Should There Be A Representative Or Representative Bureaucracy?

Representative bureaucracy is the concept that a bureaucracy should mirror the society that is serves. This mirrored representation can be by ethnic, racial, gender, or socioeconomic groups. The fundamental belief behind this principle is that a person of a specific constituent group will be an advocate for that group and will ensure that that group is properly served by the government. This advocacy can be passive or active; proponents of a representative bureaucracy state that this advocacy need not be overt (Keiser, 2000) but the shared experience of that group would lead that person to be a positive advocate for that group, regardless if this is the bureaucrat’s intent or not.
Representative bureaucracy does, however, have critics.
The hiring process for a representative bureaucracy is in direct conflict with the ideal of a merit based bureaucracy envisioned by Woodrow Wilson (1887), which tries to objectively select the best person for each job within the government, and by this objective section based upon merit and professionalism establish a politics-administration dichotomy within the administration. The major benefit of a representative bureaucracy noted by this principle’s supporters is that of the advocacy of various minority groups. This is in direct conflict with the ideal of neutrality and professionalism within the bureaucracy.
The debate of whether a merit or representative based bureaucracy is best also has similarities the debate between Friedrich and Finer about how a bureaucracy should be managed.
The ability of a bureaucrat to be an advocate would imply that the bureaucrat has discretion and political accountability which would lead one to believe that the principle of a representative bureaucracy would be supported by Friedrich but would be refuted by Finer (1941); he believed that the bureaucracy should be politically neutral and have external controls; this would hinder the advocacy role of a bureaucrat. Friedrich (1940) on the other hand believed that the bureaucrat should be controlled by internal mechanisms and have greater discretion; this discretion would give the bureaucrat the ability to be an
advocate.
Active vs. Passive Representation
Group advocacy or representation in the bureaucracy can either be active or passive. Active representation is the conscious effort to promote and advance the policy issues that are important for the minority group for which the bureaucrat is a member. This active representation or advocacy will in turn influence policy decisions. (Bradbury: 2008) Passive representation is only having a diverse bureaucratic workforce which demographically represents the population at large. By having members of minority groups who have similar experiences, the concerns and issues of that group will be addressed that positively affect the minority group’s interests. (Mosher: 1968) It is even argued that this passive representation may even lead to future active representation and some go as far to imply that some agencies are structured specifically for active representation. (Meier, Bothe: 2001)
The line between active and passive representation is not clear; there are degrees to which a bureaucrat can be an active advocate for a particular group. However if one had to make a demarcation, the distinction between the two types of representation or advocacy can be made by identifying the bureaucrat’s intent, if they make a conscious effort to promote the policy issues of one particular group, that action can be defined as active representation. Passive representation can be defined as an unconscious action that promotes and illustrates the issues of a minority group. Passive representation is accomplished by having a member of a group, who has shared experiences, attitudes, and values as the majority of the group concerned. Through these shared experiences, attitudes, and values the bureaucrat, without actively wanting to promote issues key to the group that they belong to, none the less does advance the group’s concerns.
The representation in not only limited to minority groups, but can be extended to gender.
Keiser, et al. (2000) notes that there are similarity between minority representation and gender representation; these similarities are the shared experiences and values that a member of a particular gender shares. Through these shared experiences and values the policy concerns of a historically underrepresented gender are addressed and promoted. The advocacy role of the bureaucrat is, however, stifled by the hierarchal structure and external controls exerted upon the bureaucracy. (Simon: 1997) This can limit the extent a bureaucrat can be an active advocate for their gender and illustrates how dissimilar agencies can have different levels of representative advocacy. Contrary to the premise of representative bureaucracy, Meier and Nigro (1976) and Mosher (1982) found that the attitudes of bureaucrats can be predicted more by the agency that they work for more than the specific demographic group. Therefore, the instructional structure has a great influence upon the degree of active advocacy a bureaucrat can exert. (Keiser, 2000: p. 8) This would lend one to believe that the intuition’s purpose goals have is a large factor in determining whether and to what extent they can become active
advocates.
The amount of discretion given to the bureaucrat would be in direct proportion to the level of active advocacy that they can engage in. The structure of the agency would also determine to what level a bureaucrat would feel that they were expected to be an advocate for the group(s) for which they belong to. Institutions that are rigidly structured would not be inclined to be vehicles for active advocacy and it could be concluded that those who wish to be advocates for a specific group would not be drawn to rigidly structured institutions but towards intuitions that give a level of discretion that would enable the bureaucrat to be an active advocate. This selection bias however does not downplay the role of passive representation. In a rigidly structured institution the passive representation role would be of even more importance. Keiser and Meier (2000) found as the level of passive representation increases for female teachers the level of benefits for girls also increases (e.g. ACT, SAT and advanced placement rates for girls). This would imply, at least in the field of education, that shared values and experiences for gender help improve the outcomes of female students. As the short term outcomes (e.g. standardized tests) are easily measurable in the educational it would be hard to draw similarities to other bureaucratic organizations. How much improvement in the operation of a water and sewer department for minority communities would having that agency be more represented? One could speculate that it would be reliable. If after a scientific study this is found to be the case, the conclusion that could be drawn is that the effect on minority group outcomes due to the representativeness of the agency is directly proportional with the amount of contact that agency has with the public at large.
The relationship between active and passive representation and whether passive representation eventually leads to active representation is debatable. An important factor when considering the level of representation is that of critical mass. Is there a minimum level of representation that will promote advocacy or does the level of representation have to be linear? Or in other words, does the bureaucracy have to exactly mirror society or this relationship nonlinear? This is an important question to be answered because, if the relationship and benefits of a representative bureaucracy is nonlinear, then the traditional merit based civil service selection methods can be used to a greater extent if this procedure had a disparate impact upon underrepresented groups.