This article explores the role of bureaucratic representation and distributional equity in the implementation of environmental policy, which has been shaped by the politics of identity, administrative discretion, and a contested discourse on the redistribution of public resources. The authors examine whether minority bureaucratic representation fosters policy outputs for race-related disadvantaged communities and whether the behavior of public administrators reflects distributional equity. Linking representative bureaucracy to environmental justice, this research contributes to the understanding of social equity in public administration and sheds light on the relationship between bureaucratic representation and democratic values. Analyzing a nationwide, block-group-level data set, the authors find that a more racially representative workforce in the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency promotes the agency's enforcement actions in communities that have large local-national disparities in minority populations and severe policy problems. The size of the bureaucratic representation effect is larger for neighborhoods that are overburdened with race-related social vulnerability.
Although government contracting has been growing fast for many public services, local health departments still maintain most service delivery in house. This study analyzes the outsourcing data from the 2016 National Profile of Local Health Department Study. Through tobit and two-factor model analysis, this study investigates the role of nonprofits in affecting the contracting out decision in local health departments (LHDs). The findings demonstrate different mechanisms in the two-step outsourcing decisions: (1) the make-or-buy decision is influenced by the extent of market competition and (2) the buy-more-or-less decision is impacted by the rate of health care nonprofits as well as the extent of market competition. Meanwhile, LHDs would keep service delivery in house to provide health care safety net for those vulnerable population. These results provide implications for how local health department directors should tailor their contracting out decisions to meeting public health service needs.
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