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- Title
Representative Bureaucracy and Policy Preferences: A Study in the Attitudes of Federal Executives.
- Authors
Meier, Kenneth John; Nigro, Lloyd G.
- Abstract
This article presents a study in the attitudes of federal executives. Allocation of resources to competing political forces is considered one of the main functions of public administrators. The theory of representative bureaucracy begins with the following definition of responsiveness: If administrators and the public share value orientations, then the administrators will advocate and pursue courses of action the public would if it were able to congregate and had the administrators' expertise and information. The theory of representative bureaucracy does not stop with the similarity of attitudes or values proposition. In fact, no attempt at explicating or investigating representative bureaucracy has relied solely on the attitudes argument. Tracing back the process of attitude formation, proponents contend that attitudes are determined by the individual's social environment. Since the goal of a "representative bureaucracy" is a current policy issue, the validity of its theoretical justification is of more than academic concern. Adequate prescription requires that the theory be logically sound as well as empirically supportable.
- Subjects
UNITED States; BUREAUCRACY; EXECUTIVES' attitudes; GOVERNMENT executives; POLITICAL science; POLICY sciences; PUBLIC administration; ATTITUDE (Psychology); JUSTIFICATION (Ethics)
- Publication
Public Administration Review, 1976, Vol 36, Issue 4, p458
- ISSN
0033-3352
- Publication type
Article
- DOI
10.2307/974854