emphasized as being important for improved health outcomes, including social and economic indicators, living and working conditions, and individual-level behavior. However, I argue the overwhelming attention to male health outcomes—compared to female health outcomes—and focus on factors that are “traditionally understood” as important in shaping health are two limitations of existing health-related research. I adopt an innovative approach that combines the theory of representative bureaucracy, gender concordance, and symbolic representation to argue that increase in female physicians contribute to improved female health outcomes. Using an originally collected dataset that contains information on female physicians, health outcomes, and state and individual-level factors, I study how female physicians influence the health outcomes of non-Hispanic White women, non-Hispanic Black women, and Latinas in the United States from 2000 to 2012. The findings suggest female physicians contribute to improved health outcomes for non-Hispanic White women and non-Hispanic Black women, but not Latinas. Supplemental Analysis bolsters confidence that the findings are not the result of increased access to health care professionals. This study highlights the importance of applying the theory of representative bureaucracy and symbolic representation to health care, the promise of greater female representation in health, and the insight gleaned from incorporating intersectionality in public administration research.

Gendered Funding: United Way Board Composition and the Funding of Women- and Girl-Serving Organizations

Representative bureaucracy theory posits that the passive representation of women in leadership positions will lead to active representation of the concerns of women in general. This article attempts to identify whether this theory plays out on boards of nonprofit funding organizations, specifically United Ways across the United States. Using random effects modeling of interrupted time series data covering 15 years, the findings suggest a small yet significant nonlinear effect of women in leadership positions on boards upon the size of funding for women- and girl-serving organizations. This partially supports representative bureaucracy theory, but raises questions as to why there is a negative representational effect past a certain “critical mass” of women.

Understanding the Symbolic Effects of Gender Representation: A Multi-Source Study in Education

Symbolic effects of bureaucratic representation assume that outcomes for citizen–clients change in response to the mere presence of bureaucrats with similar backgrounds. The social–psychological mechanisms in clients that may explain these changes are barely examined, though. Based on multi-source data on male and female high school students in the Netherlands, this study empirically tests a theoretical model that links student–teacher gender congruence to students’ performance in math and Dutch language through the mediating role of students’ gender-stereotypical beliefs and self-perceived abilities. The empirical analyses do not support the hypotheses. For student performance in math, no effects were found, while for Dutch language, a negative gender-representation effect was found for male students. In all, the results point at divergent relations between gender congruence, self-perceived abilities and performance for male and female students across subjects. The null results in this study suggest that symbolic effects of gender representation may be affected by national context and socio-economic status which should be considered as new frontiers for future research on representative bureaucracy.

Intergovernmental Representation at Different Levels of Government: The Effect of Gender Representation

AbstractThis study examines whether and where bureaucratic representation occurs within the bureaucratic hierarchy and how intergovernmental representation contributes to government efforts to reduce social disparities and improve gender‐related outcomes. The context is the national/central, ministerial, and regional governments of the United Republic of Tanzania for 14 years (2006–2019). The findings reveal that gender representation at the upper level of government plays a primary role in reducing poverty, but its impact on women's socioeconomic status, i.e., women's education and unemployment rate, is limited within the study context. The findings also highlight that the existence and the impact of intergovernmental representation depend on the primary missions of the government at different levels, policy outcomes of interest, and social contexts where identities are constructed and interpreted. This study claims that the potential interdependence of bureaucratic representation across multiple government agencies and institutions deserves more attention in the representative bureaucracy scholarship.

Representative Bureaucracy and Organizational Justice in Mediation.

Studies of representative bureaucracy (RB) argue public organizations reflective of the public they serve exhibit better outcomes, especially when serving underrepresented groups. RB theory attributes improved outcomes either to the actions representative bureaucrats take (active representation), or a greater perception of trust and legitimacy toward them by service recipients (symbolic representation), largely treating active and symbolic representation as separate phenomena. We explore the intricate relationship between bureaucracies and the populations they serve by observing the cross-influence between active and symbolic representation, as revealed by self-reported outcomes in discrimination complaints (N = 1,372) referred for voluntary mediation in the United States Postal Service, the REDRESS© program, a context in which mediators are highly limited in representing a claimant's interests given the requirement of impartiality. In exit surveys measuring employee perceptions of organizational justice, we observed the impact of race and gender representation by gauging changes in reported satisfaction when a mediator's race or gender matched the nature of the complaint in cases of race or sex discrimination and sexual harassment, via multivariate regression estimation. These analyses support RB theory regarding sexual harassment complaints, where complainants rated outcomes significantly more favorably for female mediators. We found a negative correlation between female mediators and sex discrimination complaints, as well as African American mediators and race discrimination complainants. To explain this discrepancy, we argue that interactions between symbolic and active representation determine the expectations and perceptions placed on bureaucrats. When a bureaucrat does not meet those expectations, service recipients tend to have a more negative view of organizational justice outcomes.