Voluntary Organizations as New Street-level Bureaucrats: Frontline Struggles of Community Organizations against Bureaucratization in a South Korean Welfare-to-Work Partnership

2012 ◽  
Vol 47 (5) ◽  
pp. 565-585 ◽  
Author(s):  
Suyoung Kim
Author(s):  
North East Third Sector Research Group

<p>Churchill, H. (2013). Retrenchment and restructuring: family support and children's services reform under the coalition. <em>Journal of Children's Services</em>, 8()3, 209-222</p><p>Jackson Rodger, J. (2013). “New capitalism”, colonisation and the neo-philanthropic turn in social policy: Applying Luhmann's systems theory to the Big Society project. <em>International Journal of Sociology and Social Policy</em>, 33(11/12), 725-741.</p><p>Kim, S. (2013). Voluntary Organizations as New Street-level Bureaucrats: Frontline Struggles of Community Organizations against Bureaucratization in a South Korean Welfare-to-Work Partnership. <em>Social Policy &amp; Administration</em>, 47(5), 565-585.</p>


Author(s):  
Jean-Michel Bonvin ◽  
Luca Perrig

This chapter seeks to evaluate welfare-to-work policies in Switzerland through the lens of the theory of non-domination, using the theoretical tools developed by the capability approach and the French economy of conventions. Particular attention is paid to the normativity that is conveyed at each of the three stages of the policy-making process: its design by policy-makers and high civil servants, its implementation by street-level bureaucrats, and its reception by users and beneficiaries. The economy of conventions allows for a discussion of the multiple senses of justice that are embedded in the policy instruments going down the line of implementation, and the capability approach is fruitfully mobilised in assessing the various vectors of constraint and domination that may be imposed on each actor of the policy cycle. Domination is thus conceived as emerging from considerations of desert that are imposed on street-level bureaucrats and welfare recipients. Combining qualitative research and theoretical insights, this chapter suggests that allowing a greater margin for manoeuver to street-level bureaucrats may empower recipients by facilitating the convergence of interests and thus minimising the domination that a bureaucratic apparatus frequently entails.


Author(s):  
Alastair Stark

This chapter explores agents who are influential in terms of inquiry lesson-learning but have not been examined before in inquiry literature. The key argument is that two types of agent—policy refiners and street-level bureaucrats—are important when it comes to the effectiveness of post-crisis lesson-learning. As they travel down from the central government level, street-level actors champion, reinterpret, and reject inquiry lessons, often because those lessons do not consider local capacities. Policy refiners, however, operate at the central level in the form of taskforces, implementation reviews, and policy evaluation processes. These refiners examine potentially problematic inquiry lessons in greater detail in order to determine whether and how they should be implemented. In doing so, these ‘mini-inquiries’ can reformulate or even abandon inquiry recommendations.


2021 ◽  
pp. 147892992110215
Author(s):  
Chunna Li ◽  
Jun Yang

The theory of street-level bureaucracy and its relevant data have proven the expected duties of the frontline staff of local government may be excessive but their time spent working remains quite low. Using data from participatory observations of street-level officials in a Chinese city, this study reveals the logic of this labour input paradox. Organizational climate incentive and promotional incentive jointly influence the time allocation of street-level bureaucrats. The organizational climate incentive reflects the weak incentive characteristic of the maintenance function of labour; promotional incentives have a strong impact on motivation, which is characteristic of the promotional function of labour. These findings reveal the costs of the New Public Management movement in an organization lacking an effective promotion mechanism and a positive organizational climate incentive. This is a snapshot of the dilemma faced by China’s public organization reforms, but it is also a problem other country must solve.


2019 ◽  
Vol 10 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Suyoung Kim

AbstractAlthough the voluntary sector is internationally valued as an integral component of the welfare mix, studies on East Asian welfare regimes have primarily focused on state-market-family interactions, paying scant attention to the long-standing and pivotal role of voluntary agencies in their construction. This case study illuminates this less-known aspect of modern welfare history in the context of South Korea, with a particular focus on the activities of voluntary organizations. The study categorizes South Korean voluntary associations into four types and examines their different contributions in shaping South Korea’s welfare regime, by applying Young’s framework on government–voluntary organizations relations. This historical exploration on the South Korean voluntary sector aims to deepen understanding of an East Asian welfare state regime. It further suggests that current welfare mix debates, focusing on the service delivery role of voluntary organizations within Western European welfare states, should be broadened.


2018 ◽  
Vol 35 (1) ◽  
pp. 84-113 ◽  
Author(s):  
Shelena Keulemans ◽  
Steven Van de Walle

The attitude of street-level bureaucrats towards their clients has an impact on the decisions they take. Still, such attitudes have not received much scholarly attention, nor are they generally studied in much detail. This article uses Breckler's psychological multicomponent model of attitude to develop a scale to measure street-level bureaucrats' general attitude towards their clients. By means of a test study ( N=218) and a replication study ( N = 879), the article shows that street-level bureaucrats' attitude towards clients consists of four different components: a cognitive attitude component, a positive affective attitude component, a negative affective attitude component and a behavioural attitude component. It also establishes a conceptual and empirical distinction from related attitudes, such as prosocial motivation, work engagement, bureaucrats’ rule-following identities and self-efficacy, and suggests avenues for application and further validation among different groups of street-level bureaucrats. This instrument opens up opportunities for theory testing and causality testing that surpasses case-specific considerations.


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