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This conceptual article investigates the critical role of street-level bureaucrats (SLB) as potential "eliminators" of dysfunctional policies and drivers of digital change in the public sector. Working on the front lines of government, they have a distinctive viewpoint that allows them to challenge persistent ineffective policies. The present work introduces a framework that illustrates the roles SLBs could assume within the context of the ongoing digitalization reform of German public administration. It explores the conditions under which public servants are likely to be reflexive about existing practices—including reform practices—and can promote real innovation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Copyright of Bestuurskunde is the property of Boom uitgevers Den Haag and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

Drawing on attentional resource allocation theory and transaction cost theory, this study links street-level bureaucrats' problem-solving organizational citizenship behaviors with perceived administrative burden. Based on 28 in-depth interviews and 657 survey responses from street-level bureaucrats involved in China's Targeted Poverty Alleviation Policy during 2019 and 2020, the study found positive relationships between problem-solving organizational citizenship behaviors, resource deficiency, bureaucratic control, and perceived administrative burden. Policymakers should be cautious when using control tools and avoid exploiting street-level bureaucrats' commitment and compassion for clients to ensure effectively policy implementation and reduce administrative burdens on dedicated public servants. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Background: Ghana introduced a free maternal healthcare policy within its National Health Insurance Scheme (NHIS) in 2008 to remove financial barriers to accessing maternal health services. Despite this policy, evidence suggests that women incur substantial out-of-pocket (OOP) payments for maternal health care. This study explores the underlying reasons for these persistent out-of-pocket payments within the context of Ghana's free maternal healthcare policy. Methods: Cross-sectional qualitative data were collected through interviews with a purposive sample of 14 mothers and 8 healthcare providers/administrators in two regions of Ghana between May and September 2022. All interviews were audio-recorded, transcribed and imported into the NVivo 14.0 software for analysis. An iteratively developed codebook guided the coding process. Our thematic data analysis followed the Attride-Sterling framework for network analysis, identifying basic, organising themes and global themes. Results: We found that health systems and demand-side factors are responsible for the persistence of OOP payments despite the existence of the free maternal healthcare policy in Ghana. Reasons for these payments arose from health systems factors, particularly, NHIS structural issues – delayed and insufficient reimbursements, inadequate NHIS benefit coverage, stockouts and supply chain challenges and demand-side factors – mothers' lack of education about the NHIS benefit package, and passing of cost onto patients. Due to structural and system level challenges, healthcare providers, exercising their street-level bureaucratic power, have partly repackaged the policy, enabling the persistence of out-of-pocket payments for maternal healthcare. Conclusions: Urgent measures are required to address the structural and administrative issues confronting Ghana's free maternal health policy; otherwise, Ghana may not achieve the sustainable development goals targets on maternal and child health. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article deals with the topic of the complexity of working with young people from a migrant background who use public, social and educational services. This topic was faced through the analysis of the main results of a research, through interviews to managers, psychologists and educators of public bodies and the Third sector who are engaged in this field. From the interviews, it emerges on the one hand the ability of these workers to satisfy the needs of their users in light of the cuts that this sector has suffered. On the other side it shows the difficulty of networking. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In the context of constraining services and support within public home care, this contribution analyses how older adults and home care workers experience and navigate administrative burdens. Relying on focus groups, interviews, and a survey conducted in the province of Québec (Canada), we demonstrate that older adults face an increasing number of administrative burdens designed to alter, delay, and restrict access to public services while homecare workers experience a loss of discretion in their practice due to the introduction of administrative requirements with dubious purposes. As such, administrative burdens play a vital role in the hidden politics of the welfare state and contribute to foster cynicism and a loss of faith in essential public services. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article reviews scholarship concerned with the ways in which morality shapes organizational practice on the frontlines of the state: how bureaucrats, who draw on, contest, and apply moral schemas while delegating rights, resources, and punishments on behalf of the state to discrete subjects, manage the reality of being on the frontlines. A central focus of this scholarship is on situations characterized by tensions between agency-codified regulations and moral values; in such situations, moral categorizations once relegated to the background of consciousness become visible and subject to debate and, in turn, shed important light on how morality informs organizational practice. Current theorizing on the interrelations between morality and organizational practice in client-serving bureaucracies could nonetheless be improved by greater scholarly attention to bureaucrats' perceptions of moral incongruence, and to the micro-dynamic processes through which they seek to actualize their aspirations for moral resolution. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

When public administrators resolve disputes between citizens and other state officials, are they truly impartial? The question is imperative for evaluating resolutions made by street-level bureaucrats whom citizens often perceive as the face of public administration. This study examines the relationship between public accreditation and the tendency of street-level bureaucrats' resolutions to accept the state's arguments or the citizens' claims. Using quantitative analysis of administrative lower-court rulings in Israeli tax disputes, the findings link public accreditation to state favoritism in street-level resolutions. Such an outcome, if not accounted for, may jeopardize procedural fairness and erode public trust in government. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In contrast to other studies on policy entrepreneurship that address frontline officials' roles in formal legislative procedures, this case study focuses on how frontline officials promote policy innovation within inconspicuous administrative routines. Because frontline officials have no legislative power, they must overcome officialism by using bureaucratic skills and seeking consensus among multiple stakeholders. "Citizen agents" and "state agents" are both necessary roles. This case provides administrative details on how a deadlocked policy was gradually enlivened within undramatic administrative routines. The findings bridge the legislative–administrative gap and improve the understanding of the long-term effects of frontline administrative activities on policy innovations. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper investigates processes of spatially ordered marginality of Roma in a former industrial town in Hungary. The analysis focuses on local poverty governance tactics and practices that aim to maintain social and spatial order through the regulation and selective displacement of Roma within the city. These practices of controlling Roma marginality are clear manifestations of the spatialization and racialization of poverty and I argue that spatial containment constitutes a new mode of poverty governance that aims to temper local tensions and cement local power. Moreover, these local policies reflect continuity from socialist era practices in terms of governing Roma marginality through disciplining and displacement. In the present context, EU-funded urban rehabilitation projects represent a vital local resource. While ostensibly targeting social integration, the local government in question has used these resources to promote the mobility of 'deserving' vulnerable groups and control 'undeserving' marginalized Roma through enclosure. Those who are seen as undeserving are racialized and subject to punitive containment while the 'deserving' enjoy material support and a sense of belonging to local society, provided they accept the conditions dictated by local government actors. In this way, the emphasis on individual responsibility masks the structural deficiencies of social housing and related social issues and perpetuates different forms of racism. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The goal of this conceptual study is to highlight the potential contribution of emotional intelligence as a tool in advancing the study of equity in public service delivery. By reviewing the literature on emotional intelligence in public administration and rationalizing its relationship with equity among street-level bureaucrats and bureaucracies, this article proposes a strategy to promote social equity in the provision of public service. The proposed strategy focuses on the role of EI-supportive organizational culture, and particularly human resource management practices, as a means to enhance bureaucrats' emotionally intelligent behavior in their interactions with citizens-clients. Finally, the article proposes a theoretical and methodological agenda for future research in this important field of study. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The coping behaviors of street-level bureaucrats have received increasing attention in the past decade. Although recent literature has explored the classification of coping behaviors and their antecedents, little is known about how coping behaviors connect street-level bureaucrats' mission attachment, their enforcement effectiveness, and psychological commitment to the organization. In this study, we developed a conceptual framework examining the mediating effects of "moving against regulatees," a coping behavior characterized by rigid enforcement of rules. Using survey data collected from frontline environmental law enforcement officers in China, we found that a strong attachment to the mission was positively related to the coping behavior of moving against regulatees. This behavior was also associated with increased enforcement effectiveness but decreased organizational commitment. The results highlight that, although moving against regulatees is positively associated with immediate enforcement outcomes, it may have a negative association with enforcement performance in the long run by eroding organizational commitment among street-level bureaucrats. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

What strategies are used to legitimize and enhance the popularity of the Reform marriage ceremony among Israeli Jews? Using a mixed-method grounded-theory technique, this study stresses that the strategies used to legitimize and enhance the popularity of the Reform marriage ceremony among Israeli Jews take place in two parallel realms: the organizational and the individual. At the organizational level, the Israel Reform Movement invests resources into institutionalizing the Reform marriage ceremony in Israel, using the judicial and the political strata to accomplish this goal. At the same time, at the individual level, Reform rabbis operate as street-level policy entrepreneurs by enhancing the visibility of the Reform marriage ceremony among Israeli Jews by advertising themselves and conducting as many ceremonies as possible. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Millions of urbanites across the Global South receive intermittent water supply (IWS). This paper examines how discretionary action by street-level bureaucrats (SLBs) in everyday water supply planning in IWS systems redistributes water quantities and service quality to alleviate unequal scarcity burdens. Ethnographic findings from the small city of Tiruppur, India, reveal that SLBs' supply plans aim to distribute water volumes equitably within the network. However, SLBs' communicative strategies to manage socio-material uncertainties and improve supply predictability, a critical dimension of service quality, reinforce existing socio-spatial inequalities. Rethinking SLBs' contradictory discretionary actions in everyday water supply plans is crucial for managing water scarcity equitably in the IWS systems of Global South cities. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Street Level Bureaucrat (SLB) and Conservation of Resources theories are used to develop measures for Public Value (PV) and a higher-order construct comprising psychological capacities and behavioural capabilities – HERO-INE, and to test whether it is an antecedent of Public Service Motivation (PSM) and Public Value (PV) using data from 259 SLBs working in Australian healthcare collected at two points in time and analysed using Structural Equation Modelling. HERO-INE, PSM, and in-role behaviour explained approximately 40% of the SLBs' PV. The implication is that organizations must ensure that SLBs have the psychological and behavioural capabilities to deliver PV. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Albeit one of the most pervasive forms of gender violence, street harassment tends to be either not considered a crime or to be faulty criminalized. This investigation contributes to better understand the overall inefficiency of existing laws through an analysis of the criminalization of street harassment in Portugal. Particularly, it searches for obstacles to implementation among those responsible for the process—the street-level bureaucrats of the Portuguese Public Security Police. Through 14 semi-structured interviews, three groups of obstacles to implementation were identified: perceptions of the legislation's content, a masculinist institutional culture, and personal characteristics. These are new findings that contribute to an understanding of the perpetuation of gender violence through state's institutions and workers. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Copyright of Psicoterapia e Scienze Umane is the property of FrancoAngeli srl and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

In this paper, we ask whether princi ple s —relevant institutions, including administrative reform, legal and judicial support, and information and communication technology (ICT)—and princi pal s —ordinary people that are capable, knowledgeable, and willing—can help enhance accountability of street-level bureaucrats (SLBs) by mitigating unwarranted discretionary behaviors. We examined the New York City Police Department by constructing and analyzing a unique dataset drawn from multiple sources and by using the SLB literature to inform our empirical model specification. Fixed effects regression analysis revealed the potential of princi ple s and princi pal s in motivating or reducing police officers' use of force resulting in substantiated civilian complaints. Specifically, proactive policing strategies, exonerated civilian complaint dispositions, court summons following arrests, and ICT are the princi ple s, and a low-poverty population served by police are the princi pal s we found to influence discretionary police behavior. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Street-level Bureaucrats are bureaucrats who are at the forefront of implementing programs or policies. Their duties and functions are diverse, and based on their duties, they are expected to improve the welfare of community by implementing policies and assisting the public in services. They play an important role in policy implementation and have a strong influence on policy outcomes. This study aims to determine the value orientation of street-level bureaucrats and their attitudes toward beneficiaries in the implementation of the Non-cash Food Assistance Program. The research method uses a Mix Methods research design with a dominant scheme in a qualitative approach. The research focus areas are: (a) value orientation of street-level bureaucrats and (b) attitude of street-level bureaucrats toward beneficiaries. The total population of the study was 1916 and after calculations using a certain formula, a research sample of 95 individuals was obtained. Based on the results of the study, it is known that the value orientation of street-level bureaucrats stands out for social or cooperative orientation, while their attitude toward beneficiaries is positive so that in carrying out their duties they do not do much discretionary action. The research recommendation is that officers must always update beneficiary data and carry out external supervision in distributing aid. In addition to using mixed methods, it is also expected to conduct research using a quantitative approach to understand the effect of value orientation and attitudes on the effectiveness of program implementation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Citizens with lower social status are underrepresented in participatory democratic innovations like citizens' initiatives. Much research focuses on the barriers to participation that these citizens experience. The current study concentrates on civil servants tasked with advising on what initiatives to support and how. Informed by research on the social construction of target groups and the use of social stereotypes by civil servants, our work scrutinizes how the social status of initiators plays a role in the assessments of citizens' initiatives. Grounded on vignette-based, in-depth interviews with civil servants, we conclude that social status does indeed play a role. Contrary to the conventional understanding, we find that: (1) high-status initiators are met with suspicion and low-status initiators with benevolence; and (2) high-status initiators are offered hands-off support, while those with a low status are provided with hands-on help to carry out their plans. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Public servants' mental health can impact how, how well, and to whom services are delivered. In this article, we extend the Job Demands-Resources (JD-R) framework to consider whether employees' perceptions of themselves, their co-workers, and beneficiaries predict higher psychological distress during the COVID-19 pandemic. Through a survey of state and local public servants (n = 3,341), we report alarming rates of psychological distress: one in three employees are burnt out and one in five are experiencing compassion fatigue. Those who view government as the place to make a difference, and those who perceive co-workers as competent, are less likely to report distress. Those who attribute poverty to systemic factors, and not to individual flaws of beneficiaries, experience higher distress. These findings suggest an urgent need to prioritize public servant mental health, and show that individual perceptions of self and others can predict variation in psychological distress, even in periods of widespread crisis. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Purpose: This study aims to identify the street-level approaches of professional workers in complex public social service organisations when attending to social assistance claimants. Design/methodology/approach: The study employed a multifaceted approach comprising documentary analysis, semi-structured individual interviews (17) and focus group discussions (8) with qualified frontline social workers from primary care social services in Tarragona. Findings: Social workers embodied three specific sets of cognitive, normative and emotional dispositions when attending to people with low incomes. First, the compassionate approach conceives clients as defensive regarding social services and emotionally vulnerable because of deprivation. Second, the instructional approach frames clients as being baffled by a new, precarious, institutional and economic context. They also lack information, abilities and the proper mindset to conceive of and attain available welfare and occupational resources. Third, the enforcement approach tends to define clients as suspicious, trying to obtain an excessive and unfair advantage of the welfare system that would eventually hamper their social opportunities. Originality/value: Research thus far has tended to define public social assistance programmes in Southern welfare state contexts as mostly inefficient and hardly relevant residual social policies. The street-level approach shows that social workers try to resist the mere administrative processing of benefits, which is a professionally troubling and organisationally unsustainable way to proceed. They attempt to help clients by providing inclusive content in order to implement their benefits. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Drawing on my experience as a teaching assistant (TA), I expand on Michael Lipsky's concept of the street-level bureaucrat by focusing on how an agency's construction of the client shapes the work of the bureaucrat. I call this selective recognition. The university classifies students into three types: the archetypal student for whom the university is designed, the partially recognized student who receives accommodations, and the unrecognized student with responsibilities that make learning difficult. The result is an adaptation of the TA's three dimensions of the labor process: teaching, administration, and care work. The labor contract stipulates the first and a modicum of the second but not the third. Changing student demographics have increased all dimensions of TA labor, especially administrative tasks and the amount of invisible care work performed. The extractive university relies on this invisible and often overextended labor to dampen and conceal the reality of its own failing mission. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Trust has proven to be a predictor of organizational outcomes. In some cases, such as law enforcement, achieving organizational goals requires workers to be willing to risk their lives. Is there a link between street-level bureaucrats' (SLBs) willingness to endanger their own lives for the public and their trust in their peers, managers, and the institution to which they belong? Using a national survey of 2,733 police officers in Brazil and machine-learning-based methods, we found that there is a significant link between their willingness to risk their lives for others and their trust in their peers, managers, and the institution to which they belong. Our findings indicate that while these SLBs were very willing to risk their lives for certain groups, their willingness declined sharply for others such as lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, and questioning (LGBTQ)+ people and the homeless. In addition, police officers' perceptions about discrimination, police professionalism, and organizational commitment and support are linearly linked to their willingness to risk their lives. Our findings demonstrate the important role of trust in understanding public servants' practices in the extreme context of risking their lives for others. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The public administration literature has long observed the efforts of street-level bureaucrats to actively represent the clients with whom they share a social or demographic identity. However, it has not examined the responses that street-level bureaucrats receive when they represent minorities and how these responses shape how they use discretion in implementing policies. We explore these issues empirically through in-depth interviews with 23 Israeli Arab social and community workers and 32 Israeli LGBTQ+ teachers. This exploratory study reveals the variety of reactions that street-level bureaucrats encounter when representing minorities. Furthermore, it highlights the significant role of reactions from clients and organizations in encouraging, reducing, or impeding the efforts of minority street-level bureaucrats to represent those with whom they share an identity, which, in turn, underscores the importance of external responses for confirming and legitimizing active representation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Copyright of RAP: Revista Brasileira de Administração Pública is the property of RAP: Revista Brasileira de Administracao Publica and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

Do street-level bureaucrats exercise discretion to encourage clients' political participation? If so, how, and in what way is it demonstrated? This study examines these questions empirically through 36 semi-structured in-depth interviews with LGBTQ+ (lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, and queer) teachers in Israel. Findings reveal that these street-level bureaucrats encourage clients to participate politically through strategies they adopt both inside and outside the work environment. In the classroom their lessons contain political content and expressions of political protest. Outside school they employ digital media to influence students. Clients' political participation is manifested both jointly with street-level bureaucrats and independently of them. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Drawing on the logic of Simon's decision-making theory, this study compares the effects of AI versus humans on discretion, client meaningfulness, and willingness-to-implement, and examines the moderating role of different types of decisions on those relationships. The findings show that AI usage has a negative effect on perceived discretion and a positive effect on willingness-to-implement. Conversely, non-programmed decisions tend to have a positive effect on both perceived discretion and willingness-to-implement. Moreover, non-programmed decisions mitigated the effect of AI usage on perceived discretion, while programmed decisions interacted with AI usage to improve client meaningfulness and strengthen willingness-to-implement. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In the UK in 2007 a national experiment was initiated with the aim of tackling "Britain's Biggest Social Problem"—Depression. Improving Access to Psychological Therapies (IAPT) was devised as the solution. A universal free‐to‐access talking therapies program would make available evidence‐based treatment to all adults with depression. NICE (National Institute for Health and Care Excellence), the body that decides on what is cost‐effective, said CBT, not antidepressants, should be its first line offer. The starting gun was fired. The promise from IAPT was 3‐fold: to scale up access to CBT rapidly; to achieve recovery targets that would reduce the prevalence of depression over time; and—most ambitious of all—to ensure the Treasury would see a return on its investment by reducing the economic burden from depression. People who were on invalidity benefits due to depression would be supported back into employment. It was a New Deal for depression. As well as for CBT. But did it work? A decade and a half on with IAPT, are we in any position to give an answer? This paper will seek to draw lessons about "What Worked", and what didn't, to ask ourselves a question: are we—those of us in the applied psychoanalytic community—willing to garner what can be learned from IAPT to advocate a new deal for evidence‐based psychoanalysis? Faced with challenges from unemployment and widening inequalities, against a backdrop where global economic recovery must heed the existential threats from climate change and ongoing warfare, to say nothing of the scale of loss and grief for those already impacted by bereavement due to the pandemic, the need for some such deal could not be more urgent. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Context: Agricultural activities constitute the most significant source of nitrate pollution, posing a threat to water quality and ecosystem services. The Nitrates Directive is an integral feature of the Water Framework Directive, which seeks to reduce nitrate pollution from agricultural sources. Directive compliance has proven to be problematic for every Member State in fulfilling their respective implementation duties. Objectives: The research focuses on the nitrate management discourse within agricultural landscapes of Poland and provides a governance capacity framework to understand how social factors shape local implementation performance. The case study examines how the social factors of social capital and street-level bureaucrats constrain or enable stakeholder agency within agricultural landscapes. Methods: The empirical investigation utilizes a multi-method assessment, including a survey categorizing social capital levels among 31 Polish farmers, interviews with nine stakeholders, and a literature review. Results: The findings demonstrate how differentiated social capital levels are a result of complex social dynamics within the nitrate management discourse. Achieving policy objectives rests on stakeholder interactions in their capacity to navigate myriad changes and translate policy messages into practical actions. Due to low social capital levels exhibited by farmers and limited agency of street-level bureaucrats, overall capacity for effective nitrogen management in Polish agricultural landscapes is constrained. Conclusions: Overall, the study contributes new insights in identifying how social factors affect the ability of Member States to fulfill implementation obligations. Further, the study discusses the influence of social factor interplay upon actor agency and subsequent policy relevance amidst changing agri-environmental landscapes. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Research shows that street-level bureaucrats rely on notions of deservingness to manage their caseloads. Accounts traditionally identify how workers use mainstream cues to categorize clients, but a growing literature calls for situated accounts of discretion. This study draws on fieldwork with public defenders to describe how institutional position and professional knowledge condition discretion. I analyze how the dynamics of representation inform defenders' understandings of and advocacy for clients with varying criminal-legal backgrounds and needs. In this case study, defenders' perceived strategic options penetrate their estimations of clients' deservingness and drive their advocacy. Tailored representation elevates the needs of individuals without records and those with unremitting criminal-legal contact, helping attorneys manage their caseloads and advance their aspirations, but it produces uneven defense. I develop a role concept, "structural antagonist," to signify and describe a uniquely situated street-level bureaucrat whose mandate includes both serving and straining the institution. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article examines how newly arrived Syrian refugees experience and navigate their encounters with street-level bureaucrats (SLBs) in three urban settings: Adana, Turkey; Gothenburg, Sweden; and Irbid, Jordan. The encounters took place in the context of local government institutions responsible for assisting refugees upon their arrival in the host society. The broader question examined is how refugees respond when experiencing dissatisfaction with their encounters with SLBs in the receiving country. In our analysis, we draw upon the Exit, Voice, Loyalty, Neglect model suggesting different patterns of response to dissatisfaction with public services. We also deploy an additional, understudied response type, Gaming. The degree of satisfaction–dissatisfaction experienced by Syrian refugees and the kind of response strategies they resorted to as a consequence of that experience varied notably from country to country. Syrian refugees in Gothenburg and Adana felt more dissatisfied with and frustrated by their encounters with SLBs than their compatriots in Irbid. The responses of the refugees in Adana were mostly of the Exit and Neglect type. In Gothenburg, on the other hand, interviewees primarily resorted to Neglect and Voice responses, while in Irbid Gaming, Exit, and Loyalty were the most common response strategies opted for to express and act upon one's dissatisfaction. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Social protection has grown in importance in framing the relationship between citizens and states across much of Africa. Botswana's conservative welfare regime relies heavily on local officials – many of whom are trained social workers – to exercise discretion in assessing the needs of poor people and registering them on social protection programmes. Interviews with local officials reveal that they attribute poverty and destitution primarily to the deficient attitudes and behaviour of poor people. These are in turn seen as the consequence of social protection policies that disempower people by fostering 'dependence' on state provision. Local officials prefer programmes that 'empower' poor people. Whilst they recognise that the state has responsibilities towards the poor, they implement policies that reinforce and reproduce the status of poor citizens as often undeserving claimants on public charity. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Copyright of European Policy Analysis is the property of Wiley-Blackwell and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

Copyright of European Policy Analysis is the property of Wiley-Blackwell and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

Copyright of European Policy Analysis is the property of Wiley-Blackwell and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

Copyright of Czech & Slovak Social Work / Sociální Práce / Sociálna Práca is the property of Czech & Slovak Social Work and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

Research on street-level bureaucracy has burgeoned since Michael Lipsky published his seminal book on the topic in 1980. Yet little effort has been made to comprehensively overview this stream of research. This study undertakes a systematic literature review on street-level bureaucracy in the field of public administration. Our analysis confirms that street-level bureaucracy is a centrally important and ever-popular topic in public administration, but more as a setting or context for research rather than as a primary research topic. We also find that researchers tend to interpret street-level bureaucrats' behaviours differently based upon their disciplinary frame of reference. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This exploratory qualitative study examines the barriers to program implementation faced by state directors overseeing federally funded Migrant Education Programs (MEPs). Drawing on data gathered via in-depth interviews with 25 SDs across the United States the following research question is addressed: According to SDs of MEPs, what are the barriers to program implementation? The findings suggest that SDs experience five main barriers to implementing the MEP: 1) lack of time to dedicate to the program; 2) bureaucratic barriers; 3) lack of funding; 4) stigmas and prejudice; and 5) immigration policies. The findings are discussed along with policy and program recommendations. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Despite increasing attention to street-level policy entrepreneurship, it remains unclear what strategies street-level bureaucrats employ during implementation or how their strategies impact policy outcomes. Using China's Targeted Poverty Alleviation campaign, we argue that street-level policy entrepreneurs construct collaborative arrangements with various local networks to devise innovative solutions. They collaborate with administrative leaders vertically or with citizens horizontally by adopting three strategies: defining mutual interests, building trust, and leveraging resources. Vertical collaboration contributes to effective policy outcomes and formal upward accountability, while horizontal collaboration improves public responsiveness. This study provides insights into collaborative behaviors of frontline bureaucrats that alleviate rural poverty. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Unbiased conduct is an essential part of the social contract between the state and its citizens. Yet, when tasked with settling disputes between citizens and other state officials, are public administrators truly impartial in their resolutions? Such a question is vital for street‐level bureaucrats whom the public perceives as the face of governance. This study investigates the relations between the pro‐citizen tendencies in street‐level bureaucrats' resolutions, their internal appealability, and the discretionary space under which they are made. Using quantitative analysis of real‐world lower‐court rulings in Israeli tax disputes between 1980 and 2021, the research findings indicate that unregulated expansion of street‐level bureaucrats' discretionary space relates to favoring the state's arguments in their resolutions and may impair procedural fairness. The findings also imply that regulation promoting citizens' right to appeal such resolutions within their agency, can increase street‐level bureaucrats' pro‐citizen tendencies and potentially counteract such outcomes. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

With the emergence of COVID‐19, many governments around the world co‐oped non‐health actors into enforcing comprehensive mandatory vaccination policies. Implementing these policies can be challenging, creating irreconcilable goals and problems with knowledge and understanding of areas outside the implementers' direct field of expertise or scope of work. We know very little about how such frontline workers cope with these challenges associated with implementing policies whose goals lie well outside their remit (which we describe as generating exogenous policy pressures), and what this means for the operation of the policies. This article uses policies in place prior to the pandemic to fill this gap. It examines attitudes and experiences of frontline childcare educators who implement Australia's No Jab, No Play childhood vaccine mandate policies within the states of New South Wales, Queensland, and Victoria. Through qualitative analysis of interview and focus group data, we find that these frontline workers cope with moral conflict, confusion, and a lack of knowledge by moving against clients: they rigidly follow the rules beyond legislative requirements, and sometimes break them, generating a new coping category we call 'rigid rule breaking'. However, their need to employ coping strategies is informed by the extent to which government has designed the policy to coerce the behaviour of the providers, families, or both. The implementation of more coercive variants of No Jab, No Play policies deviates more from what legislators intended, while providers given scope to make their own decisions about enrolling unvaccinated children report satisfaction in their decision‐making. Points for practitioners: Australian state mandatory vaccination policies generally require childcare providers to exclude unvaccinated children.Street level bureaucrats face pressures when implementing coercive policies exogenous to their remit.They may simplify policy implementation in ways that counter governments' goals.Actors given more discretion about passing on coercion to policy targets demonstrate better understanding and ownership of policies. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Purpose: New Public Management-informed pay-for-performance policies are common in public sectors internationally but can be controversial with delivery agents. More attention is needed on contingent forms of bottom-up implementation of challenging policies, in emerging market economies, for professionals who face tensions between policies and their codes of practice. Street-level bureaucrats (SLBs) mediate policy implementation through discretionary practices; health professionals have enhanced space for discretion based on autonomy derived from professional status. The authors explore policy implementation, adaptation and resistance by physicians, focusing on payments for health workers in Turkey. Design/methodology/approach: The researchers conducted semi-structured qualitative interviews with 12 physicians in Turkish hospitals and thematic analysis of interview transcripts, using a blended (deductive and inductive) approach. Findings: The policy fostered discretionary behaviours such as cherry-picking (high volume, low risk procedures) and pro-social rule-breaking (e.g. "upcoding"), highlighting clinical autonomy to navigate within policy restrictions. Respondents described damage to relationships with patients and colleagues, and dissonance between professional practice and perverse policy incentives, sometimes leading to disengagement from clinical work. Policymakers were perceived to be detached from the realities experienced by SLBs. Tensions between the policy and professional values risked alienating physicians. Research limitations/implications: This study utilises participant self-reported perceptions of discretionary behaviours. Further work may adopt alternative methods to explore the relationship between self-reporting and observed practice. Originality/value: The authors contribute to research on differentiated, contingent roles of groups with high scope for discretion in bottom-up implementation, pointing to the potential for policy-professional role conflicts between top-down P4P policies, and the values and codes of practice of professional SLBs. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article examines the factors and conditions that affect street-level bureaucrats in health service delivery and how the street-level bureaucrats cope with their working conditions in rural Ghana. It draws insight from Lipsky's street-level bureaucracy theory. The study argues that street-level bureaucrats coping strategies are not necessarily out of job frustrations but due to motivational factors. It further argues that street-level bureaucrats' behaviour towards subscribers matters most in healthcare service delivery. The research design is a qualitative comparative case study approach. It compares public and private health facilities' street-level bureaucrats' behaviour/actions and coping strategies in healthcare service delivery. The data are obtained from in-depth interviews, focus group discussions, document reviews and direct observations and some statistics from census, health insurance claims and health facilities attendance. The sample size is 65 and data are analysed using thematic analysis. The results show that private health facilities exhibit more positive attitudes/behaviour towards health insurance subscribers than their public counterparts. The results imply that the private health facilities coping strategies are 'moving towards clients' rather than 'moving away' or 'against clients'. It recommends future research may adopt a quantitative research design with larger samples and with a rural–urban comparative study. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Research on administrative burdens has demonstrated that families experience significant costs in navigating different institutions. Yet studies have often focused more on the nature of the burdens that result from administrative rules than on the types of obstacles that produce these burdens. Less attention has also been paid to how families navigate multiple institutions simultaneously. Drawing on qualitative research with Congolese refugees resettled in the United States, we conceptualize how errors and mishaps in organizations tangled procedures into institutional knots, or complex blockages. We also show how some knots had a ripple effect as problems in one institution reverberated, leading to new, unrelated problems in different institutions. These institutional knots and subsequent reverberations were costly to resolve and a hindrance to upward mobility. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

As the number of refugees in the world is increasing and it is known that social inequality negatively impacts mental health, it is important to study integration policies, such as labour market measures. In this article, the strategic interventions of the Swedish Public Employment Service are analysed to determine how the agency's management handled and implemented the legal changes in the new support document for its case workers. The focus is on the effects of the changes in the legal text that transferred the responsibility for establishment initiatives for newly arrived migrants to the agency and, as a result, changed the conditions for newly arrived refugees' mental health in the new establishment programme. Eight people representing different management functions at the agency were interviewed. The results show that the intention in the new programme to view newly arrived refugees in the same way as all other unemployed people, rather than as a special category, has meant that less attention is paid to the refugees' mental health, and the opportunities for the agency's street-level bureaucrats to help clients have decreased. In the face of predicted growing numbers of people having to abandon their homes due to conflicts and climate changes, governmental strategies such as these needs to be revisited in order for societies worldwide to be better prepared for that challenge. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

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The non-implementation of political decisions is a major challenge of contemporary political life. Policy analysis has devoted careful attention to implementation gaps resulting from administrative non-compliance with political orders. However, the fact that political authorities actually want to enforce all policies should not be taken for granted. This article proposes a conceptual model that systematically accounts for cross-agency divergence and convergence processes both at the political and at the street levels. We find that in inter-sectoral policies, dissent between different heads of agencies (political level) or between groups of implementing bureaucrats (street level) rather than dissent between the political and the street-level can be a major cause of non-compliance. Based on a comparative dataset on the implementation of the smoking ban in 12 Swiss states, the article analyzes cross-agency fragmentation processes. It advocates a stronger dialogue between street-level bureaucracy and policy coordination literatures, and nuances the conceptualization of (non-)compliance in a cross-agency context. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The study explores whether elected officials' involvement in the way street-level bureaucrats implement policy affects social equity. This question is addressed empirically through interviews and focus groups with 84 Israeli educators and social workers. Findings indicate that elected officials involve themselves directly and indirectly in street-level bureaucrats' policy implementation and their involvement reduces social equity in the provision of services. The study contributes to the literature on policy implementation by enabling a deeper understanding of the factors that shape the decision-making process of street-level bureaucrats when providing services and their ultimate impact on policy outcomes. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

A social work approach to addressing substance use embraces the NASW Code of Ethics with a dually focused client-centered and person-in-environment lens. These social work values often conflict with the myriad of U.S. policies that impact substance users by creating and reinforcing structural inequalities. Michael Lipsky's Street-Level Bureaucracies reveal for social workers opportunities to mitigate policy with the consistent practice of a social work approach to substance use. This article provides an overview of Michael Lipsky's Street-Level Bureaucracies and outlines opportunities to embrace social justice and human rights through micro and macro social work practice with people who use substances. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]