scholarly journals Superhero, Sleeping Beauty, or Devil? The Making of Orphan Myths and Public Administration

Public Voices ◽  
2017 ◽  
Vol 14 (2) ◽  
pp. 67
Author(s):  
Mariglynn Edlins
Keyword(s):  
Public Administration ◽  
Sleeping Beauty ◽  
The State ◽  
Horror Films ◽  
Public Administrators ◽  
Vulnerable Children ◽  
Romance Novels ◽  
Street Level ◽  
Street Level Bureaucrats

Children who are separated from their parents, whether temporarily or permanently, become dependent on representatives of the state to make the day-to-day decisions of their care. In these interactions with vulnerable children, these representatives rely on their own discretion to guide them in how to approach the children they are responsible for. What stories exist that might influence how street-level bureaucrats think about children who are separated from their parents? What narratives might inform the discretion and judgment they use in their work? In this paper, I explore the narratives of superhero stories, romance novels, and horror films in order to identify the orphan archetypes they portray and consider how these myths might impact the interactions between orphans and public administrators.

scholarly journals Walking the Talk of Social Equity? Street-Level Bureaucrats’ Decisionmaking About the Provision of Personal Resources

2021 ◽  
pp. 027507402110505
Author(s):  
Einat Lavee
Keyword(s):  
Public Administration ◽  
Low Income ◽  
Social Service ◽  
Service Providers ◽  
Social Equity ◽  
Personal Resources ◽  
Personal Resource ◽  
Social Service Providers ◽  
Street Level ◽  
Street Level Bureaucrats

While public administration scholars argue that core values of social equity are exceedingly important in service provision, less is known of how these values are practised on the frontline in the contemporary public administration. Research points to a dual trend: together with practices aimed at increasing clients’ wellbeing, public service workers’ decisions about allocating public resources are guided by moral perceptions of worthiness, leaving behind the most weakened populations. The current study aims to decipher this duality, analyzing street-level bureaucrats’ decisionmaking about providing personal resources to low-income clients, in order to examine whether the pursuit of social equity is manifested in informal practices. Drawing on indepth qualitative interviews of social service providers in Israel, we found that decisionmaking about personal resource provision is grounded in two distinct sets of values. Alongside a pattern of providing resources to deserving clients, street-level bureaucrats also provide them to clients typically considered undeserving. These latter practices are aimed at decreasing social inequality, demonstrating that social service providers often walk the talk of social equity.

Interpreting the 2004 Moroccan Family Law: Street-Level Bureaucrats, Women's Groups, and the Preservation of Multiple Normativities

2018 ◽  
Vol 43 (04) ◽  
pp. 1514-1541 ◽  
Author(s):  
Dörthe Engelcke
Keyword(s):  
Family Law ◽  
The State ◽  
Homogeneous State ◽  
Women's Groups ◽  
Cultural Resistance ◽  
Street Level ◽  
Women’S Groups ◽  
Street Level Bureaucrats ◽  
Normative Order ◽  
Enforcement Mechanisms

A decade after celebrating Morocco's 2004 family law as a social revolution, women's groups became dismayed by the persistence of minor marriage, polygyny, and marriage guardianship. Conventional explanations for why statutory law reform often fails to produce intended outcomes depart from the concept of the homogeneous state, pointing to insufficient enforcement mechanisms and cultural resistance to the new law within society. Arguing against this conceptualization, this article adopts the state-in-society approach. It compares how two types of street-level bureaucrats and secular and Islamist women's groups have engaged with the 2004 law. It finds that different groups have emphasized and rejected different categories and norms of the law. Street-level bureaucrats' interpretations have sometimes overlapped with those of civil society actors. The state is therefore not enforcing one normative order against cultural resistance from society; instead, different state actors are themselves actively involved in the production and preservation of multiple normativities.

scholarly journals Public Administration Practitioners at Academic Conferences: Why to Present and How to Succeed

2016 ◽  
Author(s):  
David S. Reed
Keyword(s):  
Public Administration ◽  
Real World ◽  
State Of The Art ◽  
The State ◽  
Professional Relationships ◽  
Public Administrators ◽  
Academic Conferences

Practitioners who present at public administration academic conferences can build professional relationships, sharpen their thinking, get referrals to people, research and techniques, strengthening their resumes, and advance the state of the art. Practitioners can present real-world experience with cases they handle and techniques they apply -- this paper gives examples and identifies common pitfalls. Tips on presenting include how to reach out before your presentation to encourage attendance. This paper appeared first on Center for Public Administrators www.PubAdmin.org

Explaining coping strategies of agricultural extension officers in Tanzania: the role of the wider institutional context

2019 ◽  
Vol 86 (4) ◽  
pp. 749-764
Author(s):  
Wilfred Lameck ◽  
Rudie Hulst
Keyword(s):  
Coping Strategies ◽  
Public Administration ◽  
Professional Community ◽  
Institutional Context ◽  
Agricultural Extension ◽  
Individual Characteristics ◽  
The Public ◽  
Street Level ◽  
Street Level Bureaucrats ◽  
The Individual

Building on Lipsky, public administration scholars have conducted ample research on the coping strategies of street-level bureaucrats. To explain their behaviour, many studies focus on the individual characteristics of street-level workers or on features of the organization that they form part of. So far, less attention has been paid to the influence of the wider institutional context. This article presents findings of research on how different elements of the institutional context – the formal public administration, the norms of the professional community and the expectations of the public – can explain the coping strategies of agricultural extension officers in Tanzania. In the absence of specific guidance from the administrative context and of pressure by the public, the strategies that these street-level workers choose are primarily inspired by the norms of their professional community. Points for practitioners Public managers should be especially aware of the fact that, to a large extent, the professional norms of street-level workers determine how they use their discretion. Therefore, the training of street-level bureaucrats should not only focus on their professional abilities, but also include the transfer of key values of the public service.

Community Policing: Misunderstanding and Misapplication Following Police Shootings

2021 ◽  
pp. 009539972110450
Author(s):  
Joshua Malay
Keyword(s):  
Community Policing ◽  
The State ◽  
Role Of Government ◽  
Street Level ◽  
Police Shootings ◽  
Democratic Control ◽  
The Law ◽  
Street Level Bureaucrats

Prevailing community policing theory identifies the purpose of community policing being to empower state policing not diminish it. This basis identifies a major misconception of those arguing for police defunding, as it fails to address the realities and limitations of street-level bureaucrats in exercising their authority. Misapplying emotional calls for restructuring into perceived democratic control of the bureaucracy. This article explores the inherent problems within community policing and serves to link these problems within a larger discussion of governance and policing, making an argument that the calls for defunding and community policing at best demonstrate misunderstanding and at worst represent a poorly articulated political ploy. In either case, understanding the larger role of how the state legitimates policing identifies an inherent disconnect between policy and implementation. Substantive change in policing must come from changes in the law that provide the staying power for reform to overcome bureaucratic retrenchment to change and in our view of governance, specifically in what should be enforced and the role of government in maintaining order, to ensure that these reflect the realities of policing.

State Intervention and Vulnerable Children: Implementation Revisited

2006 ◽  
Vol 35 (2) ◽  
pp. 211-227 ◽  
Author(s):  
CATHY MURRAY
Keyword(s):  
Child Welfare ◽  
Policy Making ◽  
Local Authority ◽  
State Intervention ◽  
Vulnerable Children ◽  
Street Level ◽  
Legal Supervision ◽  
Implementation Studies ◽  
Street Level Bureaucrats ◽  
Implementation Stage

This article derives from a two year study of ‘Home Supervision’, conducted as part of a programme of research on the Children (Scotland) Act 1995. The focus is on children looked after by the local authority who are on a legal supervision order at home, primarily as a consequence of having been abused or neglected, having offended or having failed to attend school without reasonable excuse. Two assumptions, both arguably a legacy of Lipsky, are challenged: first, that non-implementation by street-level bureaucrats is in opposition to their managers; and, second, the passivity of clients in respect of policy making. It is argued that the street-level bureaucrats and managers in the Home Supervision study share assumptive worlds in respect of children on home supervision, and that clients, as agentic actors, reveal a capacity for shaping policy at the implementation stage. These issues are explored and their implications for implementation studies and child welfare are discussed.

scholarly journals Frontline Employee Organizational Behavior based on street level bureaucracy reviews

2020 ◽  
Vol 1 (1) ◽  
pp. 24-30
Author(s):  
Marianus Dabingaya
Keyword(s):  
Organizational Behavior ◽  
Public Administration ◽  
Human Behavior ◽  
Human Being ◽  
Frontline Employee ◽  
Street Level ◽  
Street Level Bureaucrats ◽  
Behavior Based ◽  
Very High ◽  
Street Level Bureaucracy

This article discusses organizational behavior is the result of interactions between individuals in an organization. The reality of public administration in a 'street level' bureaucracy is that it cannot operate hierarchically because the agency has to rely on street-level bureaucrats to provide services. The orientation of street level bureaucracy towards regulations and procedures is very high and makes it a barometer of service which results in low ability of street level bureaucracy to respond to changes, lack of initiative and development of creativity in controlling change so that routine is considered something normal. Understanding human behavior is a difficult thing because every human being as an individual has different behavior. Street-level bureaucrats have so much discretion that the problem is found in a lack of accountability either to the wider community, to management, or to clients.

scholarly journals Using Ignorance as (Un)Conscious Bureaucratic Strategy

2018 ◽  
Vol 5 (2) ◽  
pp. 95-109 ◽  
Author(s):  
Lisa Marie Borrelli
Keyword(s):  
Public Administration ◽  
Legal Status ◽  
Structural Violence ◽  
Member States ◽  
Daily Work ◽  
Ethnographic Fieldwork ◽  
Street Level ◽  
Street Level Bureaucrats ◽  
Precarious Legal Status

Street-level bureaucrats working in the field of migration enforcement have the uneasy task of finding irregularised migrants and processing their cases – often until deportation. As the encounters are unforeseeable and characterised by tension and emotions, bureaucrats develop practices and strategies, which help them to manage the often very personal encounters. Besides the frequently debated strategies summarised under the term ‘copying mechanisms’ and the problem of ‘dirty’ or many hands, ignorance as a tactic in the daily work of bureaucrats has not been studied to a sufficient extent. This work looks at how ignorance, including deliberate not-knowing or blinding out, as well as undeliberate partial-knowing or being kept ignorant, is used in public administration, through multi-sited, ethnographic fieldwork in migration offices and border police/guard offices of three Schengen Member States: Sweden, Switzerland and Latvia. It distinguishes between structural and individual ignorance, which both have the ability to limit migrant’s agency. Further, by analysing their intertwined relation, this article furthers our understanding of how uncertainty and a lack of accountability become results of everyday bureaucratic encounters. Ignorance thus obscures state practices, subjecting migrants with precarious legal status to structural violence.

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