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Copyright of Revista Brasileira de Políticas Públicas is the property of Revista Brasileira de Politicas Publicas 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 Moderne Staat is the property of Verlag Barbara Budrich GmbH 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.)

I denne artikkelen undersøker vi hvordan skoleledere i ungdomsskolen forstår og håndterer skolefravær. Basert på teorien om bakkebyråkrati indikerer vår analyse at fraværet først fortolkes av skolelederne som et individuelt problem hos eleven, og som ikke kan løses av skolen, men tilhører «noen andre». Et uklart regelverk skaper behov for skjønnsmessige vurderinger hvor skolens ansvarsområde tolkes relativt snevert som en leverandør av kunnskap. Denne tolkningen, koblet sammen med organisatoriske utfordringer med samarbeid og begrensede ressurser i skolen, gjør at en eksternaliserende praksis av skolefravær forstås som både rasjonell og effektiv for skoleledere. Samtidig fremstår håndteringen med å skyve ansvaret over på andre ved skolefravær som en «ikke-løsning» for oppfyllelsen av fellesskolen som ideal for grunnskoleutdanningen og et dårlig utgangspunkt for å opprette virksomme samarbeidsløsninger med andre instanser. Vi konkluderer med at et bakkebyråkratiperspektiv gir en ramme for å forstå noen av de dilemmaene skoleledere opplever i forbindelse med elevfravær.

The article investigates the implementation of a crucial area of the EU asylum policy, which is asylum adjudication at the appeal stage. According to the Common European Asylum System, Member States must guarantee asylum seekers an effective remedy against first‐instance decisions. However, the EU policy framework leaves space for each country to choose its implementation model. Filling a gap in the literature on asylum policy implementation, the article explores the implementation arrangements (IAs) for asylum appeals in three countries, Italy, France, and Greece, which adopt different models. More precisely, relying on Strategic Analysis of Organizations and the Street‐Level Bureaucracy approach, the article addresses how specific elements of the IA influence organizational autonomy, implementing actors' routines and perceptions, as well as the degree of discretion. Moreover, it investigates the influence of de facto organizational practices on policy performance. The analysis of qualitative data suggests that different IAs, such as the nature of the body, the appointment system, and mechanisms of vertical accountability, shape de facto individual and organizational practices and actors' spaces for discretion. This process seems to impact policy performance, particularly in terms of uniformity, which is a core objective within the broader European policy framework for asylum adjudication. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Using data from 113 in-depth interviews with beneficiaries of social welfare programs, I examine the ease of access to the Special Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program for Women, Infants, and Children (WIC); the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP); and Medicaid during the COVID-19 pandemic. Policy changes that were enacted in response to COVID-19 were explicitly designed to reduce the administrative burden of program participation. I find that while WIC and Medicaid participants reported easier access to benefits, SNAP saw high demand and bureaucratic constraints that undermined access. SNAP participants encountered difficulties that they attributed to burdensome experiences to administrative exclusion. I show how applicants perceived organizational practices as excluding eligible populations from participation in government programs and undermining policies that were designed to reduce administrative burdens. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

As cities throughout the developing world grow, they often expand more quickly than the infrastructure and service delivery networks that provide residents with basic necessities such as water and public safety. Why do some cities deliver more effective infrastructure and services in the face of rapid growth than others? Why do some households and communities secure better services than others? Answering these questions requires studying the large, politicized bureaucracies charged with providing urban services, especially the relationships between frontline workers, agency managers, and citizens in informal settlements. Researchers investigating public service delivery in cities of the Global South, however, have faced acute data scarcity when addressing these themes. The recent emergence of crowd-sourced data offers researchers new means of addressing such questions. In this paper, we draw on our own research on the politics of urban water delivery in India to highlight new types of analysis that are possible using crowd-sourced data and propose solutions to common pitfalls associated with analyzing it. These insights should be of use for researchers working on a broad range of topics in comparative politics where crowd-sourced data could provide leverage, such as protest politics, conflict processes, public opinion, and law and order.

BackgroundIn this study, we use the case of medical doctors in the public health system in rural India to illustrate the nuances of how and why gaps in policy implementation occur at the frontline. Drawing on Lipsky’s Street Level Bureaucracy (SLB) theory, we consider doctors not as mechanical implementors of policies, but as having agency to implement modified policies that are better suited to their contexts. MethodsWe collected data from primary care doctors who worked in the public health system in rural Maharashtra, India between April and September 2018 (including 21 facility visits, 29 in depth interviews and several informal discussions). We first sorted the data inductively into themes. Then we used the SLB theoretical framework to categorise and visualise relationships between the extracted themes and deepen the analysis. ResultsDoctors reported facing several constraints in the implementation of primary care- including the lack of resources, the top-down imposition of programs that were not meaningful to them, limited support from the organization to improve processes as well as professional disinterest in their assigned roles. In response to these constraints, many doctors ‘routinized’ care, and became resigned and risk-averse. Most doctors felt a deep loss of professional identity, and accepted this loss as an inevitable part of a public sector job. Such attitudes and behaviours were not conducive to the delivery of good primary care. ConclusionThis study adds to empirical literature on doctors as Street Level Bureaucrats in lower and middle income countries. Doctors from these settings have often been blamed for not living up to their professional standards and implementing policies with rigour. This study highlights that doctors’ behaviours in these settings are ways through which they ‘cope’ with their loss of professional identity and organizational constraints; and highlights the need for appropriate interventions to counter their weak motivation.

The article analyzes the enrollment procedures of municipal schools in Rio de Janeiro. We consider that Regional Education Coordination (CRE) and school are the bureaucrats responsible for implementing the enrollment policy and may act in a discretionary way. We consider that their perceptions about schools, students and parents are based on stigmas. We used interviews carried out with regional staff and with school directors. The results show the bureaucracy's discretion in enrollment procedures and reveal the production and reproduction of stigmas in schools, reinforcing a scenario of educational inequality and a tendency towards inequity in the distribution of places. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Copyright of Polizei & Wissenschaft is the property of Verlag fur Polizeiwissenschaft 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.)

This paper seeks to understand the transmission and reception of legal rules as a component of the regulatory compliance process. It adopts a frontline approach (Almond and Gray 2017) to regulatory compliance that traces the grassroot functioning of compliance processes from regulator, to compliance managers to individual employees. Through a multilevel and multi-sited ethnography of worker safety protection in Chinese construction industry, this paper shows that in the cases studied there is a fundamental disconnect in the transmission and reception of law from regulator to organization and within the regulated organization. Yet at the same time, the paper finds that employees did comply with the law, and that thus compliance can exist without a full transmission and reception of legal rules into and within the regulated organization. By expanding the frontline approach to study regulation and compliance to look at the grassroots operation across three different frontlines, this study has been able to assess the legal assumptions inherent in existing regulatory compliance research. Not only does it find that compliance in these cases was not a top-down process and that we need to look at the grassroots operation inside organizations, it also shows that law does not always play a central role in regulatory compliance and that we need to reassess the implicit focus on law in regulatory compliance scholarship. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This study explores the perceptions of specialty mental health caseload probation officers and their use of discretion in day-to-day supervision of individuals with mental illness in one large jurisdiction in the United States. Scholars have examined overall effectiveness of specialty probation programs, probation officers' roles as street-level bureaucrats, and the impact of the mental health caseload probation officer and probationer relationship on successful completion. Less attention, however, has been placed on examining how the officers supervising these specialty caseloads perceive their roles as mental health probation officers and how they use discretion in their caseload management. The current study examines the narratives of 24 specialty mental health caseload probation officers and supervisors to understand how discretion is used on a problem-solving caseload and how discretionary decision-making may impact probationer outcomes. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article analyses 26 interviews with frontline female practitioners from domestic violence and abuse (DVA) services for racially minoritised women in England and Wales, exploring how these practitioners – who are from the same racially minoritised communities as the women they support – responded to the challenges of the COVID-19 crisis. These specific practitioner perspectives offer valuable insights into the specific ways in which the pandemic exacerbated the intersectional vulnerabilities of minoritised women experiencing DVA. Interpreted through a standpoint feminist lens, the findings reveal how frontline practitioners used bureaucratic discretion both to meet minoritised women's changed needs during the pandemic in order to enhance their safety and to challenge the exclusions and intersectional inequalities underpinning pandemic policies. The study illuminates the institutional dimensions of frontline practitioner responses to the pandemic and contribute to debates within the street-level bureaucracy scholarship about the nature of bureaucratic discretion exercised by frontline practitioners. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This study examines how working conditions shape the practical experiences of special education teachers. Through observations and interviews, I found that staff absences and scheduling conflicts disrupted the work of special education teachers. Entrenched limitations to personnel and temporal resources intensified these disruptions, framed herein as dynamic working conditions. In response, special education teachers acted as street-level bureaucrats, distributing supervision and instruction to those students they deemed most in need. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this study of nonprofit engagement with the census, we argue for an expansion of the research toolbox to include critical race methods as an essential lens on public and nonprofit administration. By foregrounding race and racism, illuminating power structures and discourses, and centering the knowledge and practices of nonprofit staff as street-level workers, critical race methods reveal the processes of construction that shape and influence a seemingly objective count and highlight the roles that staff play as mediators in the conflicts between fear and trust that are inherent to racial governance in the United States. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Penal protection orders (PPOs) aim to protect initial victims from repeat victimisation and in a broader sense from any danger for his or her dignity or psychological and sexual integrity and may therefore be important instruments for victim safety. However, knowledge on the actual practice of the PPOs and the successes, dilemmas and challenges involved is scarce. In this article, we describe the legal framework and actual enforcement practice of Dutch PPOs. The theoretical framework leading our explorative analyses regards Lipsky’s notion of ‘street-level bureaucracy’ and the succeeding work of Maynard & Musheno and Tummers on coping strategies and agency narratives of frontline workers. Using interview data from criminal justice professionals, victims and offenders, we describe the conditions of the enforcement practice and answer the question which coping mechanisms and types of agencies the professionals tend to apply in order to meet the legislative aims and to protect victims as effectively as possible. Results show that the five conditions described by Lipsky are clearly present. So far, in almost all situations the process of monitoring violations is reactive and because knowledge on risk indicators for violent escalation is still limited, it is difficult for frontline workers to decide how many and what type of resources should be invested in which cases. This results in a ‘moving away from clients’ strategy. However, within this context in which reactive enforcement is the default, we also found several examples of coping that represent ‘moving towards clients’ strategies. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this paper we seek to overcome the knowledge gap in street-level bureaucracy (SLB) literature on labour market policies, focusing on a specific public employment service (PES). In the context of active labour market policies (ALMP), PES are seen as strategic because they have a direct effect on reducing unemployment in both the short and long run and an indirect effect on reinforcing long-term training programmes. However, recent reforms of public employment services in many European countries have generated divergent trajectories in SLBs' practices. In this heterogeneous and unclear picture, to better grasp the different mechanisms influencing policy outcomes at a micro level it seems promising to merge street-level bureaucracy with the policy entrepreneur (PE) approach focused on the way caseworkers (conceived as policy entrepreneurs) influence policy design far beyond the resources they hold. In this article we consider if there are certain organizational configurations that favour the emergence of policy entrepreneurship among street-level bureaucrats. To test this hypothesis, the paper investigates an Italian public employment service. The Italian context is particularly interesting in that it underwent a process of decentralization followed by a more recent push towards re-centralization. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Adherence to anti-retroviral therapy (ART) is important for suppressing HIV and attaining health benefits. Through ART adherence, viral load is suppressed and the chances of HIV transmission are minimized. Retaining clients to ART adherence as a life-long treatment remains a challenge. The provision of ART services is conditioned by health care workers working conditions and environment as they act as street level bureaucrats. This study investigated the perspectives of health care workers for good practice to ART adherence and changes to improve clients' ART adherence in Western Highlands Province (WHP), Papua New Guinea (PNG). Twelve face to face interviews and two focus group discussions were conducted with twelve health care workers from five HIV clinics. The purposive sample included nursing officers, community health workers and HIV counsellors. Qualitative analysis identified key factors impacting the adherence to ART of clients. As street level bureaucrats, health care workers have to deal with high workloads, limited number of staff and shortage of ART drugs, they create own policies to provide ART to clients. Health care workers recognize the pluralistic therapeutic culture of clients who cross borders by combining biomedicine with vernacular therapy. Other factors contributing to lower ART adherence include blaming clients and stigma and discrimination towards vulnerable population due to structural problems in health facilities. The study identified ways to improve service provision to sustain ART adherence of clients. These findings provide implications for strengthening the health system that includes investment in human resources for health and developing policies and implementing strategies to improve ART adherence of clients. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The work of the Blue Angels as territorial implementers of the public policy of the phenomenon of homeless in Bogota, allows to analyze the role that street level bureaucracy play to achieve articulate strategies that respond to the needs of the project. The objective of this article is to generate an analysis of the comprehensive attention to the phenomenon of street habitability in the city of Bogotá, developed by the District Secretariat for Social Integration (SDIS), studying the congruence between the regulatory framework of district policy and its respective implementation. The above framed in the territorial implementation by the blue angels as front-line officials. The study is carried out from the approach Bottom-up as a method to analyze the relationships between local actors, handles a qualitative methodology, linking tools of observation, interviews and focus group. The results found within the investigative process show the discretion of the territorial implementers, as well as the strategies and way of understanding the implementation of the program of comprehensive attention to the phenomenon of habitability on the street, in the face of the local realities that must arise the street level bureaucracy in the implementation of public policies. As conclusions of the article, it can be inferred that despite the existence of stipulated guidelines from the public policy of the phenomenon of habitability on the street, the perspective that the blue angels and the beneficiaries of the project have change given the realities, the available resources, the discretion and the will among other factors that must occur during their role as actors in the process. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Background: In this study, we use the case of medical doctors in the public health system in rural India to illustrate the nuances of how and why gaps in policy implementation occur at the frontline. Drawing on Lipsky's Street Level Bureaucracy (SLB) theory, we consider doctors not as mechanical implementors of policies, but as having agency to implement modified policies that are better suited to their contexts. Methods: We collected data from primary care doctors who worked in the public health system in rural Maharashtra, India between April and September 2018 (including 21 facility visits, 29 in depth interviews and several informal discussions). We first sorted the data inductively into themes. Then we used the SLB theoretical framework to categorise and visualise relationships between the extracted themes and deepen the analysis. Results: Doctors reported facing several constraints in the implementation of primary care-including the lack of resources, the top-down imposition of programs that were not meaningful to them, limited support from the organization to improve processes as well as professional disinterest in their assigned roles. In response to these constraints, many doctors 'routinized' care, and became resigned and risk-averse. Most doctors felt a deep loss of professional identity, and accepted this loss as an inevitable part of a public sector job. Such attitudes and behaviours were not conducive to the delivery of good primary care. Conclusion: This study adds to empirical literature on doctors as Street Level Bureaucrats in lower and middle income countries. Doctors from these settings have often been blamed for not living up to their professional standards and implementing policies with rigour. This study highlights that doctors' behaviours in these settings are ways through which they 'cope' with their loss of professional identity and organizational constraints; and highlights the need for appropriate interventions to counter their weak motivation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Purpose: Over the past decade, increasing attention to the negative impacts of exclusionary discipline and disparities therein has led many state educational leaders to enact school discipline reforms. This study examined the response by school district leadership to a state's revision of guidelines for student codes of conduct. Data: This study leveraged longitudinal data on school district codes of conduct from the 2013–2014 to 2015–2016 school years across the state of Maryland. Codes of conduct were coded in an iterative fashion according to a common set of infraction–response combinations. Research Design: Using a pre–post analytic design, this study examined changes in districts' codified infractions, responses to infractions, and the overall tier of response. Furthermore, the study compared alignment between state guidelines and district codes of conduct while exploring variation in codified discipline across districts. Findings: Findings suggest that leaders in districts increased the number of response options available for most types of infractions, with the largest increases occurring for more serious infractions. While these increases tended to be driven by increases in the codification of less exclusionary responses, there were nevertheless sizeable increases in the availability of in-school suspension and removal/intervention. In almost all cases, school districts reported distributions of response options that were at a higher tier level than that recommended by the state. Conclusions: Findings are discussed in the context of current efforts to reform school discipline and the implications of such reform for implementation by district and school leadership. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In representative bureaucracy research, the dominant view holds that passive representation leads to active representation. Much of the research to date has focused on the conditions that influence this process. In this research, we argue that more attention needs to be paid to the manifestation of active representation, rather than simply its presence. We find that although passive representation may indeed lead to active representation, the nature of this active representation is interpreted differently by those sharing a primary identity. We use the lens of representative bureaucracy theory, and Q Methodology, to understand how street-level bureaucrats in East Jerusalem use their discretion within the education system of a contested society. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In recent years, the study of street-level bureaucracy has been developed as a major interest in diverse types of research on public policy, management, public administration, and politics. The scholars are particularly concerned with understanding discretion of street-level bureaucrats and finding useful means of measuring the impact of government on people. In this sense, on the one hand the paper describes and analysis strategies and mechanisms that street-level bureaucrats develop in order to deal with the strains imposed by internal and external context, and on the other hand presents the evaluation of the social workers from the street-level bureaucracy perspective and the impact of the mechanisms developed by street-level bureaucrats on clients. From a methodological standpoint, and taking into consideration the theoretical and normative framework from Romania, the research relies on comprehensive and systematic search of the vast literature on street-level bureaucracy and document analysis. Further, in order to complete the missing data the authors use the Law no. 544/2001 on free access to information of public interest for gathering information.

Copyright of Education Policy Analysis Archives / Archivos Analíticos de Políticas Educativas / Arquivos Analíticos de Políticas Educativas is the property of Educational Policy Analysis Archives & Education Review 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.)

Highlights • Interface bureaucrats are key actors in climate policy implementation. • Discretionary implementation practices re-shape climate adaptation interventions. • Studies of pragmatism can offer new insights in everyday environmental governance. Abstract When climate change policies are implemented in practice, they travel through the hands of a range of practitioners who not only mediate but also potentially transform climate interventions. This article highlights the role of a group of actors whose practices have so far received little attention in the study of climate change governance, namely the public servants who are responsible for the everyday implementation of national climate change policies and associated programmes on the ground. Situated at the frontline of the state and often engaging directly with citizens, these "interface bureaucrats" occupy a complex position in which they must balance their role as representatives of the state with the need to accommodate the pressures, interests and practical challenges associated with everyday policy implementation. In this article we examine how interface bureaucrats in Zambia seek to navigate this role as they go about implementing national climate change adaptation policies in practice, and what this means for the nature and outcome of these interventions. We identify key dilemmas of the interface bureaucrats in our study areas, namely (i) intervening with limited reach, (ii) implementing generic policies, and (iii) managing conflicting interests. We show how they address these dilemmas through highly pragmatic practices involving informal agreements with community members, discretionary adjustments of official policies, and negotiation of contested interventions. As a result, the nature and outcomes of climate change adaptation interventions end up differently from the official policies and the underlying governance interests of the central state. Our findings suggest a need for greater attention to the role of interface bureaucrats as everyday climate policy makers and point to the significance of pragmatism and compromise in the interaction between state actors and citizens in environmental interventions. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

W artykule została poruszona problematyka realizowania ustawowo zaprojektowanego procesu usamodzielniania wychowanków opuszczających placówki opiekuńczo-wychowawcze typu socjalizacyjnego. Usamodzielnianie podopiecznych systemu pieczy zastępczej zarówno o charakterze instytucjonalnym. jak i rodzinnym, zostało ujęte głównie w dwóch aktach prawnych – ustawie o pomocy społecznej oraz ustawie o wspieraniu rodziny i systemie pieczy zastępczej. Przechodzenie z placówki zapewniającej całodobową opiekę do samodzielnego prowadzenia gospodarstwa domowego stanowi dużą zmianę życiową, wpływając w znaczący sposób na dalszy przebieg życia usamodzielniającego się wychowanka. Artykuł stanowi głos w dyskusji dotyczącej przebiegu procesu usamodzielnienia, w szczególności skupia się na omówieniu niedoskonałości obecnych w ustawowych kryteriach i systemie wsparcia osób opuszczających instytucje opiekuńcze. Przebieg procesu usamodzielnienia w ujęciu praktycznym został przedstawiony na podstawie wybranych wyników badań ilościowych i jakościowych, w tym prowadzonych na potrzeby projektów realizowanych przez Gdańską Fundację Innowacji Społecznych, SOS Wioski Dziecięce oraz Fundację Robinson Crusoe. W niniejszej pracy odwołano się do teorii Michaela Lipsky’ego – Street level bureaucracy – która posłużyła do skonstruowania rekomendacji mających na celu łagodzenie lub niwelowanie niespójności pojawiających się w procesie usamodzielnienia, a które, poprzez swoje występowanie, mogą prowadzić do nierówności skutkujących pogorszeniem sytuacji życiowej wychowanków opuszczających instytucjonalną pieczę zastępczą.

This paper reports findings from the first study based on recordings of advisory interviews with benefits claimants in the United Kingdom. Previous econometric analysis found that programmes for unemployed people delivered through private sector Employment Zones (EZs) were more effective than their public sector equivalents, delivered through Jobcentre Plus (JCP). However, little was known about what occurred on the frontline. In this paper, we describe a conversation analytic comparison of 40 EZ and 48 JCP interviews, showing that EZ and JCP advisers typically adopted different ‘interactional styles’. We illustrate the five features that characterised the EZ ‘style’, arguing that they offer an important part of the explanation for the EZs’ outperformance of some JCP programmes. Given their systematic patterning, we also argue that these differences are not best explained at the individual level. Nevertheless, we conclude that there is no principled reason for the practices identified in the EZ to be considered to ‘belong’ in the private, but not the public, sector.