Representative bureaucracy (Research Paper Sample)

REPRESENTATIVE BUREAUCRACY
Name
Course
3rd November, 2011
Introduction
Representative bureaucracy is a concept widely talked and argued about in the society especially in the public sector. Over the years theorists together with practitioners in the field tried to come up with ways of revolutionizing the public sector. The idea of representative bureaucracy is not a new concept at as it existed as early as 1940. The term representative bureaucracy got coined n 1940 by a theorist of British descent called Donald Kingsley. He came up with this term in to achieve his vision of a public sector characterized with equity in terms of populations in the society.
This review’s objectives are;
Describing in detail representative bureaucracy concept.
Discussing issues that concern representative bureaucracy in society that contains diverse ethnicities.
Making an analysis of bureaucracies from the point of view of representativeness.
The assessment of legal aspects aimed at solving the problems brought about by the bureaucracies.
Problem Statement
A great challenge in many organizations is the task of serving the shifting target population. Issues of representation have become increasingly salient over the years. It has been a bone of contention as to whether increasing the ethical representation in organization will bring about superior competitiveness within the market or efficacy in administration. Important to note is that the practice of representative bureaucracy has not always existed in many organizations. A hodgepodge of factors has led to its establishment. Key among these factors is the rise in diversity within the workforce (Pitts 2005).
Literature Review
There exist many arguments for and against representative bureaucracy. Foremost is the fact that representative bureaucracy ensures a civil service comprised of all classes in the society ensures that diverse values and welfare remain in perspective. The represented classes therefore, have a say in the decisions made and formulated policies. Representative bureaucracy represents the whole population of a given society in terms of their jobs and social class to mention but a few. Representative bureaucracy ought to go together with the beliefs and attitudes of a society. If bureaucrats get elected into a powerful position or any other positions they would carry their attitudes, prejudices and beliefs to their work (Subramaniam 1967). These would be to the benefit of a section represented by such a person. On the other hand, if people of diverse origins are put into power, even if they have prejudices, all sections would be adequately represented.
However, this theory does not lack critics. For instance, there is no guarantee that members of the working class would maintain their social ties when they move to positions of greater power and responsibility. During the industrial revolution of the 19th century, members of the society who got elevated to positions of greater power and responsibility lost their ties with class either at the beginning of the promotion or half way.
Furthermore, there is no guarantee that this division of responsibility would bear a positive out come as intended. Representative bureaucracy may result into a bureaucracy full of division and ineffectiveness. For instance if the different classes of people elected to represent the whole society have interests that do not merge, there would be problems in the system. If the entire body of representatives go after fulfilling the interests of their sections, then that system would not be effective.
The emergence of performance testing together with representative bureaucracy could result into representative bureaucracy. However, this idea can be subjected into an argument. Political aspects cannot be put side by side with administrative aspects in the society. Political leaders get to office through majority votes. On the other hand, the administrative arm is supposed to cater for the common will.
Although representative bureaucracy cannot be fully adopted in the society, it can be of use especially in the civil service. The movement towards representativeness is more achievable in society with the majority of population belonging to the middle class. Other aspects that need consideration in representativeness include education level, age, and level of intelligence.
In countries like Nigeria, representative bureaucracy is practiced in its public service. The country has a nationalist agenda. It includes the adoption of a system called ‘quota system’ in the course of recruiting staff of the federal civil service. In all the states of Nigeria, federal staff must be recruited following the system of representative bureaucracy (Dauda 1990). However, this system has not served its purpose in Nigeria because instead of, promoting representativeness, it promoted nepotism, favoritism and other misdeeds of segregation. There exist unfilled job vacancies blamed on fiscal constraints that can be attributed to failure to realize the federal objective.
Blame can also be put on the countries constitutional requirement of a university degree for one to be employed. Unequal enactment of this requirement makes matters worse, defeating the purpose of representativeness. This is true since members of some states have a better access to education, and thus better education compared to members of other states who cannot access quality education. This however is not to say that the system failed totally. This is as such since the system helped the ethnically marginalized societies of Nigeria be noticed and represented in the public sector.
In the Caribbean, the two systems of recruitment (ascription and performance testing) have immensely influenced the public sector. Colonialism in this country brought with it a modified ascription system. However, the country takes into account the system of performance testing. The tests administered in the Caribbean for job recruitments center on general ability, as opposed to administrative capabilities.
Guyana and Trinidad and Tobago are Caribbean countries that can be considered ass plural societies. Plural society refers to those societies in which each and every cultural section owns an elite way of living together with separate systems of ideas, values, beliefs and relationships. There exists a difference between pluralism and the stratification of class in the sense that both offer different point of view of the divisions of the society. Pluralism is a system that views a society as comprising institutions that are different in nature but coexist in the same environment. There institutions, co-existing with each other, consist of both basic and secondary sets of institutions. In this case, basic institutions include those that relate to education, property, recreation, religion and kinship to mention but a few.
Secondary institution relate to occupations, ethnic structures and political structures to mention but a few. It is unclear whether these states should be considered as ethnically or racially diverse. Grouping of races centers on the sharing of some traits of biological descent and diverse capabilities like intelligence, morale of a person and he person’s level of intelligence. On the contrary, ethnicity does not include racial traits relationships although the term is sometimes used for race. People of a certain ethnic groups get distinguished from those of another through cultural characteristics, as opposed to biological differences.
Groups, in terms of ethnicity, can be distinguished from each other through their norms, customs, traditions and values among other things. The two states consist of twin prime racial groups which are the Africans together with the east Indians. The population of these two races is almost the same, but that of east Indians is slightly higher. Minority groups in these two states include the Chinese, Lebanese, whites, Syrians and other mixed groups of people. However, owing to the disclosure of these people to diverse cultures, ethnic distinction is not strong.
Before the 1950s, the unrepresentative system characterized most of the Caribbean countries. In Guyana during the colonial period, the most prestigious jobs in the public sector were dominated by the white population. Other ethnic groups in the states occupied the positions that the white population considered unworthy. This can be attributed to the different levels of education that characterized these groups. Another school of thought argues that this proposition is subject to discussion. This is in the sense that some of the non-white populations got allowed quality education. Despite the provision, of quality education this ethnic group could not join the prestigious job arena. Even if they did they encountered several problems.
After the Second World War, nationalists in this state began voicing their distaste concerning this discrimination (Lutchman 1972). During this fight for equality, the different ethnic groups in the Caribbean came together to fight the regime. However, with the collapse of the regime this unity did not last as discrimination against ethnic groups did not stop. In the 1970s administrative and professional sectors underwent a program aimed at tuning them to ideological, operational and political orders of doing things. This example of Guyana brings into perspective the issue of modified representative bureaucracy (Lutchman 1972). This is true when one considers politicization of civil service more so in the top positions of power. This gives birth to the danger of using elective representativeness in administrative institutions. Indeed administrative institutions should recruit people on the basis of their competence. Therefore, political manipulation cannot ...