Lipstick and Logarithms: Gender, Institutional Context, and Representative Bureaucracy

Abstract

According to the theory of representative bureaucracy, passive representation among public employees will lead to active representation in bureaucratic outputs. Existing research demonstrates that the link between passive and active representation exists for race but not for sex. Past research on this topic has not, however, taken into account the contextual environment that affects whether sex will translate into gender and lead to active representation in the bureaucracy. In this paper, we create a framework that specifies the conditions that affect whether passive representation results in active representation for sex and then test this framework using the case of education. We find that passive representation of women in education leads to active representation and that the institutional context affects the extent to which this link between passive and active representation occurs.

The politics of redistribution in local governments: the effect of gender representation on welfare spending in California counties

“…Women and minorities in high-level positions are more likely to push for social welfare programmes (Keiser et al 2002;Riccucci and Meyers 2004;Wilkins 2006;Bradbury and Kellough 2007), which might link demographic or passive representation to substantive or active representation in specific areas (Dolan 2002;Keiser et al 2002;Riccucci and Meyers 2004;Meier and Nicholson-Crotty 2006;Wilkins and Keiser 2006). 10 Studies have found that women leaders and officeholders bring up different policy issues and solutions by exercising a different leadership style from that of their male counterparts (Fox and Schuhmann 2000;Carroll 2003;Mandell and Pherwani 2003).…”

Political determinants of efforts to protect victims of human trafficking

“…The transition from descriptive to substantive representation is possible whenever an issue at stake invokes shared concerns rooted in a common ethnic, social-or gender-based background of representatives and the represented [45][46][47][48]. Substantive representation of female interests by female members of parliament is illustrated by the fact that the latter have been shown to be more likely to introduce and pass legislation that addresses women's concerns such as child support, equal pay, or criminalization of sexual assault and domestic violence [49][50][51][52][53][54]. Anti-trafficking campaigns often portray stark gendered stereotypes of female victims suppressed by male traffickers [17,18,55].…”

The Representation of Immigrants in Federal, State, and Local Government Work Forces

“…Active representation of immigrant interests may require a sufficient level of passive representation, salience of immigrant status in the policy context, and bureaucratic discretion (Keiser et al 2002;Sowa and Selden 2003). This suggests that passive representation is particularly important in occupations that have discretion to Immigrant teachers may be more accommodating of immigrant children and children of immigrant parents (Marrow 2005(Marrow , 2009).…”

“…Public sector employment can help immigrants assimilate economically, as government jobs have been an important route into the middle class for minorities and previous waves of immigrants (Ellis and Wright 1999;Logan, Alba, and Stults 2003). The theory of representative bureaucracy in public administration suggests that representation of immigrants in government jobs, especially in positions with discretion in decisionmaking, may have important policy and program benefits for the broader immigrant community (e.g., Kingsley 1944;Mosher 1968;Meier 1993;Selden 1997a;Keiser et al 2002). Public sector employment may also be an important component of immigrants' political incorporation (Mollenkopf and Hochschild 2010).…”