Principal investigator: Eduarda Miller Figueiredo
Location of the Intervention: United Kingdom
Sample Size: 462
Sector: Safety
Primary Variable of Interest: Crime
Type of InterventionProportion of ethnic minorities in police positions (different levels)
Methodology: Others
Representative bureaucracy involves two aspects: passive and active representation, where one leads to the other. These concepts are important because of the representativeness of the community within a public organization. In this article, the author sought to fill the gap regarding the impact of representativeness on public service performance, that is, examining whether and how a level of minority representation at various levels affects public service performance. Through British data, the evidence suggests that, although all ethnic minorities at different levels are associated with reduced crime, the representativeness of frontline officers at the street level is very important for crime reduction.
- Policy Problem
According to the concept of representative bureaucracy, passive representation leads to active representation. The former refers to the extent to which the members of a public organization are broadly representative of the communities it serves in demographic terms, while the latter deals with the extent to which the public organization follows policies that are advantageous to minorities (Andrews et al., 2005; Riccuci, Van Ryzin and Lavena, 2014; Hong, 2017).
Literature has also been reflecting on the importance of street-level bureaucrats[1] as representatives of public service organizations, given that these are the people who interact directly with citizens (Lipsky, 2010). Evidence supports the proposition that the benefits of representative bureaucracy are driven by greater representation of the street-level workforce (Meier, 1993).
In a report by British House of CommonsMembers of parliament stated that the number of Black and minority ethnic police officers is increasing, however, this increase is limited to junior positions. The lack of senior Black and minority ethnic representation affects leadership and culture, which could be interpreted as suggesting unconscious bias within the police service.[2].
- Implementation and Evaluation Context
Literature has been advancing in the understanding of representative bureaucracy; however, it still shows little about how minority representation at various organizational levels can have different impacts on bureaucratic outcomes. For example, Gade and Wilkins (2012) demonstrate that citizens are more willing to help defend public values when public organizations are representative.
Based on the arguments presented, this article sought to examine whether the higher level of minority representation among the lower, middle, and upper levels – achieved after the reforms – was associated with better public service performance. In other words, it examined whether and how a level of minority representation at various levels affects public service performance.
- Policy/Program Details
The argument for the benefits of representative bureaucracy is made through two main channels:
- Representative bureaucracy affects the organizational climate and culture by improving the attitudes and behaviors of bureaucrats towards citizens – especially minorities – within organizations. It improves public service performance by correcting pre-existing inequalities and discrimination in the treatment of citizens from different ethnic groups.
- Such a change in the way public administrators treat their citizens can also affect the perceptions and behaviors of minority citizens, making them more willing to co-produce the outcomes of public services.
Representative bureaucracy can improve organizational performance through either of the two independent channels, or they can also reinforce each other.
To carry out the study, the author formulates the following hypotheses:
H1: Active representation is more likely to occur when the proportion of minority bureaucrats is higher.
H2: Active representation is more likely to occur when the average ranking of minority bureaucrats is higher.
H3: Active representation would be more likely to occur when minority bureaucrats are dispersed across different organizational levels.
H4: Active representation is more likely to occur when there is an increase in minority officers at the street level as opposed to middle or upper-level positions.
H5: An increase in minority leadership positions would lead to active representation if ethnic representation were achieved at the street level.
- Method
To address the multidimensional aspects of minority representation in organizational structure, three indices were calculated to explore how one of these dimensions affects organizational performance and to estimate the model:
- Average participation of officers from ethnic minorities in a given organization: It is the proportion of officers from ethnic minorities in a given organization.
- Average ranking of ethnic minority officers in a given organization: It is a measure that answers the question: "What is the classification of a randomly selected ethnic minority officer in a given police force?"
- Hierarchical dispersion of officers from ethnic minorities: It is a measure that assesses the extent to which officers from ethnic minorities are evenly distributed across the ranks of a police force.
In addition to the indices, a set of covariates was included in a simple regression model to control for the observed heterogeneities between the forces. The treatment variables represent the proportion of minority officers in the three different hierarchical segments (senior administrators, middle managers, and street-level officers) per year and within the police force.
- Main results
Evidence suggests that all ethnic minority quotas included were significantly associated with a decrease in crime. Furthermore, the results confirm the importance of frontline officers at the street level and demonstrate a one standard deviation increase in the proportion of ethnic minorities among street-level officers and mid-level managers, which was associated with a 0,028 to 0,05 reduction in the number of criminal incidents. However, no empirical support could be found for an independent effect of representation in leadership positions on police performance.
Thus, the sets of findings are seemingly contradictory, in that organizational performance improved when ethnic minority officers assumed higher-level positions, but also, it was shown that the greatest performance gain is attributed to greater representation among lower-level police officers.
Because of this, the author examined the effects of interactions between ethnic minorities at different levels, using an alternative measure for the proportion of ethnic minorities in leadership positions. That is, the indicator of the presence of ethnic minorities for senior administrators will be 1 when there is at least one ethnic minority official and 0 otherwise.
The results suggest improved performance among forces where at least one of the top police administrators belongs to an ethnic minority group, with a 0,03 standard deviation reduction in crime. This impact may seem small, but according to the author, it still shows that ethnic representation in leadership can contribute to the benefits of the bureaucracy.
- Lessons in Public Policy
The main finding of the article is that representation among officers is a necessary condition for positive association between representatives and improved public service, where the ethnic representativeness of frontline officers at the street level (street-level bureaucrats) is significantly and independently associated with improved performance. However, the same effect was not found for minority representation in leadership positions on improved performance.
Reference
HONG, Sounman. Representative bureaucracy and hierarchy: interactions among leadership, middle-level, and street-level bureaucracy. Public Management Review, v. 23, no. 9, p. 1317-1338, 2021.
[1] Officers on the front line at street level.
[2] See more at: https://publications.parliament.uk/pa/cm201617/cmselect/cmhaff/27/27.pdf
