International public administration on the tip of the tongue: language as a feature of representative bureaucracy in the Economic Community of West African States
| Author | Zuzana Murdoch,Magali Gravier,Stefan Gänzle |
| DOI | http://doi.org/10.1177/0020852320986230 |
| Published date | 01 December 2022 |
| Date | 01 December 2022 |
| Subject Matter | Articles |
Article
International public
administration on the
tip of the tongue:
language as a feature
of representative
bureaucracy in the
Economic Community
of West African States
Zuzana Murdoch
University of Bergen, Norway
Magali Gravier
Copenhagen Business School, Denmark
Stefan G€
anzle
University of Agder, Norway
Abstract
Recent scholarship shows increasing interest in gender, ethnic or national representa-
tion within regional and international organizations. In contrast, language as a criterion
of representation has rarely been scrutinized. We argue that this constitutes an impor-
tant oversight for two reasons: (1) language is an important identity m arker; and
(2) language regimes in international public administrations can uniquely address
representativeness relative to both member states and groups of citizens. Our article
explores language representation in the Economic Community of West African States,
and pursues a twofold objective: first, it extends the applicability of representative
bureaucracy theory to the issue of language; and, second, it broadens the scope of
representative bureaucracy studies by providing the first study on a prominent
Corresponding author:
Zuzana Murdoch, University of Bergen, 5007 Bergen, Norway.
Email: zuzana.murdoch@uib.no
International Review of Administrative
Sciences
!The Author(s) 2021
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DOI: 10.1177/0020852320986230
journals.sagepub.com/home/ras
2022, Vol. 88(4) 1086–1104
International
Review of
Administrative
Sciences
West African regional organization. As such, we develop avenues for future research on
other regional and international organizations.
Points for practitioners
The article is of particular relevance for managers in multilingual international and
regional organizations. Organizations tend to overlook the role and impact of languages
on their functioning, often considering them as a technicality. Taking the example of the
Economic Community of West African States, the article argues that linguistic regimes
are important for the performance and the legitimacy of the organization in terms of
acceptance by both citizens and its member states.
Keywords
Economic Community of West African States, language, regional organizations,
representative bureaucracy
Introduction
In any regional organization (RO) or international organization (IO), staffing
issues are of paramount importance to the member states and the organization.
RO/IO member states generally expect that their nationals fill a certain amount of
posts within both the overall administration and the segment of strategic staff
positions (Murdoch et al., 2020). The aim is to achieve a degree of geographical
equilibrium based on predefined criteria reflecting, for instance, financial contri-
butions or a fair representation of smaller states (Badache, 2020; Parizek, 2017).
Smaller states are thereby often over-represented, which reflects the negotiated
fairness principle as a fundamental norm of any given RO/IO.
1
Under Weberian models of public administration, geographical balance cannot
affect decision-making. In practice, however, staff composition impacts belief and
value patterns, which, in turn, can affect decision-making. This is the core idea
behind the theory of representative bureaucracy, which posits that bureaucracies’
socio-demographic composition (in)directly influences their outputs (Bishu and
Kennedy, 2020; Riccucci and Van Ryzin, 2017). Currently, four types of bureau-
cratic representation are distinguished in the literature: passive and active (Mosher,
1982), symbolic (Theobald and Haider-Merkel, 2008), and linkage/instrumental
representation (Gravier, 2013; Meier, 2019).
2
This article focuses on passive rep-
resentation in the Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS)
bureaucracy, which Mosher (1982: 15) theorized as ‘the origin of individuals and
the degree to which, collectively, they mirror the whole society’.
Recent scholarship has started to apply the theory of representative bureaucra-
cy to international public administrations (e.g. Badache, 2020; Christensen, 2020;
Gravier, 2008, 2013). This emerging literature studies a limited set of organizations
(mostly the European Union (EU) and United Nations (UN)), specific aspects of
1087
Murdoch et al.
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