Bureaucracy

Representative bureaucracy theory has mainly been used to understand how identities related to race, ethnicity, and gender influence how bureaucrats administer public services. Although representation through lived experience has expanded the scope of the theory, this theoretical thread has mostly focused on the perspectives of management. In addition, the literature has generally analyzed the values, beliefs, and actions of minoritized bureaucrats rather than those of the racial and ethnic majority. The purpose of this dissertation is to employ lived experience and traditional representative bureaucracy theories to understand the influence of first responders’ experiences with addiction on their viewpoints regarding the humanness and deservingness of clients with opioid use disorder; examine how white first responders perceive clients of different races; and analyze the effect of lived experience on sentiments regarding clients of color.
In this dissertation, I surveyed county- and municipal-level EMS-providers and law enforcement workers in the United States, utilizing a survey experiment and mediation models for the analysis. Results show that indirect and direct lived experiences—respectively, having a family member or friend who has experienced an addiction and feeling addiction has had a direct impact on respondents’ lives—predicted increases in client deservingness, mediated by ascribed humanness and driven largely by EMS-providers. However, responding to opioid overdoses and administering naloxone— on-the-job lived experiences—were associated with reduced deservingness and ascribed humanness in both law enforcement and EMS organizations. Regarding the race of the client, white police personnel had more positive views of white clients with opioid use disorder relative to Black and unidentified clients, with effects amplified by on-the-job and indirect experiences but blunted by direct experiences.

This dissertation investigates the potential for discourse between citizens and front-line administrators---those who directly deal with citizens. It focuses on the ability and willingness of public servants to be responsive to citizens with whom they interact. There are two methods of investigation used in this dissertation: theoretical and quantitative. Citizen ability and willingness to participate in this discourse is examined using existing theory. Administrator willingness and ability is examined using theoretical and quantitative methods. The purpose of this dissertation is two-fold. First, it identifies a point of access to administration at which the public is willing and able to participate. In doing so, it attempts to find a point of access and a form of participation that would give able and willing citizens some power in the process. This dissertation examines the concept of citizen "talk back" to administrators at the service delivery stage in public bureaucracies. Second, it examines theoretical assumptions about administrator willingness and ability to act on citizen feedback. According to critiques of technical rational organizations, administrators might be neither willing nor able to process and act upon citizen feedback. First, the dissertation explores the questions of why citizens participate, which citizens participate, how citizens participate, and different manifestations of citizen participation in the field of public administration. Meaningful participation empowers citizens at the same time that it provides information about citizen preferences. Willingness and ability of citizens to participate in the policy and administrative process is essential for meaningful citizen participation. To examine these assumptions, the dissertation presents the results of an analysis of brief interviews with ten citizens. Second, the dissertation explores theoretical arguments about organizational rationality and the effect of the "bureaucratic experience," resulting from administrator-bureaucracy interaction, on administrator willingness to be responsive to citizens. A structural equation model is used to test these theoretical arguments. Data from 147 administrators are collected using a survey instrument of 38 questions. The research results show that the structure of technical rational organizations constrains the ability of administrators to be responsive to citizens. The research also examines the effect of structural enablers, or ability of administrators to respond to citizen talk back, on personal enablers, or the willingness of administrators to respond to citizen talk back.

Representative bureaucracy is one way to reconcile the need for administrative efficiency with the normative requirements of democracy. In theory, a representative bureaucracy is an organizational structure that permits decision-makers to act more quickly and more flexibly than an elected body. A representative bureaucracy is comprised of an employee composition that is more representation of the general public, at least in demographic terms, than legislative bodies. This research tests a number of hypotheses concerning the impact of individual attributes of delinquency case managers and of the organizational context in which they work on their intake recommendations to the office of the state attorney.

This dissertation examines administrative roles within the context of everyday public administration. Specifically, it studies the relationship between administrative roles assumed by public administrators and (1) the perceived presence of administrative discretion, (2) individual level beliefs regarding involvement in policy formulation and (3) tenure with organization. This dissertation has a three-fold purpose. First, it delineates the types of roles assumed by public procurement specialists. Second, it tests whether administrative discretion, beliefs regarding participation in policy formulation and organizational tenure are significant in explaining the assumption of certain types of roles. Finally, the dissertation evaluates the implications for the public procurement process of the predominance of certain roles. vi The theoretical logic for this dissertation draws on the theory of representative bureaucracy and role theory. ... It is found that administrative discretion, individual expectations and organizational tenure are indeed important predictors of the assumption of administrative roles. Administrators who believe that they have access to relatively high levels of discretion and those who believe they should be involved in policy formulation are more likely to assume a representative type role. On the other hand, with increased tenure public administrators are less likely to assume a representative type role.