Behavioral Representative Bureaucracy

• In Event: Experimental Research and Behavioral Public Administration

Abstract

Herbert Simon (1955) suggested psychology could elucidate the actions, behaviors, and decisions of individuals in administrative organizations. In line with a recent call for a behavioral public administration, this paper offers insights from psychology—and psychology-related sub-fields in other disciplines—which can further inform our understanding of the theory of representative bureaucracy. Despite growing empirical evidence of the theory, scholars have yet to utilize a behavioral perspective to engage the mechanisms and processes assumed to underlie this phenomenon. Here, we investigate the micro-level processes that shape representative bureaucracy. In this paper, we also argue that a behavioral perspective allows scholars to disentangle the different processes implied under general term ‘representative bureaucracy’—e.g., a bureaucrat representing, a citizen feeling represented, and co-workers adapting beliefs and behavior through interactions with peers who do not share certain demographic characteristics or values. While we see this as a broader project, this paper aims to: (1) take account of current perspectives on representative bureaucracy, (2) consider the behavioral foundations of these perspectives, (3) incorporate behavioral research to develop theoretically-grounded hypotheses, and (4) suggest a framework for undertaking a behavioral approach in the study of representative bureaucracy.

In its current state, the representative bureaucracy literature assumes a link between passive representation and active representation. The proposed causal mechanism underlying this connection is that public employees who share demographics or policy-relevant values with the clients they serve are more likely to support the interests of those clients when making policy-relevant decisions (Mosher, 1982). As public administration scholars developed empirical evidence in support of this intuitively accessible process, scholars from other disciplines undertook work that should elucidate our understanding of this process. Among others, we argue that research from behavioral economics (e.g., allocation decisions), identity economics (i.e., identity influences utility preference formation), organizational psychology (i.e., the role of work group diversity on individual- and organizational-level outcomes), and social psychology (e.g., social identity and social representations theories) can each inform what we know about the passive-active link.

We hope our study will stimulate scholars of representative bureaucracy in several ways. First, in decomposing representative bureaucracy to its micro-processes, scholars can think more critically about the concept. Second, scholars can be more deliberate in connecting empirical approaches to the theoretical claims advanced in the literature. Third, by placing psychological research in the real-world contexts of interest to public administration scholars, we hope to motivate opportunities for research across traditional disciplinary boundaries.

Authors

• Sean Webeck, Naval Postgraduate School

• Hongseok Lee, University at Albany, State University of New York