Ordinal Representation

• In Event: The Role of Representation in Government

Abstract

Representative bureaucracy is a promising means to enhance coproduction and democratic governance. The existing literature focused on researching cardinal representation, which means that the number or percentage of bureaucrats within a public organization representing population composition passively or symbolically. The existing literature documented the mixed effects of cardinal representation on coproduction. However, whether there is an ordinal effect of representative bureaucracy remains unclear. Ordinal representation means changing the representation order of the bureaucrats when presentation cannot be improved cardinally. For example, cardinal representation of an organization with four bureaucrats cannot be improved when two of them are female and the other two are male regarding gender representation. To answer the question – does ordinal representation matter in coproduction, the study experiments with the ordinal effects of gender representation on individuals’ coproducing decisions. Using two different policy areas—recycling and emergency preparedness, the study randomizes the order of female officials in a two-male and two-female setting where gender representation cannot be improved cardinally. Both experiments were unable to find consistent evidence of the ordinal effects of placing females in different orders on citizens’ overall willingness to coproduce. However, the results revealed the pattern that the gender of the chief leader increases the willingness of others of that gender—and simultaneously decreases their gender counterparts’ willingness—to coproduce.

Author

• Huafang Li, University of Pittsburgh