Representative Bureaucracy in the Federal Executive: Gender and Spending Priorities

Abstract

With women's growing presence across all branches of government, scholars recently have begun to assess whether or not female political elites alter the substantive policy outputs of government. Despite clear and convincing evidence that officials in the fourth branch of government influence policy making (Meier 1993b; Rourke 1984; Aberbach, Putnam, and Rockman 1981), most research on women’s distinct impact has focused on those in legislative office. Very little is known about female representation in the executive branch even though far more women serve in the executive branch than in legislative positions. This article draws from two competing theories to assess whether gender influences policy outputs in the federal executive. Representative bureaucracy theory stresses that individuals' decisions are conditioned by their lifetime experiences, so we can expect female administrators to use their discretion in ways that produce positive outcomes for women in the population. Organizational socialization theory, on the other hand, argues that common working experiences within government agencies will diminish the salience of any differences between the sexes. Thus gender will have a minimal impact, if any, upon executive decision making. Using federal spending data from three surveys, the 1996 National Election Studies, the 1996 General Social Survey, and the 1996 Survey of Senior Executives, this article demonstrates that both gender and organizational socialization shape policy-relevant attitudes at the top of the federal executive.