A theory of activation: bureaucratic responsiveness depends on resources, representation, and recognition. Material investments and the inclusion of marginalized personnel often remain passive; they improve service only when institutional recognition—organizational dynamics that make a group visible and value efforts to meet their needs—activates them.

📌 What Was Tested

• Station-level Women’s Help Desks in Indian police stations.
• A large-scale experiment combined with sustained qualitative fieldwork.
• Comparison of desks staffed by female officers versus other configurations to assess effects on police responsiveness to women’s cases.

🔍 What the Evidence Shows

• Female-staffed help desks increased police responsiveness to women’s complaints.
• Mechanism: female officers actively used help-desk resources to both support women and build professional standing inside the police organization, thereby translating representation and resources into visible action.
• Material investments and the mere presence of marginalized personnel were insufficient on their own; the desks worked when recognition within the institution legitimized and rewarded efforts focused on women.
• Limits: gains were constrained by entrenched patriarchal norms that reduce reporting of gender-based violence and hinder prosecution, restricting the desks' impact on outcomes like formal charges and convictions.

⚖️ Why It Matters

• Demonstrates that institutional recognition can activate resources and representation to improve bureaucratic responsiveness in practice.
• Highlights both the promise and the boundary conditions of reform: organizational changes can produce meaningful service gains for marginalized groups, but broader social and legal norms may blunt those gains.
• Offers a framework for designing public-sector interventions that combine material support, inclusive staffing, and explicit organizational recognition to enhance responsiveness in unequal settings.