Unraveling Representative Bureaucracy

Abstract

Scholars have provided great theoretical insight and empirical understanding to the concept of representative bureaucracy, documenting the changing makeup of the civil service and demonstrating the importance of representative bureaucracy toward democratic governance. Yet, important questions remain. What specifically does bureaucratic representation mean? Is descriptive representation necessary for policy representation? What characteristics are important? How do we measure representation? Finally, are there any negative effects of representative bureaucracy? This article provides an overview and analysis of the literature focusing on how scholars define and measure representative bureaucracy. Efforts are made to emphasize achievements and highlight areas that need attention.

Representative bureaucracy in challenging environments: Gender representation, education, and India

“…In terms of the conditions under which passive representation leads to improved outcomes, a shared value set between the bureaucrat and represented group (Meier 1975), the amount of discretion possessed by bureaucrats (Keiser et al 2002), the salience of the policy area to the shared demographic trait (Wilkins and Keiser 2004), and the ability of bureaucrats to influence the actions of their colleagues/organization (Atkins and Wilkins 2013) are identified as necessary aspects of the working environment (for comprehensive reviews see Bishu and Kennedy 2020;Kennedy 2014). The literature also distinguishes between individual-level representation and organizational-level representation; the latter is the effect of an aggregate level of representation on outcomes (Vinopal 2018).…”

Structural Responses to Gendered Social Problems: Police Agency Adaptations to Human Trafficking

“…Representative bureaucracy theory is similar to SCT in that it predicts that changes in organizational structure will influence organizational outcomes. The basic premise of representative bureaucracy is that civil service agencies with greater diversity will be more representative of the interests of their constituents and will thus have more responsive policies and outcomes (Kennedy, 2014; Kingsley, 1944; Krislov, 1974). For example, police agencies with a greater proportion of female police officers had less disparity in traffic tickets issued to women and men (Farrell, 2015).…”

“…For example, police agencies with a greater proportion of female police officers had less disparity in traffic tickets issued to women and men (Farrell, 2015). Prior studies have measured diversity in race, ethnicity, geographic region, social class, disabilities, and gender, across many different types of civil service agencies (Kennedy, 2014; Krislov, 1974; Meier & Capers, 2012).…”

Workforce diversity in Kenyan public universities: an analysis of workforce representativeness and heterogeneity by employee gender and ethnic group

“…Race, ethnicity and gender are the most salient demographic dimensions for comparing bureaucratic and public representation, and the most studied diversity characteristics (Hindera, 1993;Kellough, 1990;Kennedy, 2014;Meier, 1975;Nachmias & Rosenbloom, 1973;Pitts & Wise, 2010;Riccucci & Saidel, 1997).…”