Representative bureaucracy and seconded national government officials in the European Commission

Abstract

With the rising sophistication of modern democracies, the policy problems facing public officials have likewise increased in complexity. Simultaneously, the technocratization of political life has made professionals and specialists (or 'experts') more paramount to processes of proposing, implementing and legitimizing public policy. Both tendencies are reflected in an increasing reliance on external experts to assist in the development and implementation of policy decisions. This development, we argue, raises two important questions: who are these external experts? And does it matter who they are? We empirically address these questions exploiting unique survey data on seconded national experts (SNEs) in the European Commission (N≈450). Our results highlight that SNEs do not appear closely representative (in a 'passive' sense) of the EUs' constituent population along a number of socio-demographic dimensions. This is important because the passive unrepresentativeness of experts introduced into the policy-making process has the potential to translate into an (active) under-representation of possibly relevant interests and opinions. However, the data suggests that passive (under)representation have modest effects on active representation.

How pre‐ and postrecruitment factors shape role perceptions of European Commission officials

“…Background characteristics of officials become particularly important when “passive representation” leads to “active representation.” Passive or descriptive representation refers to shared characteristics along (usually sociodemographic) dimensions of interest, whereas active or substantive representation tends to refer to decision‐making processes in the interest, or on behalf, of the represented. Although recent work on representative bureaucracy has often uncovered a link between passive and active representation, both forms of representation need not necessarily occur jointly or be causally connected (Murdoch, Connolly, & Kassim, ; Murdoch, Trondal, & Geys, ). Crucially, however, this theoretical framework presupposes that individual presocialization outside organizations is key to account for the origins of roles inside organizations.…”

Bridging the citizen gap: Bureaucratic representation and knowledge linkage in (international) public administration

“…The core argument is that individuals “represent” by brokering knowledge about societal groups, rather than engaging in clientelistic behavior . The article draws on ideas and evidence from literature on organizational boundary spanning and street‐level bureaucracy (Durose, 2009; Quick & Feldman, 2014) as well as bureaucratic representation in non‐Western states (Fernandez, Koma, & Lee, 2018) and international organizations (Badache, 2019; Christensen et al, 2017; Gravier, 2013; Murdoch, Trondal, & Geys, 2016) to theorize bureaucratic knowledge linkage as the process by which bureaucrats—who possess advanced knowledge about a social environment which is affected by policy—share information and broker relations between their organization and that environment. Building on basic ontological categories, knowledge linkage is conceptualized as consisting of four mechanisms, differentiated according to the nature of knowledge that is being shared (objective informational or subjective relational knowledge) and whether linkage affects the administration or its environment: (a) the gathering of information/intelligence, (b) the dissemination of information, (c) the mitigation of coworker prejudices, and (d) the facilitation of local access.…”

Follow the Leader? Leader Succession and Staff Attitudes in Public Sector Organizations

“…Importantly, research shows that different distance dimensions “similarly affect prediction, preference, and action” (Trope and Liberman , 440). More specifically, a larger distance in spatial, social, and temporal terms entails that subordinates have less contact with their leader (Gumusluoglu, Karakitapoğlu‐Aygün, and Hirst ; Howell, Neufeld, and Avolio ; Murdoch and Trondal ). It might also reduce the quality of their communication (Avolio et al ) and leaders' communication effectiveness (Kelloway et al ; see, however, Neufeld, Wan, and Fang ).…”

“…First, a larger distance between leaders and subordinates has been argued to mitigate the influence that leaders have (Bass ; Moon and Park ). This arises because close leaders have more contact with subordinates (Gumusluoglu, Karakitapoğlu‐Aygün, and Hirst ; Kassim et al ; Murdoch and Trondal ), and proximity allows for higher‐quality communication (Avolio et al ; Kelloway et al ) as well as increased opportunities to convey expectations and provide coaching (Gittell ; Howell, Neufeld, and Avolio ). Leadership succession is therefore expected to have a stronger impact on subordinates within a closer distance to the leader.…”