Beyond DEI
The Democratic Value of Diversity in Public Service
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.18192/politika.7779Keywords:
representative bureaucracy, public service diversity, DEI, passive representation, symbolic representationAbstract
Recent political backlash against diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) policies has renewed debate over the value of diversity in the public service. This paper argues that diversity in the public service is valuable for democratic governance because it enhances organizational legitimacy and improves policy outcomes. It begins by drawing on the theory of representative bureaucracy to define diversity as the passive representation of politically salient groups and leverages its conceptualization of symbolic representation to explain how demographic representation strengthens legitimacy and encourages citizen cooperation. It then traces the evolution of public service diversity policies in Canada and the United States, where external pressures led to two different conceptualizations of the concept. Finally, it reviews experimental and observational studies to demonstrate that representative bureaucracies are perceived as more legitimate independent of performance, and that this increased legitimacy improves policy outcomes by fostering greater citizen cooperation and coproduction. It also refutes a popular claim that increasing diversity decreases perceived legitimacy of the public service among dominant groups. In this way, public service diversity has both normative and instrumental importance in a broadly utilitarian sense, highlighting its enduring importance in a political environment where DEI policies face increasing opposition.
References
Abella, R. S. (1984). Report of the Commission on Equality in Employment. Minister of Supply and Services Canada. https://publications.gc.ca/collections/collection_2014/rhdcc-hrsdc/MP43-157-1-1984-1-eng.pdf.
Agócs, C. (2014). The Making of the Abella Report: Reflections on the Thirtieth Anniversary of the Report of the Royal Commission on Equality in Employment. In Employment Equity in Canada: The Legacy of the Abella Report (pp. 13–28). University of Toronto Press.
Basilio, H. (2025). “We are a target”: scientific society under pressure after Trump DEI crackdown. Nature (London).
Benton, M. (2020). Representation Is Not Enough: Symbolic Representation and Perceptions of the Police. Administration & Society, 52(5), 794–822.
Fernandez, S. (2020). Representative bureaucracy and performance: public service transformation in South Africa. Palgrave Macmillan.
Gravier, M. (2013). Challenging or Enhancing the EU’s Legitimacy? The Evolution of Representative Bureaucracy in the Commission’s Staff Policies. Journal of Public Administration Research and Theory, 23(4), 817–838.
Hood, J. L. (2024). Identity Politics within Kentucky’s Civil Service and the Growth of the Bureaucratic State. Journal of Policy History, 36(3), 324–341.
Iyer, A. (2022). Understanding advantaged groups’ opposition to diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) policies: The role of perceived threat. Social and Personality Psychology Compass, 16(5).
Kellough, J. E. (2018). Social equity, equal opportunity, and affirmative action in the public sector: lessons from eight decades of struggle. In Handbook of American Public Administration (pp. 259–271). Edward Elgar Publishing.
Kennedy, B. (2014). Unraveling Representative Bureaucracy: A Systematic Analysis of the Literature. Administration & Society, 46(4), 395–421.
Lam, A., Ng, E. S., Hammerschmid, G., Breaugh, J., Sullivan, H., Dickinson, H., & Henderson, H. (2021). Representative Bureaucracy in Canada: Multiculturalism in the Public Service. In The Palgrave Handbook of the Public Servant (pp. 103–124). Springer International Publishing.
Meier, K. J., Wrinkle, R. D., & Polinard, J. L. (1999). Representative Bureaucracy and Distributional Equity: Addressing the Hard Question. The Journal of Politics, 61(4), 1025–1039.
Mosher, F. C. (1968). Democracy and the Public Service. Oxford University Press.
Riccucci, N. M., & Van Ryzin, G. G. (2017). Representative Bureaucracy: A Lever to Enhance Social Equity, Coproduction, and Democracy. Public Administration Review, 77(1), 21–30.
Riccucci, N. M., Van Ryzin, G. G., & Lavena, C. F. (2014). Representative Bureaucracy in Policing: Does It Increase Perceived Legitimacy? Journal of Public Administration Research and Theory, 24(3), 537–551.
Riccucci, N. M., Van Ryzin, G. G., & Li, H. (2016). Representative Bureaucracy and the Willingness to Coproduce: An Experimental Study. Public Administration Review, 76(1), 121–130.
Sandilands, M. (2021). If We Do It Right, It Will Hurt: The Official Languages Act, Nation-Building, and English-Speaking Quebec. Minorités Linguistiques et Société, 17, 76–90.
Theobald, N. A., & Haider-Markel, D. P. (2009). Race, Bureaucracy, and Symbolic Representation: Interactions between Citizens and Police. Journal of Public Administration Research and Theory, 19(2), 409–426.
Wang, Y. (2025). Does symbolic representation matter? A meta‐analysis of the passive‐symbolic representation link. Public Administration, 103(1), 3–24.
Downloads
Published
Issue
Section
License
Copyright (c) 2026 Nicole Bucur
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License.
Politika, the Undergraduate Journal of International Affairs, Politics and Policy aims to provide immediate open access to all published content.
Authors retain full copyright of the works published in the journal. All published articles are licensed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License (CC BY 4.0), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author(s) and source are appropriately credited.
This licensing model affirms the journal’s commitment to open access and the free dissemination of scholarly work. Authors are encouraged to deposit their published work on personal websites and other relevant platforms to maximize visibility and impact.
