Representative Bureaucracy Theory and the Implicit Embrace of Whiteness and Masculinity

Nonprofits are critical partners in the delivery of government‐funded human services in the US, but there is evidence of a persistent racial leadership gap in the sector, whereby Black and Latino Executive Directors are dramatically under‐represented. Why does this gap persist despite increased attention to this issue in recent years? And what organizational and community‐level factors do shape the likelihood that nonprofits will hire a Black or Latino Executive Director (ED)? We answer these questions through a mixed‐methods sequential design, drawing on survey data from 606 nonprofit organizations across the US, along with interview data from 12 nonprofit executives representing expert informants in the Chicago metro area. Consistent with theories of representation and publicness, we find demographic representation at the board level positively linked to the hiring of a Black or Latino ED, but government funding has inconsistent effects. We further elaborate on these findings through our qualitative data.

Section: Methodssupporting

confidence: 91%

Bending the arc of nonprofit leadership toward justice: Impacts of racial representation and organizational publicness on diversifying executive leadership

LeRoux

Medina

2022

“…Bishu and Kennedy (2020) urged scholars to move from the de rigueur use of a “narrow set of shared identities (race and gender)” to intersectional identities. More recently, Portillo et al (2022) provide a perspicuous perspective on the failing of representative bureaucracy theory to scrutinize the little examined but crucial role of White public servants, pointing out that “… by not exploring the implications of whiteness and masculinity, representative bureaucracy theory implicitly establishes White men as neutral, taken‐for‐granted actors, while placing the burden of resolving equity issues on historically marginalized groups.” Moloney et al (2022) in addition to offering a powerful critique of the US‐centric nature of representative bureaucracy literature note that, “By extension, class was assumed to matter less for early US scholars of representative bureaucracy than ethnicity or later, gender.”…”

Section: Discussion and Recommendationsmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…First, by conceptualizing the official discharge of public employee duties in political terms, the theory deemphasizes public service role of public employees. As Portillo et al (2022) astutely note, this puts a higher burden on public employees from historically marginalized groups by expecting them to play a political role in an adverse political environment. More disconcertingly, scholarly attention is deflected away from the public service and representation roles of White public employees (Portillo et al 2022; for an exception, see Van Ryzin, 2021).…”

Section: Discussion and Recommendationsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Reimagining race and gender in public administration and public policy: Insights from an interdisciplinary systematic review

Pandey

Smith

Pandey

et al. 2022

Public administration scholarship on race and gender is motivated by normative concerns about social equity, and dominated by work on bureaucracy and its representativeness. Despite decades of research on race and gender in public administration, there has been limited engagement with racializing and gendering processes. Relatedly, scant attention is paid to other disciplines that center on race and gender in theorizing. The purpose of this review is to explore public administration scholarship on race and gender in the context of allied social science disciplines, reveal limits of current approaches in public administration, and articulate strategies for enhancing understanding of race and gender in public administration scholarship. We use bibliometric and content analysis methods to map the intellectual structure of social science scholarship on race and gender, highlight public administration's place in this structure, and compare public administration scholarship on race and gender with other social science disciplines.

“…If scholars infrequently consider the historical and structural contexts of concept origins (e.g., representative bureaucracy) while privileging the historical experience of “n” of 1 or even of “Western” countries, any scholarly claim must be qualified. This means that claims labeled as counternarratives within literature (Blessett et al, 2016; Portillo et al, 2022) are weakened if the “n” is unspecified. Without specifying the “n” or acknowledging Western bias, explanatory power is lessened and thus, the comparativist is, once again, confronted by hegemonic understandings.…”

Section: Problems Of “What Is Said”: Hegemony Exclusion and Historymentioning

confidence: 99%

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

Moloney

Sanabria-Pulido

Demircioğlu

2022

The 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.