REPRESENTATIVE BUREAUCRACY, IMMIGRANTS, AND TRUST IN GOVERNMENT: A CROSS-NATIONAL STUDY

Abstract

Building a civil service that reflects the diversity of the population it serves can increase bureaucratic legitimacy and the fairness of public service provision. In this study, I draw on symbolic representation theory and argue that the impact of representative bureaucracy on trust in government can vary by citizen immigration status. Combining microlevel demographic and opinion data from respondents in 43 countries and country-level estimates of the representativeness of government personnel, I implement a series of multi-level models to test the theory. The analysis suggests that the representativeness of government bureaucracy does not affect trust in the average case but is a significant factor for first generation immigrants. This study provides new evidence for the trust-enhancing effect of representative bureaucracy among minority stakeholders. I discuss how a cross-national approach can further enrich the theoretical landscape of the representative bureaucracy construct.