Women and Public Administration in a Comparative Perspective
| Date | 01 January 2017 |
| Author | Kendall D. Funk,Kenneth J. Meier |
| Published date | 01 January 2017 |
| DOI | 10.1177/0095399715626201 |
| Subject Matter | Articles |
research-article2016
Article
Administration & Society
2017, Vol. 49(1) 121 –142
Women and Public
© The Author(s) 2016
DOI: 10.1177/0095399715626201
Administration
journals.sagepub.com/home/aas
in a Comparative
Perspective: The Case
of Representation
in Brazilian Local
Governments
Kenneth J. Meier1 and Kendall D. Funk1
Abstract
This article explores two questions related to whether passive
representation leads to active representation using Brazilian municipal
data: Does electing women to public office increase the proportion of
women in public administration? Does the representation of women in
elected office and public administration lead to better representation of
women’s interests? Results suggest that women elected leaders increase
the probability that women will be appointed to head public agencies, and
through these agency heads they indirectly affect representation in other
administrative positions. In addition, women elected officials and public
administrators are also associated with the adoption of more women-
friendly policies.
Keywords
gender, local government, representation, Latin America, women
1Texas A&M University, College Station, USA
Corresponding Author:
Kenneth J. Meier, Department of Political Science, Texas A&M University, 2010 Bush
Academic West, 4348 TAMU, College Station, TX 77843, USA.
Email: kmeier@polisci.tamu.edu
122
Administration & Society 49(1)
One perennial question for the study of women in public administration is
that of active representation: Do bureaucracies that have more women
employees generate policies or processes that differ from those produced by
less representative bureaucracies? Although the representation of women in
government bureaucracies varies a great deal (see Peters, von Maravic, &
Schroeder, 2013) and merits study in its own right, the process of active rep-
resentation is seen as contributing to a more democratic polity. The relatively
robust literature on active representation of women in U.S. bureaucracies
stands in stark contrast to the lack of studies in other countries (but see
Andrews, Ashworth, & Meier, 2014; Park, 2013). This absence is surprising
because there is an extensive comparative literature on active representation
by women in legislative bodies (e.g., Escobar-Lemmon & Taylor-Robinson,
2014; Heath, Schwindt-Bayer, & Taylor-Robinson, 2005; Matland, 1998;
Tripp & Kang, 2008).
This article has two objectives. First, using the concept of gender identity,
it builds on the representative bureaucracy literature and offers hypotheses
about the conditions that are likely to foster the active representation of
women. The argument follows the logic of top-down representation and sug-
gests that increasing the presence of women in elected offices will increase
the presence of women in top-level public management positions, which will
then increase the overall number of women in public administration. As a
result, this cascade of numerical representation (in both elected and adminis-
trative positions) will lead to the active representation of women’s interests.
This task is complicated by the fluid nature of gender, gender identity, and
intersecting identities, which vary across time and space. The process of
identity salience is both highly political, as government institutions and
policy generate outcomes that have disparate impacts on women and men,
and highly social with influences from religion, economics, and historical
patterns.
Second, we examine these theoretical expectations using an extensive
database of more than 5,000 Brazilian local governments. This application of
representative bureaucracy theory contributes to the literature by exploring
gender representation in the context of a developing country that has a
“friendly government, cruel society” (Gómez, 2010) orientation toward
issues of gender and sexuality. Despite the presence of a legislated gender
quota and the election of a woman president, Brazil has some of the lowest
levels of women’s representation in the world. In 2014, women comprised
only 10% of the lower chamber of the legislature and 14% of the senate,1 and
only one woman—Suely Campos—was elected governor (out of 27 states) in
the 2014 elections. At the local level, approximately 10% of mayors are
women. The representation of women and women’s interests is a crucial
Meier and Funk
123
concern in Brazil given the vast economic and social inequalities that exist
between men and women and the prevailing occurrence of violence against
women throughout the country (Waiselfisz, 2012). Furthermore, exploring
gender representation at the local level is imperative because municipalities
are responsible for administering important social services and providing
resources for women in need.
Venues for the Active Representation of Women
The literature on representative bureaucracy distinguishes between passive
and active representation. A bureaucracy is representative in the passive
sense if the bureaucracy has the same characteristics as the population on
variables of interest (e.g., race, ethnicity, social class, gender, etc.; see
Mosher, 1982). In fact, passive representation is sometimes called symbolic
representation because it defines representation as “standing for” (Pitkin,
1967). Although much literature is focused on passive representation and its
determinants, the concern of this article is when, and under what conditions,
passive representation generates active representation.
Active representation is defined as Person A (the representative) actively
seeking to pursue actions that are in the interests of Person B (the repre-
sented). In short, if A acts as B would act if B were in the same position with
the same information that A possess, then A represents B. This logic indicates
that passive representation is a characteristic, but active representation is a
process. If A is an active representative of B, it does not guarantee that B’s
interests will be served; only that A will attempt to do so. A could fail in the
effort to attain the outcomes of representation but still partake in the process
of active representation.
Existing studies of passive and active representation have not actually
documented that active representation exists (that is they have not detailed
the process), but rather only that passive representation is correlated with
some outputs or outcomes that benefit the group to be represented. Such a
linkage has been taken as evidence that representation exists (see Lim, 2006).
The basic logic of how passive representation might generate active repre-
sentation is relatively straightforward. The literature assumes that all bureau-
crats exercise discretion and that in the exercise of discretion the values of the
bureaucrat will come into play. These values include the bureaucrats’ various
identities; the most important for the purposes of this study is gender identity.
Gender identity refers to “one’s sense of oneself as male, female, or transgen-
der” (American Psychological Association, 2006) and may be correlated with
one’s biological sex, but does not have to be.
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Administration & Society 49(1)
When the sphere of discretion exercised by the bureaucrat overlaps with
the bureaucrat’s gender identity, that is, when the values and preferences the
bureaucrat holds as a result of his or her gender identity correspond to some
discretionary action where gender identity is relevant, active representation is
possible. In more specific terms, Keiser, Wilkins, Meier, & Holland (2002,
p. 556) contend that women in the bureaucracy are likely to represent women
when a policy issue is gendered, which occurs if (a) the policy benefits
women as a class, (b) the policy issue has been defined as a women’s issue by
the political process, or (c) if the gender of the bureaucrat changes the rela-
tionship between the bureaucrat and the client.
The threefold definition of Keiser et al. (2002) clearly allows for what is a
gendered issue to vary across countries and different time periods within a
country. A country such as Sweden with elaborate family leave policies de-
genders some employment issues in contrast to countries such as Ecuador or
Germany, which provide limited governmental protections for family leave,
or countries that have no legally mandated protections such as the United
States or Papua New Guinea (Addati, Cassirer & Gilchrist, 2014). On the
second criteria for a gendered issue, the vast variation in political processes
across the world will place some gender-related issues on the political agenda
and exclude others. In short, the variation in national politics will put differ-
ent gender-related issues on the agenda in different countries. Finally, whether
or not the gender of the bureaucrat changes the relationship between the
bureaucrat and the client will depend on the degree of gender consciousness
of both the bureaucrat and the client, and gender consciousness clearly varies
across time, countries, and individuals (Block, 1973; Pfau-Effinger, 1998).
All individuals—and public administrators are no exception—have mul-
tiple identities and the intersection of these various identities greatly compli-
cates the translation of passive representation into active representation. A
woman public administrator has a variety of identities that compete with her
gender identity and knowing when an administrator views an issue as...
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