The theory of symbolic representation expects that citizens will view the actions of government as more legitimate when administrators share their characteristics. Although there is support for this assertion in some service areas, the evidence in policing is mixed. We draw on Expectancy Disconfirmation Theory to develop the expectation that policing is an area where we may be unlikely to see a positive relationship between representation and positive citizen perceptions of government officials. We test this expectation in an individual-level analysis of citizen complaints against police from four American cities between 2014 and 2017. The results suggest that, all else equal, complaints against Black officers are as or more likely to be filed by Black citizens than by citizens of other races. We conclude with a discussion of the implications of these results for both the study of representative bureaucracy and for the management of police citizen interactions.

符号代表理论期望当管理者具有共同特征时，公民会认为政府的行为更合法。尽管在某些服务领域支持这一说法，但在警务方面的证据却是喜忧参半。我们利用期望失证理论来发展这样一种期望，即在警务领域，我们可能不太可能看到政府官员的代表性与公民的积极看法之间存在正相关关系。我们从美国的四个城市进行测试2014年和2017年的结果之间的这种期望在对警察的投诉公民的个人层面的分析表明，反黑人员一切平等的，投诉是因为以上与其他种族的公民相比，黑人公民可能会提起诉讼。我们最后讨论了这些结果对代议制官僚制研究和警察公民互动管理的影响。