How do state environmental agencies with more minority employees manage policy activities for minority communities when faced with budget cuts? In new research, Jiaqi Liang and Sanghee Park explore this question, finding that representative bureaucracy—where public employees reflect the racial and ethnic makeup of the population—can buffer the negative effects of cuts, particularly for minority communities. However, they only see this buffering effect when agencies’ financial resources, rather than personnel, are cut, and it diminishes as minority representation increases.

Historically, people of color in the US have often received worse environment outcomes because of the often inequitable ways state environmental agencies implement policies. Previous studies suggest that minority public servants actively work to ensure equitable access to public services and policy benefits for those who belong to their ethnic group. However, it remains unclear how budget cuts impact bureaucratic efforts and whether a more representative bureaucratic workforce can counteract the potential negative effects of cuts and constraints. In recent work with Jun Li, we tackle these questions by examining data from the implementation of the Clean Air Act (CAA) by the 48 contiguous states in the US between 2009 and 2018.

Resource constraints, minority representation and public service equity

To better understand how resource constraints affect access to public services by minorities, we looked at minority representation in two areas: overall state government agencies and environment-related state workforces. Minority populations had a higher level of representation in the state government as a whole than those in the environment-related agencies. Between 2009 and 2013, the average percentage of minority bureaucrats in state governments was 28.7 percent, compared to 22.4 percent in the environment-related area. However, between 2014 and 2018, minority representation had decreased slightly in the environment-related function (21 percent) but slightly increased in state governments (29.51 percent).

Our analyses reveal that in states with sufficient financial resources, a more representative government leads to increased regulatory enforcement for communities with large minority populations. In essence, resource constraints in state environmental agencies have a less severe impact on government activities for minority communities when the workforce is more representative. However, when agencies face spending cuts, enforcement efforts decline as minority representation increases. Interestingly, we found no significant relationship between staffing levels or cutbacks and policy implementation outputs, regardless of the minority representation in the public workforce. These findings suggest that bureaucratic representation has limited influence in buffering the effects of personnel resource cutbacks.

Figure 1 shows the marginal effect of the minority population (the y-axis) over the range of bureaucratic representation in state environmental agencies (the x-axis), conditional on the spending level. In well-funded environmental agencies, higher minority representation correlates with more policy implementation activities directed toward minority communities. This effect holds true both for overall state governments and for environment-specific agencies, showing that financial resources are critical to translating representative bureaucracy into tangible policy benefits for minorities.

Figure 1 – Effects of racial/ethnic minorities on environmental regulatory enforcement activities, by spending levels and bureaucratic representation

To better understand the dynamics between resource cutbacks, bureaucratic representation, and policy implementation, Figure 2 shows how enforcement activities change depending on the severity of spending cutbacks. When shares of minority administrators are lower (below 23.3 percent), agencies intensify enforcement efforts for minority communities. However, as minority representation improves, these additional services decline. The effect becomes insignificant when  there are no spending changes or spending increases.

“CalEPA” (CC BY-NC-SA 2.0) by DrMKD

Figure 2 – Effects of racial/ethnic minorities on regulatory enforcement activities, by spending cutbacks and bureaucratic representation (entire state)

Equity is often not a priority when resources are tight

Our findings provide valuable insights into environmental justice (EJ) by showing that the representative effect of public bureaucracy can take place in agencies which are not service-based, such as environmental regulation, and the benefits of representative bureaucracy only fully materialize when agencies have enough financial resources. Moreover, in cases of moderate-to-severe spending cutbacks, agencies with more minority employees reduce their enforcement activities for minority communities. These findings highlight the nonlinear effects of resource cutbacks and the distinct impacts of financial versus personnel resources on policy implementation and bureaucratic representation. When financial resources are scarce and being cut, it creates an institutional environment where government administrators are compelled to prioritize effectiveness to retain the government’s fundamental capacity over other organizational goals, including equity.

Our research adds to the growing body of literature on how representation in the public workforce can drive more equitable policy outcomes, particularly within the realm of EJ – a pivotal topic concerning social equity in public policy and administration. As environmental agencies face increasing budget pressures and goal tradeoffs, it highlights the importance of maintaining both sufficient resources and a representative workforce to ensure that agencies can effectively advocate for environmental equity. Minority bureaucrats may be able to use administrative discretion to advance social equity and redress existing inequity. However, resource inadequacy more or less constrains their discretion and limits the possible courses of action to serve the underserved public, especially when there are many different policy goals, and conflicts about which to address.

• This article is based on the paper, ‘Weathering the cutbacks: the buffering role of representative bureaucracy in environmental policy implementation’ in Public Management Review. 
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• Note: This article gives the views of the author, and not the position of USAPP – American Politics and Policy, nor the London School of Economics. 
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