Arbeitsvermittlung im Spannungsfeld von Dienstleistung und Kontrolle – Eine multimethodische Studie zu Eingliederungsvereinbarungen in der Grundsicherung für Arbeitsuchende

2021 ◽  
Vol 70 (99) ◽  
pp. 1-20
Author(s):  
Monika Senghaas ◽  
Sarah Bernhard
Keyword(s):  
Service Provision ◽  
Qualitative Interviews ◽  
Group Discussions ◽  
Street Level ◽  
Legal Provisions ◽  
The Social ◽  
Social Code ◽  
Street Level Bureaucrats ◽  
And Control ◽  
Back To Work

Zusammenfassung Arbeitsvermittler*innen wenden als Street-Level Bureaucrats die Bestimmungen des Sozialgesetzbuches II auf einzelne Bürger*innen an. Sie handeln dabei im Spannungsfeld der institutionellen Logiken von Dienstleistung und Kontrolle, die über die sogenannte Eingliederungsvereinbarung – einem Vertrag zwischen Jobcenter und Arbeitsuchenden – handlungsrelevant werden. Der Beitrag untersucht anhand standardisierter und qualitativer Befragungen von Arbeitsvermittler*innen, wie diese mit dem „doppelten Mandat“ des Dienstleistungs- und Kontrollauftrags umgehen und wie sie die Mehrdeutigkeiten der Eingliederungsvereinbarung in der Interaktion mit Arbeitsuchenden verarbeiten. Die Analyse zeigt, dass Arbeitsvermittler*innen fall- und prozessbezogen kooperative oder direktive Elemente der Eingliederungsvereinbarung akzentuieren. Sie beschreiben jedoch auch Fallkonstellationen, in denen sie ihren Entscheidungsspielraum zum Einsatz der Eingliederungsvereinbarung als unzureichend wahrnehmen oder in denen die Eingliederungsvereinbarung zu einer bürokratisch-leeren Übung wird. Abstract: Job Placement Between Service Provision and Control. A Multi-Method Study on Back-to-Work Agreements As street-level bureaucrats, jobcentre advisors apply the legal provisions of the Social Code II to individual cases. In doing so, they act along the institutional logics of counselling and control, which become relevant for action through the back-to-work agreement – a contract between jobcentre and jobseeker. Based on a standardised survey and qualitative interviews and group discussions in jobcentres, this article examines how jobcentre advisors reconcile the logics of service provision and control in their interaction with clients. It is shown that jobcentre advisors accentuate cooperative or directive elements of the back-towork-agreement on a case-by-case basis. They also describe constellations in which they perceive their discretion regarding the back-to-work agreement as insufficient or in which the back-to-work agreement becomes a bureaucratic and empty exercise.

scholarly journals Who Is in Charge? The Provision of Informal Personal Resources at the Street Level

2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Einat Lavee
Keyword(s):  
Public Administration ◽  
Public Service ◽  
Service Provision ◽  
Public Services ◽  
Qualitative Interviews ◽  
Personal Resources ◽  
The Public ◽  
Street Level ◽  
Main Factors ◽  
Informal Service

Abstract Street-level bureaucrats (SLBs) nowadays provide services under conditions of increased demand for public services coupled with scarcer financial resources. The literature that focuses on how workers adapt to this situation mainly examines their provision of formal resources as part of their job. What researchers have not systematically examined is the delivery of informal personal resources (IFRs) by street-level workers to clients. Understanding the provision of IFRs is particularly important when “no one is fully in charge” of public services. Drawing on 214 in-depth qualitative interviews with SLBs who provide education, health, and welfare services in the public sector in Israel, we found a remarkable range of IFRs they provided to clients. We also found that four main factors influencing the provision of IFRs: lack of formal resources; professional commitment; managerial encouragement; and a work environment whose values combine old and new approaches to public service. The findings contribute to the public administration literature by exposing how public service function in a somewhat vague reality, and they contribute to the SLB literature by highlighting the unrecognized component of informal service provision.

Administrative Justice in Street-Level Decision-Making

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Nadine Raaphorst
Keyword(s):  
Law Enforcement ◽  
Public Service ◽  
Service Provision ◽  
Future Research ◽  
Professional Judgment ◽  
Policy Makers ◽  
Street Level ◽  
Societal Challenges ◽  
Street Level Bureaucrats ◽  
Discretionary Powers

Street-level bureaucrats’ discretionary powers play an increasingly important role in public service provision and law enforcement. In order to deal with societal challenges, legislators and policy-makers leave room for professional judgment by formulating open laws, rules, and policies. In making responsive decisions, however, that is, when treating different cases differently, street-level bureaucrats do not necessarily attach less value to treating similar cases alike. This chapter discusses how two notions of fairness—treating similar cases alike and treating dissimilar cases differently—are studied in street-level bureaucracy literature, and sheds light on the factors that influence how bureaucrats behave in this regard. Subsequently, it is explored how street-level bureaucrats could enhance equality of treatment when rules run out. The chapter concludes with an agenda for future research.

scholarly journals Deserving of Social Support? Street-Level Bureaucrats’ Decisions on EU Migrants’ Benefit Claims in Germany

2021 ◽  
pp. 1-12
Author(s):  
Nora Ratzmann
Keyword(s):  
Market Integration ◽  
Qualitative Interviews ◽  
German Language ◽  
Cultural Performance ◽  
Host Society ◽  
Street Level ◽  
Societal Norms ◽  
Welfare Fraud ◽  
Street Level Bureaucrats

Migration raises the question of how street-level bureaucrats treat non-citizens when it comes to the distribution of limited welfare resources. Based on a German case study, this article reveals how local social administrators rationalise practices of inclusion in and exclusion from social assistance receipt and associated labour market integration services for mobile EU citizens, who are perceived first and foremost as ‘foreigners’. The findings from fifty-five qualitative interviews with job centre representatives show how politics of exclusion are justified by nationalistic and ethnic criteria of membership. Insofar as EU migrants are considered outsiders to the imagined welfare community of their host country, they are seen as less deserving than German-born claimants. However, mobile EU citizens can earn their legitimacy to access benefit receipt through sustained participation in the host society, demonstrating knowledge of the German language and societal norms so as to appear ‘German’. Such a cultural performance-based logic of deservingness tends to be intertwined with nationality-based and racialising stereotypes of welfare fraud to frame exclusionary practice.

Street-Level Bureaucrats: Discretion and Compliance in Policy Implementation

2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Tony Evans
Keyword(s):  
Policy Implementation ◽  
Public Service ◽  
Service Provision ◽  
Public Services ◽  
Service Workers ◽  
Frontline Workers ◽  
Street Level ◽  
Conflicting Demands ◽  
Street Level Bureaucrats ◽  
Street Level Bureaucracy

In 1980 Michael Lipsky published “Street-level Bureaucracy,” arguing that public policy is often vague and imprecise, and relies on frontline workers to make sense of it on the ground in delivering public services. At the same time, the book is critical of frontline workers for not complying with policy in their use of discretion. Lipsky’s approach has influenced a great deal of subsequent analysis of public service provision, but continues to contain an unresolved tension at its core. If policy is vague, how can discretion be judged non-compliant against it? The street-level bureaucracy approach has tended to seek to resolve this tension by assuming that all public services are fundamentally the same and that all public service workers should use discretion in a particular way. While street-level bureaucracies—front line public services—are similar in that they are subject to policies, operate under conditions of inadequate resources, and afford frontline workers discretion in their work, there are also significant differences between types of public services in the ways they work with policy and the nature and extent of discretion of staff delivering the service. Different services do different things; the nature of the policy they work with varies, and the logic of provision and priorities vary between services. Policy, for instance, may refer to a precise set of instructions, or to setting out particular concerns or broad-brush commitments. Some services, such as benefits provision, are specified in detailed policy which not only sets out what they can do but also how decisions should be made. Others services, such as policing, are subject to a range of policies and concerns often expressed as conflicting demands that have to be balanced and managed in the particular circumstances of their application. And others, mainly human services, are primarily thought of in terms what the professionals within provide, and assumes a logic of service provision to be located in those providing the service. Policy is sometimes more explicit and discretion narrower; it is sometimes looser and relies more on discretion. It may, in some circumstances, be sufficient to refer to policy to understand what services are supposed to do; in other circumstances, policy alone provides a poor picture of what’s expected. Street-level bureaucracy analysis is too broad-brush and cannot capture the range of ideas of compliance in public services. It tends to equate policy with instruction and judgement with organizational thinking, and to see non-compliance as endemic in the use of discretion. In doing this, it fails to appreciate the variety of relationships between policy and public services; the varied extent of discretion in different settings, and the range of concerns and ethical commitments in different public services. Compliance in policy implementation needs to be sensitive to different types of public services and the subsequent variety of commitments and concerns of street-level bureaucrats in those public services.

scholarly journals COVID 19: ASSESSING SOCIAL WELFARE POLICY AND THE INVOLVEMENT OF STREET LEVEL BUREAUCRATS IN NIGERIA

2020 ◽  
Vol 7 (1) ◽  
pp. 1-14
Author(s):  
Ajulor O. ◽  
◽  
Okewale R. ◽  
Aliu F. ◽  
Ojikutu A. ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Social Welfare ◽  
Welfare Policy ◽  
Health Sector ◽  
Secondary Data ◽  
Emergency Situation ◽  
Social Welfare Policy ◽  
Street Level ◽  
The Social ◽  
Street Level Bureaucrats ◽  
The Government

The incident of COVID – 19 in Nigeria has exposed the dilapidated level of the health sector, inadequacy in the provision and administration of social welfare to the citizens and the challenges faced by the street-level bureaucrats in their course of duties to fight COVID 19. The Study assesses the social welfare policy of COVID 19 in Nigeria and the involvement of the street-level bureaucrat. The study relies on secondary data with content analysis of books, journals, internet source and other relevant materials. The study revealed that COVID 19 pandemic with its damaging effects is real in Nigeria and the number of effected persons and death are gradually increasing. The social welfare policy measures by the government is inadequate, the frontline healthcare bureaucrats faced the challenge of coping with the outbreak of COVID-19 due to shortage of resources such as: equipment, staff, protection gears and other accessories needed to work. Most Nigerian did not believe in the existence of the coronavirus. The study recommended that Nigeria should improve on testing capacity; recruit more health care personnel, Institutionalize people oriented social welfare policies with or without emergency situation; there should investment on street level bureaucrats in area of capacity building and motivation. Awareness and sensitization should be created on the existence COVID 19 pandemic and its ravaging effects through mobilization of the people at the grassroots. Government should open up the economy school and the churches should be opened. People must be ready to take responsibility for their healths while the WHO and countries of the word should be proactive in finding cure for the COVID 19 pandemic.

Policing the Nation: Acculturation and Street-Level Bureaucrats in Professional Life

Sociology ◽  
2015 ◽  
Vol 51 (5) ◽  
pp. 1101-1117 ◽  
Author(s):  
Ruben Gowricharn ◽  
Sinan Çankaya
Keyword(s):  
Police Officers ◽  
Social Order ◽  
Police Force ◽  
Professional Life ◽  
Social Actors ◽  
Street Level ◽  
The Social ◽  
Is Professionals ◽  
Street Level Bureaucrats

Assimilation of migrants is assumed to happen through acculturation, which is depicted as neutral, unintended and invisible. In most accounts the role of social actors is pushed into the background, and the conditions that shape and determine the direction of the acculturation are ignored. A further critique of the acculturation concept is that the content of the conveyed culture is not disclosed nor are the outcomes hinted at. We argue that the concept of norm images redresses these criticisms by eliciting the cultural content and specifying the role of actors, that is, professionals, in the conveyance of culture. Using the example of the Amsterdam police force, we demonstrate that police officers impose crucial elements of the Dutch nationalistic discourse, specifically language and loyalty, on migrant citizens and migrant colleagues alike. Thus these police officers operate as reproducers of the social order cemented by Dutch nationalism.

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