Bureaucratic Representation, Accountability, and Democracy: A Qualitative Study of Indigenous Bureaucrats in Australia and Canada

• 成果类型: Article
• 署名作者: Althaus, Catherine; O'Faircheallaigh, Ciaran
• 署名单位: Australia & New Zealand School of Government; University of New South Wales Sydney; Australia & New Zealand School of Government; University of Pretoria; University of Victoria; Griffith University
• 刊物名称: PUBLIC ADMINISTRATION REVIEW
• ISSN/ISSBN: 0033-3352
• DOI: 10.1111/puar.13492
• 发表日期: 2022
• 页码: 646-659
• 关键词: active representation; RETHINKING; GOVERNMENT; VALUES; POLICY; black; LAW

摘要

Using a qualitative study of Indigenous public servants in Canada and Australia, this article helps open the black box of bureaucratic representation. Findings dispel any idea that active representation is unproblematic for minority bureaucrats themselves. In fact, it exacts a high price with respect to working in isolation, confronting racism, facing formidable obstacles to pursue, or challenge policy processes and outcomes aligned with the interests of the communities from which they come and ultimately leading many to exit the bureaucracy or forego career opportunities. Despite this, our findings show that Indigenous bureaucrats bring about policy change that would not otherwise occur, and mechanisms of accountability are at work, within government and between bureaucrats and the communities from which they are drawn. Indigenous bureaucratic leadership is valuable in bridging understanding between elected officials and communities and navigating respectfully the intersections of culture and power across the policy making process to the benefit of all citizens, to country and across generations. These findings imply that new inclusive models of representative bureaucracy are both necessary and desirable to make bureaucracy serve multicultural societies and constructively confront environmental crises in the modern era. Evidence for Practice Concepts that equate bureaucratic partiality with favoritism, oversimplify the way in which public servants consider, and manage tensions between minority interests they are assumed to represent and the wider public interest and democratic accountability. Participants in our research are acutely aware of the need to balance two lines of accountability (to government and to their communities), and when the tension between the two cannot be managed, they beat a tactical retreat and wait for a more favorable opportunity, or, if this seems unlikely, they leave the public service. Indigenous public servants promote the democratic project by actively involving otherwise disenfranchised members of society, including the perspectives of time and the land itself, in the policy making process. They make government and its processes understandable and help (re)build trust.