A representative bureaucracy perspective on workforce composition in international organizations: The case of the United Nations Secretariat

This article provides a representative bureaucracy perspective on staff composition in international organizations (IOs). Contrary to previous studies in international relations, I argue that staff composition is not only driven by power but international organizations are also concerned with bureaucratic representation. Therefore, I examine one potential barrier and one driver to passive representation, namely the available local labour pool and political representation. The empirical analysis is based on an original database of human resources statistics in the United Nations Secretariat which allows for a differentiation between staff categories. The resulting regression analyses suggest that headquarters locations, political representation and diplomacy are the main determinants of member states’ representation, but these determinants vary in strength depending on the staff categories. This article contributes to the study of staff composition in IOs by examining additional determinants and to the recent discussions on representative bureaucracy at the international level.     

Distributive Politics and Regional Development: Assessing the Territorial Distribution of Turkey’s Public Investment

Turkey is often perceived as a country with low bureaucratic capacity and prone to political manipulation and ‘pork-barrel’. This article tests whether this is the case, by analysing the extent to which politics, rather than equity and efficiency criteria, have determined the geographical allocation of public investment across the 81 provinces of Turkey between 2005 and 2012. The results show that although the Turkish government has indeed channelled public expenditures to reward its core constituencies, socioeconomic factors remained the most relevant predictors of investment. Moreover, in contrast to official regional development policy principles, we uncover the concentration of public investment in areas with comparatively higher levels of development. We interpret this as the state bureaucracy’s intentional strategy of focussing on efficiency by concentrating resources on ‘the better off among the most in need’.     

INTRODUCTION: EXPLOITING IT IN PUBLIC ADMINISTRATION - TOWARDS THE INFORMATION POLITY?

This introduction to the theme issue on Towards the Information Polity? Public Administration in the information age presents the case for the systematic academic investigation of the changing relationships which characterize the ‘information polity’. This perspective on the information polity focuses on the significance of new kinds of informational resources and flows in government, and their interaction with broad directions of reform in contemporary public administration, including the new public management. It is argued that, whereas the literature of business strategy has emphasized the economic logic by which ‘informatization’ encourages organizational transformation, the articles in this issue demonstrate the importance of wider cultural, organizational and political factors to understanding processes of informatization and the changing nature of the emergent ‘information polity’.     

Administrators as Deliberative Representatives: A Revised Public Service Role

We suggest a role for public administrators as deliberative representatives. The goal is to apply a re-conceptualization of representation within the context of public administration based on a literature review on the following concepts: 1) representative democracy, (2) representative bureaucracy, and (3) deliberative democracy. We find that dominant models of representative democracy are ill suited for ensuring the true interests of citizens and communities are met and that representative bureaucracy is not satisfactory to address the failings of representative democracy. Finding promise in deliberative democracy models, we consider how the re-conceptualization of representation for the administrative role might shape the advancement of public participation in order to enhance the quality of representation. Specifically, a fourth construction is defined to add to the list of three above: deliberative representation.     

'SUPRANATIONALISM' IN QUESTION: BELIEFS,VALUES, AND THE SOCIALIZING POWER OF THE EUROPEAN COMMISSION REVISITED

Do international organizations affect the views of the people who work for them? Although increasingly sophisticated methods have been used to address this question, disagreement persists about whether the beliefs of staff are formed before they join, after they enter the institution, or are shaped by instrumental calculation. Drawing on an original dataset based on the first fully representative survey of the European Commission's workforce, this article breaks new ground by putting different definitions of ‘supranationalism’ to the test and by capturing multiple ways in which individuals may be affected by the experience of working for the organization. For the first time, it demonstrates that commitment to ‘supranationalism’ varies between Commission staff groupings, that the influences on belief vary with the measure of ‘supranationalism’ used, and that both post‐recruitment experience and pre‐recruitment roles play a part in shaping beliefs.     

Representative Bureaucracy: Examining the Effects of Female Teachers on Girls’ Education in Ghana

Scholars have examined representative bureaucracy as a viable means to make the bureaucracy more responsive to citizens in a democratic society. The theory argues that a diverse public service that mirrors the social demographics of its population in terms of gender, race, and ethnicity (passive representation) is more likely to be responsive to the needs of all citizens (active representation). Although a substantial body of empirical research exists, a comparative understanding of the theory is lacking in Africa. This study expands the empirical research on the theory to Ghana. It investigates whether passive representation of female teachers makes the education bureaucracy more responsive to girls. The analysis of a nationally representative data set on senior high schools (SHS) within the 216 districts of Ghana revealed that increasing the presence of female teachers is positively associated with the performance of girls on math and science exit exams.     

Reconciling public administration and democracy: the role of the responsible administrator

This article considers whether the individual responsibilities of bureaucratic officials provide a useful means for reconciling the tension between democracy and bureaucracy. Three questions central to the proper definition of bureaucratic responsibility are examined: (1) What is the relation of bureaucratic responsibility to the view that proper bureaucratic conduct is essentially a matter of ethics and morality? (2) If the appeal to moral values does not ordinarily offer an acceptable guide to proper bureaucratic conduct, upon what principles does a theory of bureaucratic responsibility rest? (3) What issues arise in putting responsibility into practice within a complex organizational setting? The article concludes that a democratic, process-based conception offers the most useful way of thinking about the responsibilities of bureaucratic officials.

The tension between democracy and bureaucracy has bedeviled public administration. However one defines democracy, its core demand for responsiveness (to higher political authorities, the public, client groups, or whatever the presumed agent of democratic rule) does not neatly square with notions of effective organization of the policy process and efficient delivery of goods and services, which are central to the definition of bureaucracy. Responsiveness need not guarantee efficiency, while bureaucratic effectiveness and efficiency often belie democratic control.

This tension between democracy and bureaucracy persists, but that it is the individual administrator who directly experiences the tension is especially important as a guide toward a resolution of this conflict. Since divergence is central to this tension between democracy and bureaucracy, speculation about the responsibilities of bureaucratic officials—their individual places within the bureaucracy, particularly the administrator's thoughts, choices, and actions—provides fruitful terrain for resolving the question of bureaucracy's place within a democratic system of rule.

Three questions need to be addressed if one accepts the premise that individual responsibility is central to locating the place of bureaucracy in a democratic order. First, what is unique about bureaucratic responsibility, especially in contrast to the view that these are largely ethical problems that can be resolved by appeal to moral values? Second, if dilemmas of bureaucratic conduct are by and large not resolvable through appeal to moral values, upon what other principles does a theory of bureaucratic responsibility rest? Third, what issues arise in putting responsibility into practice, especially within a complex organizational setting? This list of questions is not meant to be exhaustive but only a starting point for discussion.     

Representative Bureaucracy in the Public Service? A Critical Analysis of the Challenges Confronting Women in the Civil Service of Ghana

In the public administration literature, the debate concerning the representation of minorities in the public bureaucracy continues to attract attention. The idea is that passive representation may lead to active representation with the later helping to develop policies and programs that will benefit minorities. Consequently, a number of governments have been implementing policies to enhance the involvement of minorities in public services. The Ghana government has not been left out in this endeavor. Since 1957, it has continued to institute measures to ensure a fair gender representation in the bureaucracy. This notwithstanding, the upper echelons of the bureaucracy continue to be dominated by males despite the over representation of women at the lower levels. What are the challenges confronting women in the public sector that make it difficult to achieve active representation? In this article, we examine the challenges confronting women to achieve active representation from a representative bureaucracy perspective.     

A Challenging State of Affairs: Public Administration in the Republic of Lebanon

ABSTRACT

This article highlights Lebanon’s administrative challenges and reform efforts, since the end of its Civil War (1975–1990). In recent years, Lebanon and international donors have worked to improve transparency, promote modern management techniques, and encourage the use of information technology throughout the public sector. Despite these efforts, Lebanon’s public institutions remain constrained by the centralization of power, corruption, outdated bureaucratic structures, and deficiencies in administrative knowledge. The success of future reform efforts will depend on whether the Lebanese bureaucracy can overcome the challenges created by regional political tensions, its Syrian refugee crisis, and an increasingly indifferent Lebanese public.     

WEBER AND KAFKA: THE RATIONAL AND THE ENIGMATIC BUREAUCRACY

Max Weber's and Franz Kafka's respective understandings of bureaucracy are as different as night and day. Yet, Kafka's novel The Castle is best read with Max Weber at hand. In fact, Kafka relates systematically to all the dimensions in Weber's ideal type of bureaucracy and give us a much‐contemplated parody, almost a counter‐punctual ideal type, based on four key observations: bureaucratic excesses unfold in time and space; a ‘no error’ ideology generates inescapable dilemmas; inscrutability is a life condition in bureaucracy; civil servants end up walking on the spot, just like the figures in Escher's painting: Ascending and Descending. Nevertheless, Weber and Kafka can both be right. While Kafka looks at the bureaucratic phenomenon through persons who are marginalized, Weber's perspective is historic‐comparative and top‐down. Are the observations of the one more correct than the other? The question is meaningless. As two opposite poles, Weber and Kafka ‘magnetize’ each other.     

Toward a Pragmatic Model of Public Responsiveness: Implications for Enhancing Public Administrators’ Responsiveness to Citizen Demands

Public responsiveness, or bureaucratic responsiveness to citizen demands, is central to public administration theories. It is a key concept regarding the appropriate role of bureaucracy and professional administrators in a democratic political system. By exploring the complexity of the concept, this article proposes a pragmatic model as an alternative to the two mainstream models of understanding public responsiveness. The theoretical implication of the pragmatic model is also discussed. Future research should address administrators’ instrumental concerns in fostering public responsiveness.     

Inclusive Elite Bargains and the Dilemma of Unproductive Peace: a Zambian case study

This article seeks to contribute to recent debates on the link between political settlements and state building. It proposes a theoretical framework that centres on the alternative concept of ‘elite bargain’ and suggests that inclusive elite bargains can be expected to facilitate both peace and economic development. Yet a detailed case study of elite bargains in Zambia shows that all good things do not always go together. While inclusive elite bargains have indeed helped to avoid civil war, they have often constrained economic development—a dilemma of unproductive peace.     

The origins of bureaucracy: an anthropological perspective

Many decades have passed since the first appearance of Max Weber's seminal study, in Wirtschaft und Gesellschaft , of the origins and characteristics of bureaucracy. His analysis was, naturally, dependent on the existing knowledge of his day; but the growth and maturity of archaeology and anthropology as academic disciplines have shed much new light on the historical and social contexts in which bureaucratic organizations emerged. This article, using Sumerian civilization as a case in point, summarizes much of what we now know about the conditions under which bureaucracy first originated and flourished. In so doing, it identifies several major human developmental and social transformations—the hominid revolution, the agrarian revolution, and the urban revolution—which played vital roles in the evolution and expansion of the bureaucratic form of organization.     

A VERY PUBLIC SEARCH FOR PUBLIC VALUE: ‘RHETORICAL SECRETARIES' IN WESTMINSTER JURISDICTIONS

Senior bureaucrats in central agencies in Westminster jurisdictions frequently give keynote speeches as a part of their official function. What are these administrative leaders talking about, and to whom, and why does it matter? This paper will seek to answer those questions through the lens of public value theory by considering whether ‘public rhetorical leadership’ by senior bureaucrats is a legitimate contribution to the search for public value, and what challenges such behaviour may present to good governance. The speeches of senior bureaucrats in four Westminster jurisdictions – Australia, Canada, New Zealand and the United Kingdom – are examined as examples of how bureaucratic ‘public rhetorical leadership’ is currently being exercised. The paper concludes that the way in which senior bureaucrats exercise their rhetorical power can have significant implications for the implementation of policy, and for questions of bureaucratic accountability.     

The Ambivalent Relations Between Bureaucracy and Public Innovation: The Case of the Successful Failure of Dial Police

Building on a growing body of literature on public innovation and the rediscovery of bureaucracy, this article explores the relations between innovation and bureaucracy. A framework for studying innovation in a bureaucratic context is developed and its relevance assessed through a case study of the successful implementation but failed diffusion of an innovation project. The case study demonstrates how a bureaucratic context represents not only barriers to innovation but also a number of complex drivers. The outline of these ambivalent relations is used to tease out the Janus face of the new spirit of innovation in public administration.     

Black administrators and racial road blocks in public organizations: problems and recourse

Discussions in the representative bureaucracy literature have tacitly assigned the responsibility of representing the interests of blacks to individual black administrators. Relying on black employee groups (or solidarity groups) to represent the interests of blacks is ignored. The possibility that black members of organizations have a group interest to be represented is not considered in the literature.

Assigning there presentation responsibility to individual black administrators is rejected be cause of barriers that can be created by racial road blocks (to kenism and different perceptions of race relations). It is argued that solidarity groups are a more effective means of representing the interests of blacks. Assigning the responsibility to solidarity groups should: (1) neutralize the effects of racial road blocks; (2) limit individual representation activities and thus permit each black administrator to concentrate on job performance; and (3) shift the focus in there presentative bureaucracy literature away from the individual and start concentrating on the representation activities of solidarity groups.     

The effects of hierarchy,centralization and formalization on municipal fiscal health: An empirical test of the bureaucratic ideal

This research examines the effects of three defining features of bureaucratic organizations – hierarchy, centralization of decision‐making, and the formalization of administrative procedures and rules – on the fiscal health of city governments in the US. It utilizes data from a national survey of top appointed city officials in the US to measure the bureaucratic features of city governments, and assesses budgetary solvency using actual financial data from audited financial reports. Using factor analysis to develop a composite bureaucracy index, and addressing unobserved heterogeneity and possible simultaneity bias through least squares dummy variable regression and instrumental variable regression, the empirical analysis shows that excessive bureaucracy leads to poorer fiscal health. Analysing the effects of the individual components of the index, the results indicate that centralization and formalization exert a statistically significant and negative effect on city budgetary solvency.     

Improving Public Service Delivery: The Crossroads Between NPM and Traditional Bureaucracy

This article analyses a New Public Management (NPM) style of reform recently introduced in Portuguese public administration. The reform introduces new organizations to a method of delivering public services called 'Citizen Shops' (CS) ( Lojas dos Cidadãos ). Several public services are concentrated in a single building whose management follows the practices of the private sector concerning service delivery and opening times, rather like a 'shopping centre'. 'Citizen Shops' is a kind of agencification and is an attempt to avoid the constraints of civil service red tape and bureaucratic resistance to change. The author argues that the extent to which new ideas were imported from NPM was limited and constrained by the institutional framework and the culture prevailing in Portuguese bureaucracy. Citizen Shops reproduced the hierarchical and centralized nature of service delivery and followed the traditional patterns of control. The prevailing structure is an important constraint on NPM development.     

Constituting 'the public' in public participation

The emphasis on public participation in contemporary policy discourse has prompted the development of a wide range of forums within which dialogue takes place between citizens and officials. Often such initiatives are intended to contribute to objectives relating to social exclusion and democratic renewal. The question of ‘who takes part’ within such forums is, then, critical to an understanding of how far new types of forums can contribute to the delivery of such objectives. This article draws on early findings of research conducted as part of the ESRC Democracy and Participation Programme. It addresses three questions: ‘How do public bodies define or constitute the public that they wish to engage in dialogue?’; ‘What notions of representation or representativeness do participants and public officials bring to the idea of legitimate membership of such forums?’; and ‘How do deliberative forums contribute to, or help ameliorate, processes of social inclusion and exclusion?’     

Expanding the theoretical boundaries of active representation: Clients' deservedness of service in the 911 emergency system

The objective of this study was to explore how emergency responders' experience, beliefs and organizational context influence their decision-making processes and their interaction with their clients. The study includes 27 interviews with 911 emergency responders to unveil the underlying factors which lead responders to act in favour of some of their clients, that is, actively represent them, while limiting their representation of others. The study is situated at the intersection between the street-level bureaucracy and representative bureaucracy literatures. Building on symbolic representation, this study argues that active representation is shaped by factors beyond mere socio-demographic characteristics and organizational or group identities. By focusing the analysis on the attitudes of the bureaucrats themselves, this study provides initial evidence to support Meier's recent hypotheses in his micro-theory of representative bureaucracy.