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Representative Bureaucracy in Canada

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Global Encyclopedia of Public Administration, Public Policy, and Governance

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Definition

Passive representation:

The level at which public servants statistically reflect the broader population in terms of personal, demographic characteristics.

Merit principle:

A hiring principle for the public service whereby citizens have a reasonable opportunity to be considered for public sector employment, and that the selection process is based on the fitness of the individual to fulfill their role.

Introduction

A current, broad definition of representative bureaucracy is the belief that a bureaucracy that generally reflects the demographics of the public it serves will provide more benefits than a homogenous bureaucracy. However, how a bureaucracy can provide benefits to the public, what kind of benefits it can provide, what the term representation means, and which demographic characteristics should be reflected are all a matter of debate (Kim 1994). Thus, the theory of representative bureaucracy can be interpreted and applied in multiple ways (Kim 1994; Kernaghan 1978)....

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References

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Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Concordia University, Montreal, Quebec, Canada

    Jocelyn McGrandle

Authors
  1. Jocelyn McGrandle
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Correspondence to Jocelyn McGrandle .

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Editors and Affiliations

  1. Florida Atlantic University, Boca Raton, Florida, USA

    Ali Farazmand

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McGrandle, J. (2018). Representative Bureaucracy in Canada. In: Farazmand, A. (eds) Global Encyclopedia of Public Administration, Public Policy, and Governance. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-31816-5_3401-1

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-31816-5_3401-1

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  • Publisher Name: Springer, Cham

  • Print ISBN: 978-3-319-31816-5

  • Online ISBN: 978-3-319-31816-5

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