Suchergebnisse

Studies of representative bureaucracies are staples of public administration research; however, because of a variety of methodological problems, too few have been able to address the basic "so what?" question. Do bureaucracies with different levels of representativeness produce different policy outputs and have different policy impacts? Our research addresses these inquiries using data from the 67 public school districts in Florida. The analysis shows that when we focus on (a) bureaucrats who exercise discretion, (b) a demographic factor with a lasting impact-race, and (c) policy measures that are clearly salient to the chosen demographic factor, we can detect the relationships between bureaucratic representation and public policy outputs and outcomes. We particularly highlight the representativeness of "street-level" bureaucrats (in this case, teachers). Thus, the issue of representation in public bureaucracies possesses more than just symbolic importance.

To determine the relative occurrence of black-Latino & Anglo-Latino coalitions, politics in 118 multiracial US urban school districts are examined, in the context of both the logic of Jesse Jackson's "rainbow coalition," & a rival power thesis based on social distance theory that suggests more intergroup conflict than the rainbow coalition thesis. Data were obtained via a 1986 survey to all districts with 5,000+ students & 5% Latino enrollment in the 1976 academic year. Based on elections to these urban school boards, the notion that Anglos will coalesce with Latinos rather than blacks is supported. The evidence suggests that in future research the power & rainbow coalition theses should be coequal, rival hypotheses. 4 Tables, 1 Figure, 27 References. Adapted from the source document.