Sergio Fernandez , Representative bureaucracy and performance: Public service transformation in South Africa, London: Palgrave Macmillan. 2020. 288 pp. (including index), $84.99 (cloth). ISBN: 978‐3‐030‐32133‐8

• Published date: 01 May 2023
• Author: Norma M. Riccucci
• Date: 01 May 2023
• DOI: http://doi.org/10.1111/puar.13626

DOI: 10.1111/puar.13626

Representative bureaucracy

and performance: Public

service transformation

in South Africa

Sergio Fernandez, London: Palgrave

Macmillan. 2020. 288 pp. (including

index), $84.99 (cloth). ISBN:

978-3-030-32133-8

Norma M. Riccucci

Board of Governors Distinguished Professor, School of Public Affairs &

Administration, Rutgers University, Newark, NJ, USA

Correspondence

Norma M. Riccucci, Board of Governors Distinguished Professor, School of Public

Affairs & Administration, Rutgers University, Newark, CPS-111 Washington Street,

Newark, NJ 07102, USA.

Email: riccucci@rutgers.edu

In his important new book, Sergio Fernandez empirically

analyzes the extent to which South Africa has achieved a

representative bureaucracy in its post-apartheid era.

There is very little research on representative bureaucracy

in Africa and this book, which relies on mixed methods,

fills a major gap in the literature. It is well-written and

meticulous in its coverage of the issues which are of

central importance to the field of public administration.

In the first chapter, Fernandez succinctly lays out the

overall questions addressed in the book, including: What

were the reasons compelling South Africa to transform its

public service into a representative bureaucracy? How did

the transformation come about, and what was the out-

come in terms of the representation of blacks and women?

And what was the effect of representativeness on bureau-

cratic performance. Fernandez also makes a point that is

often lost in the literature on representative bureaucracy—

“When transformation of unrepresentative bureaucracies

into representative institutions is the goal, affirmative

action is the method typically used to achieve it”(p. 5).

The second chapter provides a comprehensive history

of racial oppression and exploitation in South Africa and

the role of the bureaucracy in maintaining and perpetuat-

ing this institution of white supremacy over Black Afri-

cans, Coloured (mixed race), and Indians. Laws,

regulations, and administrative actions upheld segrega-

tionist policies against non-white citizens of South Africa,

forcing them to live in separate, substandard areas from

whites. Nonwhites were not allowed in urban areas desig-

nated as white-only for more than 72 hours without a

work permit. Fernandez provides data on public sector

employment during apartheid, illustrating that a dispro-

portionate share of jobs was reserved for whites who

were also privileged in terms of rank and pay.

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