TY - JOUR
T1 - Representative Bureaucracy and Attitudes Toward Automated Decision Making
AU - Miller, Susan M.
AU - Keiser, Lael R.
N1 - Publisher Copyright:
© 2020 The Author(s) 2020. Published by Oxford University Press on behalf of the Public Management Research Association. All rights reserved.
PY - 2021/1/1
Y1 - 2021/1/1
N2 - The theory of representative bureaucracy posits that citizens will view policy and service delivery more favorably if public servants share their background characteristics. However, automation is changing public service delivery, limiting human involvement in the process. We examine attitudes toward automated decision making through the lens of representative bureaucracy, generating expectations about how a lack of passive representation will affect views toward automated versus human decision making in government. Using a survey experiment, we find evidence that black citizens are more likely to rate automated decision making higher, compared with police officers, on fairness and preference when exposed to a lack of passive representation in a police agency. We do not find evidence of this relationship for white citizens. Our findings provide insight into the way in which passive representation conditions minority citizens' views toward automation, highlighting the importance of considering representation, or lack thereof, as governments contemplate the adoption of automated services.
AB - The theory of representative bureaucracy posits that citizens will view policy and service delivery more favorably if public servants share their background characteristics. However, automation is changing public service delivery, limiting human involvement in the process. We examine attitudes toward automated decision making through the lens of representative bureaucracy, generating expectations about how a lack of passive representation will affect views toward automated versus human decision making in government. Using a survey experiment, we find evidence that black citizens are more likely to rate automated decision making higher, compared with police officers, on fairness and preference when exposed to a lack of passive representation in a police agency. We do not find evidence of this relationship for white citizens. Our findings provide insight into the way in which passive representation conditions minority citizens' views toward automation, highlighting the importance of considering representation, or lack thereof, as governments contemplate the adoption of automated services.
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U2 - 10.1093/jopart/muaa019
DO - 10.1093/jopart/muaa019
M3 - Article
AN - SCOPUS:85127205226
SN - 1053-1858
VL - 31
SP - 150
EP - 165
JO - Journal of Public Administration Research and Theory
JF - Journal of Public Administration Research and Theory
IS - 1
ER -