Race, Region, and Representative Bureaucracy

• Author: Sean Nicholson‐Crotty,Jill Nicholson‐Crotty,Jason A. Grissom
• Published date: 01 September 2009
• Date: 01 September 2009
• DOI: http://doi.org/10.1111/j.1540-6210.2009.02040.x

Race, Region, and Representative Bureaucracy 911

Jason A. Grissom

Jill Nicholson-Crotty

Sean Nicholson-Crotty

University of Missouri

Race, Region, and Representative Bureaucracy Big Questions

Facing Public

Administration

Theory

Jill Nicholson-Crotty is an assistant

professor of public affairs in the Harry S

Truman School of Public Affairs at the

University of Missouri.

E-mail: nicholsoncrottyj@missouri.edu

Sean Nicholson-Crotty is an assistant

professor in the Department of Political

Science at the University of Missouri.

E-mail: nicholsoncrottys@missouri.edu

Work to date has not …

suf‌f‌i ciently explored the

moderating impact of

geographic region on the

active representation of group

interests.

Scholars of representative bureaucracy have long been

interested in the linkage between passive representation

in public agencies and the pursuit of specif‌i c policies

designed to benef‌i t minority groups. Research in this

area suggests that the structural characteristics of those

organizations, the external political environment, and

the perceptions of individual bureaucrats each help

to facilitate that relationship. Work to date has not,

however, suf‌f‌i ciently investigated the impact of region

on representation behavior, which is surprising given

the emphasis that it receives in the broader literature on

race and politics. Drawing on

that literature, this study argues

that, for black bureaucrats, region

of residence is an important

moderator of active representation

because it helps to determine the

salience of race as an issue and

the degree of identif‌i cation with

racial group interests. It tests

hypotheses related to that general

argument in a nationally representative sample of more

than 3,000 public schools.  e results suggest that black

teachers produce greater benef‌i ts for black students in the

South, relative to other regions. A supplementary analysis

also conf‌i rms the theoretical supposition that race is a

more salient issue for Southern black bureaucrats, when

compared with their non-Southern counterparts.

Scholars have long sought to reconcile bureau-

cratic governance and democratic theory by

exploring the causes and consequences of passive

representation in public agencies.  ey also have dem-

onstrated repeatedly that, under certain conditions,

the presence of minority bureaucrats will produce

positive policy outcomes for members of that group

within the broader population (Keiser et al. 2002;

Meier 1993a; Meier and Nicholson-Crotty 2006).

With the contours of and the connections between

“passive” and “active” representation well established,

much of the recent work in representative bureaucracy

has focused on the conditions that moderate the link

between the race or gender of the bureaucrat and the

active representation of group interests.  is line of

research has shown that the structural characteristics

of the organization, the external political and social

context, and the

perceptions of the individual bureaucrat can all serve

to enhance or impede bureaucratic representation

(Meier and Bohte 2001).

Work to date has not, however, suf‌f‌i ciently explored

the moderating impact of geographic region on the

active representation of group interests. In the case of

black bureaucrats, at least, this

omission is signif‌i cant and sur-

prising because the literatures

on passive bureaucratic and

legislative representation, which

largely provide the foundation

for the study of active bureau-

cratic representation, both

suggest that geographic region is

an important factor. Nonethe-

less, while they have highlighted important dif‌f erences

in the political and social contexts that inf‌l uence

bureaucratic behavior between states, scholars have

not investigated the variation in these factors across

regions or the degree to which that variation may

inf‌l uence decisions made by minority bureaucrats.

 is study focuses on black bureaucrats specif‌i cally

and explores the impact of region of residence on the

active representation of group interests by these actors.

It develops the argument that the region in which

black bureaucrats live and work helps to determine

the salience of race as an issue for and the develop-

ment of racial group identity, and therefore inf‌l uences

the degree to which they actively represent black

interests. Specif‌i cally, it suggests that black bureaucrats

are more likely to produce positive outcomes for black

clients in the South because the salience of race as an

issue is signif‌i cantly higher in that region. It tests these

hypotheses in analyses of bureaucratic behavior in a

nationally representative sample of more than 3,000

public organizations.

Jason A. Grissom is an assistant profes-

sor of public affairs in the Harry S Truman

School of Public Affairs at the University

of Missouri.

E-mail: grissomja@missouri.edu