The Experience of Active Representation in South Korea: How Marriage-Based Immigrant Public Servants Represent Their Clients

• Published date: 01 February 2024
• DOI: http://doi.org/10.1177/02750740231201674
• Author: Junghwa Choi,Scott Robinson
• Date: 01 February 2024

The Experience of Active Representation

in South Korea: How Marriage-Based

Immigrant Public Servants Represent

Their Clients

Junghwa Choi

1

and Scott Robinson

2

Abstract

A long research tradition has argued that representative public servants regularly advocate for the interests of clients like

themselves—whether similarity is based on race, ethnicity, or gender. This article broadens the representative bureaucracy

literature to explore a different basis for advocacy (marriage-based immigrant status) using unique qualitative data. To explore

the experience of representation from the perspective of public servants, we conducted semi-structured interviews with mar-

riage-based immigrant public servants in South Korea in 2017. Our results indicate that whilemarriage-based immigrant public

servants actively attempt to address the needs of the marriage-based immigrant population, advocacy is often a learned behav-

ior rather than the reason public servants sought their positions. It is also observed that their efforts to represent the mar-

riage-based immigrant population are heavily limited by institutional factors of South Korea such as insecure job status and the

lack of a critical mass of marriage-basedimmigrantpublic servants.

Keywords

representative bureaucracy, active representation, immigrant representation, qualitative method

Introduction

The theory of active representation depicts how bureaucratic

representation may benef‌it those who are underrepresented in

society. This theory claims that public servants who share the

same origins with their clients press and advocate for those

clients’interests and demands (Meier, 1975; Mosher, 1968).

Scholars in active representation research argue that active rep-

resentation takes the form of discretionary decisions that benef‌it

represented clients and this ultimately leads to better policy

outputs for those who share their identity. To test these argu-

ments, scholars have examined the association between bureau-

cratic representation and policy output. This body of literature

empirically f‌inds that racial minority and female public servants

produce better policy output for their represented clients (Keiser

et al., 2002; Meier et al., 1976; Meier et al., 1999; Meier &

Nicholson-Crotty, 2006; Sowa & Selden, 2003).

These studies have tremendously contributed to the develop-

ment of active representation theory. However, they have been

also subject to criticism due to the data utilized in their studies.

A majority of active representation research has utilized

organization-level quantitative data, except for a few (e.g.,

Althaus & O’Faircheallaigh, 2022; Headley, 2022). Scholars

have asserted that there could be confounding factors that primar-

ily affect policy outputs and outcomes at the organizational level

(Bradbury & Kellough, 2011; Gade & Wilkins, 2012; Lim, 2006,

Meier & Nicholson-Crotty, 2006; Riccucci et al., 2014; Theobald

& Haider-Markel, 2009). Additionally, even though the literature

argues that active representation is based on individual public ser-

vants’discretionary decisions, organization-level quantitative

data often do not measure these individual behaviors. In this

case, we cannot examine the mechanism of how bureaucratic rep-

resentation may improve the policy output for underrepresented

groups (Eckhard, 2021).

We examine active representation as a mechanism, rather

than an output, using qualitative data collected by semi-

structured interviews. More specif‌ically, we ask how,if

they do, public servants advocate for the interest of clients

like themselves? Furthermore, we explore the obstacles rep-

resentative public servants face when attempting to actively

represent their clients with shared characteristics. Meier and

Morton (2015) argue that active representation (in which

public servants take positive steps to advance or protect

1

University of Nebraska Omaha, Omaha, NE, USA

2

Northern Illinois University, DeKalb, IL, USA

Corresponding Author:

Junghwa Choi, School of Public Administration, University of Nebraska

Omaha, 6001 Dodge Street, CPACS 114A, Omaha, NE 68182, USA.

Email: junghwachoi@unomaha.edu

Article

American Review of Public Administration

2024, Vol. 54(2) 198–211

© The Author(s) 2023

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DOI: 10.1177/02750740231201674

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