The Experience of Active Representation in South Korea: How Marriage-Based Immigrant Public Servants Represent Their Clients

Abstract

A long research tradition has argued that representative public servants regularly advocate for the interests of clients like themselves—whether similarity is based on race, ethnicity, or gender. This article broadens the representative bureaucracy literature to explore a different basis for advocacy (marriage-based immigrant status) using unique qualitative data. To explore the experience of representation from the perspective of public servants, we conducted semi-structured interviews with marriage-based immigrant public servants in South Korea in 2017. Our results indicate that while marriage-based immigrant public servants actively attempt to address the needs of the marriage-based immigrant population, advocacy is often a learned behavior rather than the reason public servants sought their positions. It is also observed that their efforts to represent the marriage-based immigrant population are heavily limited by institutional factors of South Korea such as insecure job status and the lack of a critical mass of marriage-based immigrant public servants.

Keywords

representative bureaucracy active representation immigrant representation qualitative method

Get full access to this article

View all access options for this article.

References

Althaus

O'Faircheallaigh

(2022). Bureaucratic representation, accountability, and democracy: A qualitative study of indigenous bureaucrats in Australia and Canada. Public Administration Review, 82(4), 646–659. https://doi.org/10.1111/puar.13492

Andrews

Ashworth

Meier

K. J.

(2014). Representative bureaucracy and fire service performance. International Public Management Journal, 17(1), 1–24. https://doi.org/10.1080/10967494.2014.874253

Atkins

D. N.

Wilkins

V. M.

(2013). Going beyond reading, writing, and arithmetic: The effects of teacher representation on teen pregnancy rates. Journal of Public Administration Research and Theory, 23(4), 771–790.

Babbie

(1998). The practice of social research. Wadsworth.

Biernacki

Waldorf

(1981). Snowball sampling: Problems and techniques of chain referral sampling. Sociological Methods & Research, 10(2), 141–163. https://doi.org/10.1177/004912418101000205

Bovaird

(2007). Beyond engagement and participation: User and community coproduction of public services. Public Administration Review, 67(5), 846–860. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1540-6210.2007.00773.x

Bradbury

Kellough

J. E.

(2011). Representative bureaucracy: Assessing the evidence on active representation. The American Review of Public Administration, 41(2), 157–167. https://doi.org/10.1177/0275074010367823

Capers

K. J.

(2018). The effect of the external environment on bureaucratic representation: Assessing the passive to active representation link. The American Review of Public Administration, 48(4), 301–317. https://doi.org/10.1177/0275074016686715

Choi

(2019). The symbolic effect of minority representation and perceptions of the majority: How majority citizens perceive marriage-based immigrant representation in the South Korean government. International Review of Public Administration, 24(4), 264–281. https://doi.org/10.1080/12294659.2019.1709717

10.

Creswell

J. W.

Poth

C. N.

(2016). Qualitative inquiry and research design: Choosing among five approaches. Sage publications.

11.

Dolan

(2000). The senior executive service: Gender, attitudes, and representative bureaucracy. Journal of Public Administration Research and Theory, 10(3), 513–530. https://doi.org/10.1093/oxfordjournals.jpart.a024279

12.

Eckhard

(2021). Bridging the citizen gap: Bureaucratic representation and knowledge linkage in (international) public administration. Governance, 34(2), 295–314. https://doi.org/10.1111/gove.12494

13.

Faugier

Sargeant

(1997). Sampling hard to reach populations. Journal of Advanced Nursing, 26(4), 790–797. https://doi.org/10.1046/j.1365-2648.1997.00371.x

14.

Gade

D. M.

Wilkins

V. M.

(2012). Where did you serve? Veteran identity, representative bureaucracy, and vocational rehabilitation. Journal of Public Administration Research and Theory, 23(2), 267–288. https://doi.org/10.1093/jopart/mus030

15.

Giles

King

De Lacey

(2013). The timing of the literature review in grounded theory research: An open mind versus an empty head. Advances in Nursing Science, 36(2), E29–E40. https://doi.org/10.1097/ANS.0b013e3182902035

16.

Glaser

Strauss

(1967). The discovery of grounded theory. Aldine Publishing Company.

17.

Headley

A. M.

(2022). Representing personal and professional identities in policing: Sources of strength and conflict. Public Administration Review, 82(3), 396–409. https://doi.org/10.1111/puar.13473

18.

Hou

A. Y.

Poocharoen

O. O.

Yang

Zhao

Z. J.

(2011). The case for public administration with a global perspective. Journal of Public Administration Research and Theory, 21(suppl_1), i45–i51. https://doi.org/10.1093/jopart/muq070

19.

Keiser

L. R.

Wilkins

V. M.

Meier

K. J.

Holland

C. A.

(2002). Lipstick and logarithms: Gender, institutional context, and representative bureaucracy. American Political Science Review, 96(3), 553–564. https://doi.org/10.1017/S0003055402000321

20.

Kellough

J. E.

(1990). Integration in the public workplace: Determinants of minority and female employment in federal. Public Administration Review, 50(5), 557–566.

21.

Kim

(2017). Cross-border marriages in South Korea and the challenges of rising multiculturalism. International Migration, 55(3), 74–88. https://doi.org/10.1111/imig.12331

22.

Kingsley

J. D.

(1944). Representative bureaucracy. In Dolan

Julie

Rosenbloom

David

(Eds.), Representative bureaucracy: Classic readings and continuing controversies (pp. 12–18). Routledge.

23.

KOSIS. (2019). Marriage immigrant statistics . http://kosis.kr/statHtml/statHtml.do?orgId=111&tblId=DT_1B040A16&conn_path=I2

24.

Langley

(1999). Strategies for theorizing from process data. Academy of Management Review, 24(4), 691–710. https://doi.org/10.2307/259349

25.

Lim

H. H.

(2006). Representative bureaucracy: Rethinking substantive effects and active representation. Public Administration Review, 66(2), 193–204. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1540-6210.2006.00572.x

26.

Maynard-Moody

Musheno

(2003). Cops, teachers, counselors: Narratives of street-level judgment (p. 10). University of Michigan Press.

27.

Meier

K. J.

(1975). Representative bureaucracy: An empirical analysis. American Political Science Review, 69(2), 526–542. https://doi.org/10.2307/1959084

28.

Meier

K. J.

(1993). Latinos and representative bureaucracy testing the Thompson and Henderson hypotheses. Journal of Public Administration Research and Theory, 3(4), 393–414. https://doi.org/10.1093/oxfordjournals.jpart.a037178

29.

Meier

K. J.

Bohte

(2001). Structure and discretion: Missing links in representative bureaucracy. Journal of Public Administration Research and Theory, 11(4), 455–470. https://doi.org/10.1093/oxfordjournals.jpart.a003511

30.

Meier

K. J.

Funk

K. D.

(2017). Women and public administration in a comparative perspective: The case of representation in Brazilian local governments. Administration & Society, 49(1), 121–142. https://doi.org/10.1177/0095399715626201

31.

Meier

K. J.

Morton

T. S.

(2015). Representative bureaucracy in a cross-national context: Politics, identity, structure and discretion. In Guy

Peters

von Maravić

Patrick

Schröter

Eckhard

(Eds.), Politics of representative bureaucracy (pp. 94–112). Edward Elgar Publishing.

32.

Meier

K. J.

Nicholson-Crotty

(2006). Gender, representative bureaucracy, and law enforcement: The case of sexual assault. Public Administration Review, 66(6), 850–860. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1540-6210.2006.00653.x

33.

Meier

K. J.

Nigro

L. G.

Dolan

Rosenbloom

D. H.

(1976). Representative bureaucracy and policy preferences: A study in the attitudes of federal executives. In Dolan

Julie

Rosenbloom

David

(Eds.), Representative bureaucracy: Classic readings and continuing controversies (pp. 84–96). Routledge.

34.

Meier

K. J.

Stewart

Jr. (1992). The impact of representative bureaucracies: Educational systems and public policies. The American Review of Public Administration, 22(3), 157–171. https://doi.org/10.1177/027507409202200301

35.

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. https://doi.org/10.2307/2647552

36.

Mosher

F. C.

(1968). Democracy and the public service. Oxford University Press.

37.

Nicholson-Crotty

Grissom

J. A.

Nicholson-Crotty

Redding

(2016). Disentangling the causal mechanisms of representative bureaucracy: Evidence from assignment of students to gifted programs. Journal of Public Administration Research and Theory, 26(4), 745–757. https://doi.org/10.1093/jopart/muw024

38.

Onwuegbuzie

A. J.

Collins

K. M.

(2007). A typology of mixed methods sampling designs in social science research. Qualitative Report, 12(2), 281–316. https://doi.org/10.46743/2160-3715/2007.1638

39.

Perry

J. L.

(1996). Measuring public service motivation: An assessment of construct reliability and validity. Journal of Public Administration Research and Theory, 6(1), 5–22. https://doi.org/10.1093/oxfordjournals.jpart.a024303

40.

Riccucci

N. M.

Saidel

J. R.

(1997). The representativeness of state-level bureaucratic leaders: A missing piece of the representative bureaucracy puzzle. Public Administration Review, 57(5), 423–430. https://doi.org/10.2307/3109988

41.

Riccucci

N. M.

Van Ryzin

G. G.

Jackson

(2018). Representative bureaucracy, race, and policing: A survey experiment. Journal of Public Administration Research and Theory, 28(4), 506–518. https://doi.org/10.1093/jopart/muy023

42.

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. https://doi.org/10.1093/jopart/muu006

43.

Saunders

Sim

Kingstone

Baker

Waterfield

Bartlam

Burroughs

Jinks

(2018). Saturation in qualitative research: Exploring its conceptualization and operationalization. Quality & Quantity, 52(4), 1893–1907. https://doi.org/10.1007/s11135-017-0574-8

44.

Selden

S. C.

(1997). Representative bureaucracy: Examining the linkage between passive and active representation in the farmers home administration. The American Review of Public Administration, 27(1), 22–42. https://doi.org/10.1177/027507409702700103

45.

Song

I. G.

Kim

M. S.

Shin

S. H.

Kim

E. K.

Kim

H. S.

Choi

Kwon

Park

S. M.

(2017). Birth outcomes of immigrant women married to native men in the Republic of Korea: A population register-based study. BMJ open, 7(9), e017720. https://doi.org/10.1136/bmjopen-2017-017720

46.

Sowa

J. E.

Selden

S. C.

(2003). Administrative discretion and active representation: An expansion of the theory of representative bureaucracy. Public Administration Review, 63(6), 700–710. https://doi.org/10.1111/1540-6210.00333

47.

Strauss

Corbin

(1990). Basics of qualitative research. Sage publications.

48.

Sutton

R. I.

(1987). The process of organizational death: Disbanding and reconnecting. Administrative Science Quarterly, 32(4), 542–569. https://doi.org/10.2307/2392883

49.

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. https://doi.org/10.1093/jopart/mun006

50.

Thielemann

G. S.

Stewart

Jr. (1996). A demand-side perspective on the importance of representative bureaucracy: AIDS, ethnicity, gender, and sexual orientation. Public Administration Review, 56(2), 168–173. https://doi.org/10.2307/977204