The symbolic effect of minority representation and perceptions of the majority: how majority citizens perceive marriage-based immigrant representation in the South Korean government

This study investigates how minority representation affects the trust and perceived legitimacy of the government among the majority. To that end, this article examines the effect of marriage-based immigrant representation in the South Korean government in shaping native Koreans’ perceptions of job performance, trustworthiness, and fairness of the government through the utilization of survey experiment data. The analyses show that a greater representation of the marriage-based immigrant population does not produce positive effects on the native Koreans’ perceptions of the government. This finding indicates that the positive effects of minority representation may come at the expense of the majority’s trust and perceived legitimacy of the government. However, this article argues that representative bureaucracy may be able to reduce reputational damage among the majority by increasing and advertising their organizational competency.