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

• Published date: 01 January 2023
• Author: Kim Moloney,Pablo Sanabria‐Pulido,Mehmet Akif Demircioglu
• Date: 01 January 2023
• DOI: http://doi.org/10.1111/puar.13512

VIEWPOINT

Interrogating hegemonic embraces: Representative

bureaucracy, methodological Whiteness, and non-West

exclusions

Kim Moloney

1

| Pablo Sanabria-Pulido

2,3

| Mehmet Akif Demircioglu

4

1

College of Public Policy, Hamad Bin Khalifa

University, Doha, Qatar

2

School of Government, Universidad de los

Andes, Bogot

a, Colombia

3

Public Administration Division, Centro de

Investigaci

on y Docencia Econ

omicas, México

City, Mexico

4

Lee Kuan Yew School of Public Policy, National

University of Singapore, Singapore, Singapore

Correspondence

Kim Moloney, College of Public Policy, Hamad

Bin Khalifa University, Doha, Qatar.

Email: kmoloney@hbku.edu.qa

Abstract

The United States’racial history infrequently defines the representativeness of

bureaucracies outside of the United States. This article explores how selective his-

torical memories and insufficiently critical concept importations limit disciplinary

understandings. We articulate how policy transfer assumptions, narrow administra-

tive 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 disci-

pline 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.

INTRODUCTION

This Viewpoint discusses representative bureaucracy and

methodological Whiteness. We suggest that the public

administration discipline holds a largely non-

representative and intellectually hegemonic understand-

ing of what is understood as scholarship, of who is stud-

ied, which (often shallow) histories matter, and via which

language is prioritized. Our thesis is that public adminis-

tration’s West-centered worldview obscures and margin-

alizes non-Western public administration settings (see

also Gulrajani & Moloney, 2012). We articulate our obser-

vation by interrogating the representative bureaucracy

concept. We suggest that insufficiently uncritical

engagements of concept histories and their use may

encourage an assumption that public administration of

the “West”

1

is subjectively “good.”Such biases may cre-

ate hegemonic

2

disciplinary perspectives which act to fur-

ther isolate non-“West”perspectives.

We use the concepts of representative bureaucracy to

articulate our thesis via four observations. The first obser-

vation unpacks problems among “what is said,”its link to

hegemony, which is excluded, and the importance of his-

tory. Our second discusses “what is unsaid,”methodologi-

cal Whiteness, historical absences, and the non-“West.”

The third and fourth observations suggest the implica-

tions of our thesis for representative bureaucracy research

and for pedagogical considerations.

Received: 20 February 2022 Revised: 15 April 2022 Accepted: 26 April 2022

DOI: 10.1111/puar.13512

Public Admin Rev. 2023;83:195–202. wileyonlinelibrary.com/journal/puar © 2022 American Society for Public Administration. 195