scholarly journals The connectivity dilemma in freshwater management: exploring the role of street level bureaucrats in water governance

Water Policy ◽  
2020 ◽  
Vol 22 (6) ◽  
pp. 1067-1081
Author(s):  
Carina Lundmark
Keyword(s):  
Invasive Species ◽  
Water Governance ◽  
Structured Interviews ◽  
Public Officials ◽  
Street Level ◽  
Policy Goals ◽  
Formal Policy ◽  
Street Level Bureaucrats ◽  
Freshwater Management ◽  
Implementation Resources

Abstract Connectivity is key in freshwater management, e.g. to ensure viable populations of fish, but restoring it may cause the spread of invasive species. Goal conflicts of this kind are common in freshwater management, and the burden of addressing them rests on the shoulders of street-level bureaucrats, i.e. public officials at the end of the policy chain. This study uses a theoretical framework to explore their management choices employing previous research on natural resource management. The findings, based on qualitative semi-structured interviews with street-level bureaucrats from all water districts in Sweden, show that the three factors explored – their understanding of formal policy, their implementation resources, and their policy beliefs – matter when anthropogenic connectivity barriers are considered in ongoing management. Additionally, the factors are interrelated in a way that can obstruct the implementation of policy goals. While connectivity issues rank high and are considered a great problem all over the country, invasive species are regarded as a relatively small problem. If this should change in the future, the level of preparedness is low, primarily due to restricted implementation resources, but also due to the absence of guidance and formal responsibilities.

Client experience of street-level activation practices: Implementation of discourage policy in the Czech Republic

2020 ◽  
pp. 026101832098058
Author(s):  
Barbora Gřundělová
Keyword(s):  
Czech Republic ◽  
Research Strategy ◽  
Job Seekers ◽  
The Czech Republic ◽  
Street Level ◽  
Policy Goals ◽  
Formal Policy ◽  
Activation Policy ◽  
Depth Interviews

Despite the fact that the unemployment rate in the Czech Republic is one of the lowest in Europe, the country suffers from stagnating long-term unemployment. At the same time, there is a large number of people who fall out of the system as a result of harsh sanctions. The article aims to examine how the activation policy is implemented from the perspective of job seekers and to identify street-level activation practices using a micro-institutionalist perspective. To meet the objective, we used a qualitative research strategy and in-depth interviews. The results of the study show how particular levels of activation intertwine and how they strengthen and create a comprehensive normative system around work, unemployment, and financial support, thus enabling the implementation of the street-level activation practices. Street-level bureaucrats pursue formal policy goals that seek to discourage people from entitlement to benefits and services to cut down expenditures and improve statistics.

scholarly journals Title IX coordinators as street-level bureaucrats in U.S. schools: Challenges addressing sex discrimination in the #MeToo era

2018 ◽  
Vol 26 ◽  
pp. 68
Author(s):  
Elizabeth J. Meyer ◽  
Andrea Somoza-Norton ◽  
Natalie Lovgren ◽  
Andrea Rubin ◽  
Mary Quantz
Keyword(s):  
Gender Equity ◽  
Title Ix ◽  
School Administrators ◽  
Sex Discrimination ◽  
Structured Interviews ◽  
Policy And Practice ◽  
State Regulations ◽  
Street Level ◽  
Street Level Bureaucrats ◽  
K 12

Sex discrimination in educational contexts is an ongoing problem despite the passage of Title IX in 1972. Many schools have not aligned their policies with new laws protecting students from bullying and harassment, and many professionals are unaware of their new obligations in regards to new state regulations. This article presents the findings from semi-structured interviews with 10 participants reporting on the roles and responsibilities of Title IX coordinators in their K-12 school districts. Title IX coordinators were difficult to locate and recruitment was a challenge in this study. However, our findings indicate a strong alignment with Lipsky’s concept of “street-level bureaucrats” (1971, 2010). We found that these school administrators had autonomy and discretion in interpreting and enacting their duties, however they lacked time, information, and other resources necessary to respond properly to the stated duties in their position. They reported spending very little time on Title IX-related duties, many felt under-supported and under-prepared, and few had comprehensive understanding of their responsibilities. We conclude with recommendations for policy and practice regarding the training and supports of Title IX coordinators and related gender equity efforts in K-12 schools.

scholarly journals General Practitioners' Discretion of Preventive Needs

2015 ◽  
Vol 5 (3) ◽  
Author(s):  
Sofie Ilsvard ◽  
Marie Østergaard Møller
Keyword(s):  
General Practice ◽  
Lifestyle Intervention ◽  
General Practitioners ◽  
Educational Background ◽  
Preventive Strategies ◽  
Health Prevention ◽  
Structured Interviews ◽  
Professional Ideology ◽  
Street Level ◽  
Street Level Bureaucrats

This article examines general practitioners’ discretion in preventive contexts. Based on semi-structured interviews with 15 general practitioners, we examine how lifestyle is used in their discretionary practices in contexts of healthcare prevention. Despite common educational background and professional ideology, GPs’ do not share lifestyle and our analyses show that this matters to their discretion of patients’ need for lifestyle intervention.  The correspondence between general practitioners’ preventive strategies and their own lifestyle preferences is interpreted as evidence of autonomy in general practice where general practitioners act relatively autonomously and differ in their interpretation of how preventive policies should be exercised in practice towards patients.Keywords:  discretion, lifestyle, health prevention and promotion, street-level bureaucrats, general practitioners

Street-level bureaucrats: tensions and challenges in online placemaking

2021 ◽  
Vol ahead-of-print (ahead-of-print) ◽  
Author(s):  
Pieter Breek ◽  
Jasper Eshuis ◽  
Joke Hermes
Keyword(s):  
Social Media ◽  
Local Governments ◽  
Second Phase ◽  
Structured Interviews ◽  
Content Type ◽  
Emotional Labour ◽  
Street Level ◽  
Open Coding ◽  
Street Level Bureaucrats ◽  
Use Of Social Media

Purpose Social media have become a key part of placemaking. Placemaking revolves around collaboration between multiple stakeholders, which requires ongoing two-way communication between local government and citizens. Although social media offer promising tools for local governments and public professionals in placemaking, they have not lived up to their potential. This paper aims to uncover the tensions and challenges that social media bring for public professionals at the street level in placemaking processes. Design/methodology/approach This study aims to fill this gap with a case study of area brokers engaged in online placemaking in Amsterdam. In total, 14 in-depth semi-structured interviews were conducted, focusing on area brokers’ social media practices, perceptions and challenges. The authors used an open coding strategy in the first phase of coding. In the second phase, the authors regrouped codes in thematic categories with the use of sensitizing concepts derived from the theoretical review. Findings The use of social media for placemaking imposes demands on area brokers from three sides: the bureaucracy, the affordances of social media and affective publics. The paper unpacks pressures area brokers are under and the (emotional) labour they carry out to align policy and bureaucratic requirements with adequate communication needed in neighbourhood affairs on social media. The tensions and the multidimensionality of what is required explain the reluctance of area brokers to exploit the potential of social media in their work. Originality/value Several studies have addressed the use of social media in placemaking, but all neglected the perspective of street-level bureaucrats who shape the placemaking process in direct contact with citizens.

Between suspicion, nicknames, and trust—renegotiating ethnographic access with Swedish border police

2020 ◽  
Vol 9 (2) ◽  
pp. 143-157
Author(s):  
Lisa Marie Borrelli
Keyword(s):  
Police Officers ◽  
Rites Of Passage ◽  
Participant Observation ◽  
Research Field ◽  
The Other ◽  
Structured Interviews ◽  
Content Type ◽  
State Institutions ◽  
Street Level ◽  
Street Level Bureaucrats

PurposeThis article contributes the following: First, it argues along previous works that rites of passage include continuous testing, which needs to be passed in order to gain a certain level of acceptance within the research field. Here besides the emotional effort, researchers have to position themselves and are confronted with questions of trust. Second, it is argued that the collected and analysed data on the rites of passage enable us to make sense of street-level bureaucrats' work and functioning of state institutions, especially in a police context. Reflections on research negotiations drew the author's attention to how mistrust towards the “other”, here defined as migrant other, prevails the migration regime. This mistrust is later transferred onto the researcher, whose stay is deemed questionable and eventually intrusive.Design/methodology/approachThe collected data include semi-structured interviews, as well as several months of participant observation with street-level officers and superordinate staff, deepening previous discussions on research access and entrance. It further allows understanding street-level narratives, especially when it comes to the culture of suspicion embedded in police work, connecting the experienced tests with the everyday knowledge of police officers and case workers.FindingsThe analysis of rites of passage enable us to make sense of street-level bureaucrats' work, especially in a police context, since we find a specific way of suspicion directed towards the researcher. It is based on a general mistrust towards the “other”, here defined as migrant other, whose stay is deemed illegal and thus intruding. In this context, the positionality of the researcher becomes crucial and needs strategical planning.Research limitations/implicationsAccessing and being able to enter the “field” is of crucial relevance to researchers, interested in studying, e.g. sense-making and decision-making of the respective interlocutors. Yet, ethnographic accounts often disclose only partially, which hurdles, limiting or contesting their aspirations to conduct fieldwork, were encountered.Originality/valueThe personal role of researchers, their background and emotions are often neglected when describing ethnographic research. Struggles and what these can say about the studied field are thus left behind, although they contribute to a richer understanding of the functioning of the chosen fields. This work will examine how passing the test and going through rituals of “becoming a member” can tell us more about the functioning of a government agency, here a Swedish border police unit.

Policy Refiners and Street-Level Lesson Learners

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Alastair Stark
Keyword(s):  
Policy Evaluation ◽  
Central Government ◽  
Street Level ◽  
Street Level Bureaucrats ◽  
Central Level ◽  
Government Level ◽  
Inquiry Lesson

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.

Labour Input Logic of Street-Level Bureaucrats: Evidence from Chinese Market Supervision Commission

2021 ◽  
pp. 147892992110215
Author(s):  
Chunna Li ◽  
Jun Yang
Keyword(s):  
Organizational Climate ◽  
Time Allocation ◽  
Public Management ◽  
New Public Management ◽  
Strong Impact ◽  
Chinese Market ◽  
Frontline Staff ◽  
Street Level ◽  
Labour Input ◽  
Street Level Bureaucrats

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.

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