Understanding Whether Representative Bureaucracy and Racial Resentment Impact Public Perceptions of the Distributive Justice of Government Programs

• Published date: 01 August 2024
• DOI: http://doi.org/10.1177/02750740241229994
• Author: Ellen V. Rubin,Keith P. Baker,Stephen Weinberg
• Date: 01 August 2024

Understanding Whether Representative

Bureaucracy and Racial Resentment

Impact Public Perceptions of the

Distributive Justice of

Government Programs

Ellen V. Rubin

1

, Keith P. Baker

2

and Stephen Weinberg

3

Abstract

Within the representative bureaucracy literature, scholars argue that public perceptions of government will improve when

their government looks like them. In particular, this study focuses on how the public perceives the fairness of policy outcomes,

measured as distributive justice. We test this through a survey experiment that examines how perceptionsof distributive justice are

affected by the racial diversity of government employees. Respondents are presented with a vignette about grants allocated to small

businesses, and then provided information about the racial diversity of agency employees. We further examine whether levels of

racial resentment impact the relationship between diversity in government and the perceived distributive justice of policy out-

comes. Racial resentment, frequently used in political science as a proxy for levels of prejudice, is included because reactions to

information about race and government policy are likely to shape perceptions about the legitimacy of government action and

views on representative bureaucracy. The experiment results indicate racial representation in government matters for Whites,

and these effects vary by expressed levels of racial resentment. In contrast, distributive justice perceptions of non-White respon-

dents are not changed by information on racial diversity within government agencies and do not vary by levels of racial resentment.

Keywords

Representative bureaucracy, racial resentment, distributive justice, social desirability bias

Introduction

In 1968, Mosher asked how we can ensure bureaucrats are

responsive to the public. Representative bureaucracy scholars

argue that bureaucrats who have characteristics that are con-

sistent with the public will have values that are consistent

with the values of the public, that these values will influence

bureaucratic behavior, and that they will thus influence policy

outcomes (Meier, 1993; Riccucci & Van Ryzin, 2017). Early

work on passive representation focused on the demographic

make-up of the bureaucracy. Scholars argue passive represen-

tation signals to the public that the agency considers a broad set

of views by virtue of a group’s representation (Mosher, 1968;

Kingsley, 1944; Krislov, 1974). Advocates of passive repre-

sentation did—and still do—argue that the public will view

government decisions positively when government looks like

them. We empirically evaluate this claim. We focus specifi-

cally on public attitudes and in doing so we directly contribute

to the citizen-centric turn in public administration.

To explore the relationship between passive representation

and the public’s perception of government, the study employs

an online vignette experiment to ask members of the public

whether they think a fictional state grant program for small

businesses exhibits distributive justice. The goal of the

study is to test the contention that the public will view the deci-

sions of government more positively when they see a govern-

ment that looks like them. We compare the attitudes of

non-Hispanic Whites and non-Whites. For the purposes of

this study, we treat all respondents who did not identify exclu-

sively as non-Hispanic White as non-Whites. This includes

Blacks, Hispanics, Asians, Native Americans, and Hawaiian

and Alaskan natives.

The study further considers whether prejudice alters the

relationship between government agency diversity and

1

Department of Public Administration and Policy, Universityat Albany, State

University of New York, Albany, NY, USA

2

Department of Public Administration, SUNY Brockport, State University of

New York, Rochester, NY, USA

3

Center for Policy Research, University at Albany, State University of

New York,Albany, NY, USA

Corresponding Author:

Ellen V.Rubin, Department of Public Administration and Policy, University at

Albany, State University of New York,135 Western Ave, Milne Hall 101,

Albany, NY 12222, USA.

Email: erubin@albany.edu

Article

American Review of Public Administration

2024, Vol. 54(6) 518–539

© The Author(s) 2024

Article reuse guidelines:

sagepub.com/journals-permissions

DOI: 10.1177/02750740241229994

journals.sagepub.com/home/arp

perceptions of policy outcomes. To date, prejudice has not

been included in studies of representative bureaucracy.

Prejudice is operationalized in this analysis as racial resent-

ment, which is used frequently in political science. Racial

resentment holds that White racial prejudice manifests itself

as a belief that minorities are receiving undeserved or

unearned gains (Sears & Henry, 2003). The resulting resent-

ment is also closely associated with generalized hostility

toward minorities broadly (Abramowitz & McCoy, 2019,

Davis & Wilson, 2022). This is likely to be a critical moder-

ating variable when the fairness of policy outcomes are eval-

uated. In light of protests following the deaths of Breonna

Taylor, George Floyd, and too many others, the

#BlackLivesMatter movement, debates over the composition

of US Supreme Court, and the recent overturning of affirma-

tive action in college admissions, it is important that public

administration scholars give proper attention to how preju-

dice tinges public perceptions of government.

The study presented here differs from recent representa-

tive bureaucracy research in other important ways. First,

the study asks how the public perceives government policy

outputs. This is a different approach from others who ask

someone to evaluate a policy where she has personal experi-

ence interacting with the bureaucracy—either seeking or

receiving services (see Theobald & Hader-Markel, 2008;

Gade & Wilkins, 2013). It is also a different approach from

those seeking to understand how passive representation

across an organization impacts organization-level policy out-

comes (Favero & Molina, 2018; Roch & Edwards, 2017).

Second, this study evaluates responses to racial representa-

tion in government agencies, whereas other experimental

studies on representative bureaucracy have largely focused

on gender representation (Riccucci et al., 2014, Riccucci

et al., 2016). Our findings suggest that, on its own, informa-

tion about racial representation in government agencies

causes minimal changes in distributive justice perceptions

on average. However, there is important heterogeneity; reac-

tions to levels of representation do depend on the respon-

dent’s race and level of racial resentment.

Representative Bureaucracy

Representation has been consistently described as important

for enhancing public perceptions of government. Krislov

(1974, p. 4) identified representation as a key mechanism

for building public support for government action, calling it

the “oldest method of raising public support.”There are dif-

ferent approaches to understanding how representation can

be secured with government. One approach—typified by

Pitkin’s (1967) ideas of formal representation—is to focus

on formal institutions and how regulation and rules ensure

different groups can be represented in the process.

Following from this, other scholars have considered how

government negotiates with a range of represented actors

within formal consultative processes to reach consensus

(see Weber,1998 for an in-depth discussionof such negotiated

rule making processes). In these accountings, r epresentation is

secured by institutional design and collaborative governance

but this approach is largely silent on how citizens react to rep-

resentation and how bureaucrats themselves understand how

they are to represent the public. Representative bureaucracy

offers an alternative perspective.Mosher (1968) discussed rep-

resentation as one potential way to enhance bureaucratic legit-

imacy: legitimacy of bureaucratic action is increased when

undertaken by a more diverse set of bureaucrats.

Representative bureaucracy scholarship considers three

different forms of representation: passive, active, and sym-

bolic. We focus on passive representation in this study and

seek to extend research on representation by empirically

examining whether information on government agency

diversity impacts the degree to which program outcomes

are viewed as exhibiting distributive justice, and whether

these justice perceptions are impacted by levels of racial

resentment.

The concept of passive representation can be understood

as a descriptive measure of the degree to which the bureauc-

racy looks like its community; there is no assumption of

action under the concept of passive representation (Mosher,

1968). Passive representation was originally introduced as a

tool for increasing the likelihood that the bureaucracy

would pursue policies responsive to the needs of the

public, rather than exclusively focused on the desires of the

ruling elites (Kingsley, 1944; Mosher, 1968). This demo-

graphic representation also could increase public support

for bureaucratic actions when the public saw bureaucratic

decision makers coming from broad segments of society

(Krislov, 1974). Indeed, Long (1952) argued that the execu-

tive branch was far more likely to represent the diversity of

the general public, compared to elected officials, and that

this was desirable for democracy. Headley et al. (2021)

acknowledge that demographic representation matters to

public perceptions but suggest that the actions of public offi-

cials matter more.

Active representation focuses on the policy outcomes

resulting from the actions of diverse bureaucrats. A

complex series of circumstances must be in place for

passive representation to transform into active representation.

First, the policy should be salient to under-represented

bureaucrats (Keiser et al., 2002). Second, the bureaucrat

should have discretion and believe that discretion can be

exercised (Sowa & Selden, 2003; Keiser et al., 2002).

Third, a critical mass of bureaucrats should identify as part

of the under-represented group (Hindera & Young, 1998),

and the bureaucrat should view her role as serving her

group (Selden et al., 1998).

Symbolic representation considers whether and how the

mere presence of a diverse bureaucracy may influence the

perceptions and behaviors of community members, without

any deliberate action from the bureaucrat (Theobald &

Hader-Markel, 2008). Scholars have suggested a variety of

Rubin et al.519