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AbstractDespite its grounding in prestigious theories of behavioral science, the findings of both academic and applied behavioral public administration (BPA) have tended to present a rather mixed picture of often contradictory results that appear highly context dependent. And more developed theory and better methods may not do much to remedy the situation. Rather, we should perhaps begin to view BPA through the lens of Charles Lindblom's notion of a science of muddling through. That is, BPA should perhaps be seen not so much as a theory-driven attempt to uncover universal regularities of human thought and behavior, but rather as a method of incremental, limited adjustments—tested by successive randomized controlled trials (RCTs)—that form part of an evolutionary process of trial-and-error aimed at solving applied problems in localized settings. Implications for academic and applied BPA are discussed.

AbstractRepresentative bureaucracy has been investigated empirically and debated normatively, but there exists little evidence about how the general public views representative bureaucracy—especially the legitimacy of active representation. Using a survey experiment, this article explores people's fairness judgments of active representation in two important social and policy contexts: education and gender, and policing and race. Results from an online sample of U.S. adults show that, in the case of education, a female teacher helping a female student was judged to be unfair, with the negative effect mainly coming from the male respondents in the study. In the case of policing, a white officer acting favorably toward a white citizen was judged to be unfair, with the negative effect driven largely by black and Hispanic respondents in the study. Implications for representative bureaucracy theory and research, as well as policy and practice, are discussed.

The 'end of history illusion' refers to the tendency of people to underestimate change in their future values and preferences. Could this cognitive bias apply to the work motivations of those in public service? To examine this question, a sample of public service professionals was asked about their current work motivations and then randomized to be 'reporters', who recalled their work motivations 10 years ago, and 'predictors', who forecast their work motivations 10 years from now. Predictors expected much less change in their work motivations over time than reporters actually experienced. Specifically, predictors underestimated the importance of helping others and of working independently, and they overestimated the importance of income. Thus, public service professionals, who are often assumed to have unique prosocial motivations, seem to be subject to an 'end of history illusion' when making decisions about what job characteristics will matter to them over the course of their careers.