Korean Journal of Policy Studies

Graduate School of Public Administration, Seoul National University

Korean J. Policy Stud. 2020; 35(2):1-23

pISSN: 1225-5017, eISSN: 2765-2807

Article

Political Failure, Citizen Feedback, and Representative Bureaucracy: The Interplay of Politics, Public Management and Governance*

Kenneth J. Meier¹

¹Distinguished Scholar in Residence, American University (USA), Professor of Public Management, Cardiff University (UK), Professor Bureaucracy and Democracy, Leiden University (the Netherlands).

© Copyright 2020 Graduate School of Public Administration, Seoul National University. This is an Open-Access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution Non-Commercial License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/) which permits unrestricted non-commercial use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.

Received: Jun 01, 2020; Revised: Jun 10, 2020; Revised: Jun 24, 2020; Accepted: Jul 20, 2020

Published Online: Aug 31, 2020

Abstract

This article proposes that two major trends — the failure of political institutions and the globalization of minority rights — present major challenges for public administration. These changes mean that public administrators must now perform roles that were previously the realm of elected officials in relation to the broader public. Specific concerns related to the public’s ability to evaluate programs and the enhanced role and limits on representative bureaucracy are discussed.

Keywords: Political failure; globalization of minority rights; citizen feedback; representative bureaucracy; comparative public management