Jill Nicholson-Crotty

Bureaucratic Representation, Distributional Equity, and Democratic Values in the Administration of Public Programs

Work on bureaucratic representation suggests that minority citizens benefit when the programs that serve them are administered by bureaucrats with similar characteristics. This literature has not sufficiently dealt with the long-standing concern that minority benefits may come at the expense of citizens from other groups, which some critics argue makes representative bureaucracy irreconcilable with democratic values. This article suggests distributional equity as a potential moderator of bureaucratic representation and as a potential source of reconciliation. It tests for the effects of representation under different distributional conditions in a policy area in which outcomes approach a zero-sum game. Analyses of a nationally representative sample of public organizations find a relationship between bureaucratic representation and citizen outcomes only in those instances where program benefits are being inequitably distributed to the relevant group. The article concludes with a discussion of the significa...

Industry Strength and Immigrant Policy in the American States

Despite the negative rhetoric surrounding the immigration issue, recent policy in many states has provided significant benefits to both legal and undocumented immigrants. Previous scholarship on state-level immigrant policy suggests that differences in the degree of public animosity toward this group may help to explain variation in state policy, but that work largely neglects the influence that industries that employ immigrants may have on state policy decisions. This essay develops the argument that industries that employ immigrants have a substantial impact on policy decisions in some states. It also suggests that the response of state policy makers to public pressure for more restrictive immigrant policy may be moderated by the political and economic importance of those industries. The authors test specific assertions drawn from this argument in an analysis of immigrant policy making in the American states between 2005 and 2007.

Nonprofit Organizations, Bureaucratic Agencies, and Policy: Exploring the Determinants of Administrative Advocacy

Scholarly interest in the ways in which nonprofit organizations (NPOs) engage in the policy process has increased markedly in recent years, but one arena of participation about which we still know very little is administrative lobbying. To date, no study has investigated the factors that influence the strategic decision by an NPO to focus their advocacy resources on the bureaucracy. This essay models the decision to engage in administrative advocacy by 501(c)(3) organizations as a function of the state-level political environment in which they deliver services and the organizational resources that they possess. Data on advocacy activities and organizational characteristics of family planning NPOs are drawn from tax records and data compiled by the National Center for Charitable Statistics.

Recruit Screening, Representation, and the Moral Hazard Problem in Policing

Abstract Calls for more representative police forces, made regularly over the past four decades, rest in part on the assumption that hiring minority officers will help departments overcome adverse selection and moral hazard problems that lead to overly aggressive and discriminatory policing. However, the empirical evidence regarding the relationship between force representativeness and improved policing outcomes has been remarkably mixed. This article explores the effectiveness of another method that departments can use to overcome those same problems, as well as the degree to which those methods may interact with the demographic composition of police departments. Results from a difference-in-differences analysis of more than 500 police departments in 2002 and 2008 suggest that screening recruits for conflict management skills reduces racial disproportion in discretionary arrests, particularly in departments that are more representative of the communities they serve. The analyses also suggest that conflict management screening, when combined with recruit screening for sensitivity to diverse cultures, reduces the lethal use of force by police.