Ethnocultural Polarization of Government Personnel and the Choice of Public Administration Model (Using the Example of the Southwestern United States)

The aim of the article is to identify the influence of the ethnocultural structure of government personnel in the Southwestern United States on the choice of a public administration model that meets the need to solve problems associated with the polarization among the population of the country’s “Mexican” territory. The relevance of the study lies in the need to overcome the negative consequences caused by the intensification of ethnocultural turbulence processes and uncertainty over the past forty years. The problem posed in the work of model changes in the system of public administration in the Southwestern United States is associated with the need to achieve ethnopolitical stability. The latter is characterized by overcoming the negative impacts of a polarized society, reducing the turbulent manifestation of conflict situations in the public administration system and the latter’s ability to improve the properties and quality of governing subjects and managed objects that identify themselves as different sociocultural and ethnocultural groups of the population of the Southwest. Using the index method, based on data from the US Bureau of Labor Statistics and the National Association of Public Service Institutes, the dynamics of ethnocultural polarization affecting the three branches of government in the states of California, Arizona, New Mexico and Texas are shown. Using the necessary theoretical material, a comparison was made of the characteristics of public administration models that potentially meet the requirements of solving the problems of turbulence and uncertainty, achieving ethnopolitical stability for each of the named states in the region. The most significant results of the study, based on the use of institutional analysis of the established and recommended model of public administration of the states studied, reflect a sharp increase in the share of the Hispanic ethnocultural group (Hispanic/Latinos) in public administration over the past forty years. This group, compared primarily with the group of whites of European origin, by 2021 dominates the personnel of the executive branch in the field of organizational structures of interdepartmental coordination, responsible for coordination in the system “federal center — state government — local government”. In these conditions, it seems necessary to use new conceptual models of public administration — network and robust, reflecting the ethnocultural specifics of the personnel potential of government bodies in the Southwestern United States. It seems that the institutional and structural characteristics of both the network model, focused on consolidating different cultural values through a social contract, and the robust management model, characterized by adaptability and systematicity of political management, will find practical application based on the development of new targeted intermediate institutions of public administration. In most states of the Southwest, the role of intermediate institutions can be assigned to the already emerging system of various councils of interdepartmental and administrative coordination, characterized by an optimal combination of personnel of representative and executive bodies of regional government, formed on the principle of ethnic quotas.

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