Representative Bureaucracy and Performance

Governments throughout the world seek to promote employment equity and ensure that bureaucracies are representative of the citizenry. South Africa offers a rare and fascinating case for exploring what happens to bureaucracies as they undergo demographic transformation. Grounded in the theory of representative bureaucracy and using a mixed methods approach, this book explores how major changes in the demographics of the South African public service have affected the performance of the institution. The empirical analysis offers compelling evidence that representative bureaucracies perform better. As public organizations become increasingly representative by hiring historically disadvantaged persons, especially Africans, their performance improves, controlling for a range of factors. Evidence indicates representative bureaucracies perform better because they empathize with and advocate for historically disadvantaged communities, are equipped with linguistic and cultural competenciesto serve a diverse citizenry, and can induce compliance, cooperation, and coproduction.

Sergio Fernandez is Associate Professor at Indiana University O’Neill School of Public and Environmental Affairs, USA. He also serves as Extraordinary Professor at University of Pretoria School of Public Management and Administration, South Africa, and Visiting Professor at University of Johannesburg Centre for Public Management and Governance, South Africa.