Representative Bureaucracy — What, Why and How?
| DOI | 10.1177/0952076708100872 |
| Date | 01 April 2009 |
| Author | Anne Stevens |
| Published date | 01 April 2009 |
| Subject Matter | Articles |
Representative Bureaucracy –
What, Why and How?
Evidence from the European Commission
Anne Stevens
Aston University, UK
Abstract Issues of representation have become increasingly salient in European
countries with attempts to find mechanisms to increase the representation of
women, including various types of quota and parity legislation. This article
examines the extension of the idea to bureaucracies. It looks at two arguments
about this extension: should bureaucracies be regarded as places where
representation can and should occur, and, even if representation in
bureaucracies is regarded as possible, is it desirable. Having concluded that it
is both possible and desirable, the article then examines the outworking of the
notion of representation within one bureaucracy, the European Commission,
on the basis of the considerations applied by feminists to elected
representation. The example of the EC illuminates aspects of representative
bureaucracy, and supports a normative argument for representation on the
basis of symbolic, justice and deliberative arguments even if the agency
argument must be nuanced by the need to avoid partiality.
Keywords bureaucracy, discrimination, European commission, representation, women
Issues of representation have become increasingly salient in European countries
with increasing attempts to find mechanisms to increase the representation of
women in legislative assemblies including various types of quota and parity legis-
lation, for example in Spain and France. This article examines the nature of the
extension of the idea to bureaucracies as well as to legislative assemblies, as first
proposed in the UK in the 1940s, linked then to a concern about the social origins
of the senior civil service (Kingsley, 1944). It looks first at two arguments about
this extension: should bureaucracies be regarded as places where representation
DOI: 10.1177/0952076708100872
Anne Stevens, Emeritus Professor of European Studies, School of Languages &
Social Sciences (LSS), Aston University, Aston Triangle, Birmingham B4 7ET, UK.
[email: a.f.stevens@aston.ac.uk] 119
© The Author(s), 2009.
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0952-0767
200904 24(2) 119–139
can and should occur, and even if representation in bureaucracies is possible, is it
desirable? Having concluded that it is both possible and desirable, the article goes
on to examine the outworking of the notion of representation within one particular
bureaucracy, the European Commission (EC), on the basis of the considerations
that have been extensively applied by feminists to elected representation, but
which are much less prominent in the literature on bureaucracy. The EC is of inter-
est because three different but cross-cutting types of representation can be dis-
cerned, to a lesser or greater degree, within it: representation of political ideologies
at the level of the College of Commissioners, representation within the College
and the administration of the national identities and interests of the member states
and of group identities and interests, especially gender identity.
1. The Nature of Representation
Modern liberal democracy requires systems of representation as a concomitant of
the participation and implication of all adult citizens in society’s decision-making.
For some theorists of democracy the key point remains, as it was in the Athenian
prototype, the process of deliberation. Indeed direct forms of participation have
from time to time been advocated, especially by women, as a solution for groups
that find representative liberal democracy and its institutions, as they have
evolved, to be restrictive, stifling, patriarchal and failing to deliver what dis-
advantaged or minority groups want and need. For others the context of modern
democracy is essentially a competitive one, and that competition takes place at the
level of the electoral choice of representatives (Held, 1996, p. 179; Mansbridge
1998, p. 144). Complex questions follow about what representation means. What
do representatives actually represent, and how should they do so? Hannah Pitkin
(1972) provides one of the classic definitions, suggesting, as Dovi puts it, that
‘political representation is the activity of making citizens’ voices, opinions, and
perspectives “present” in the public policy making processes. Political representa-
tion occurs when political actors speak, advocate, symbolize, and act on the behalf
of others in the political arena’ (Dovi, 2006, p. 1). Pitkin points out that an early,
but still influential approach identifies as a representative someone who has been
authorized to act on behalf of the represented. Hence representation occurs when
some, but only some, of the members of any group are authorized to undertake
actions on behalf of all, actions that are regarded as legitimate and binding. She
goes on to say ‘conceived in this way, all government officials, all organs of the
state, anyone who performs a function for the group may seem to be its represen-
tative . . . Judges represent the state in this way. So do ambassadors’ (Pitkin, 1972,
p. 41).
Pitkin worries that this notion does not coincide with our normal ‘common
sense’ view of representation as occurring only in elected assemblies. So the ques-
tion arises where can it occur? If a competitive model of democracy is accepted,
then the forum for representative action will be the elected assembly where con-
Public Policy and Administration 24(2)
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