(Virtual) T06P03 / Street-level bureaucracy in weak institutions

Topic : T06 / POLICY IMPLEMENTATION

Chair : Rik Peeters (CIDE)
Second Chair : GABRIELA LOTTA
Third Chair : Fernando Nieto Morales, (El Colegio de Mexico)

GENERAL OBJECTIVES, RESEARCH QUESTIONS AND SCIENTIFIC

RELEVANCE
Objectives:
This panel aims at bringing together scholars from different regions that study policy implementation and frontline
workers in contexts of low trust, social inequality and limited state capacity. The objective is to generate new
insights about the way systemic conditions shape the nature of frontline work, develop a clearer focus on the
coping mechanisms frontline workers and citizens develop in contested contexts, and open up research in
low-trust contexts to the mainstream academic debate.

Research Context and Questions:

Most of the theory about policy implementation has been developed in USA and Western European countries,
under ideal conditions related to liberal democracies, strong institutions and, in some cases, welfare states with
low inequalities (Lipsky 1980, Maynard-Moody and Musheno, 2003, Hupe and Hill, 2007, Hupe, 2019, Hill, Hupe
and Buffat, 2015). However, it is problematic to extrapolate some of the findings from this literature into contexts
where conditions are strikingly different, such as countries characterized by weak democratic institutions and low
state capacity, scarcity of resources, conservative societies and high socio-economic inequality. This panel invites
scholars to reflect and test whether the findings and insights from implementation studies and literature about
frontline workers can apply to these different contexts.
We invite papers that aim to address the following questions:
• What happens to policy implementation in countries with weak institutions and low trust? How do these
characteristics (i.e. corruption, clientelism, neopatrimonialism and patronage) affect policy implementation?
• Which factors influence frontline workers’ work and motivation in contexts of high inequalities, scarcity of
resources and weak institutions?
• How is the interaction between frontline workers and citizens affected by these characteristics? What coping
strategies are developed by frontline workers and citizens?

We invite papers that analyze different types of policies (social, economic, fiscal, environmental, infrastructure
and so on); using different methods (qualitative, quantitative or mixed) and different approaches either about
implementation, frontline workers or administrative burdens. We also invite comparative studies.

Expected impact on public policy research:

We expect the panel to contribute to implementation studies and frontline worker theory through evidence from
contexts and countries different than those already studied by the literature. We expect that these studies
contribute to fill the gap of understanding policy implementation in different contexts and testing some of the
theories already proposed by mainstream literature. Discussions may also contribute to the literature about
development and developing countries, improving the knowledge about policy implementation challenges in these
contexts.

Tentative output suggestions:

The panel aims to impact the debate on frontline work, street-level bureaucracy, policy implementation and
administrative burdens in Latin America and the broader international academic community. The ambition is to
become an international reference for studies on street-level bureaucracy and citizen-state interactions. More
specifically, the panel will pursue various publication outlets, including the possibility of an international book
project and a special issue in a prominent international journal on public administration. The panel will also seek
to be a platform for researchers to participate in the broader international academic community, such as academic
conferences on street-level bureaucracy or policy implementation. Finally, the panel aims to foster exchange of
researchers among universities and institutes.
 CALL FOR PAPERS
The vast majority of what we know about street-level bureaucracy, policy implementation and administrative
burdens comes from studies in advanced democracies. But what happens in different social, political and
administrative contexts? Implicit assumptions about professionalism, state capacity and social trust shape the
way we have come to understand frontline work and citizen-state interactions. In this workshop, we invite scholars
to address the challenges of frontline work under conditions of low trust, social inequality and limited state
capacity. The objective of the workshop is to generate new insights about the way systemic conditions shape the
nature of frontline work, develop a clearer focus on the coping mechanisms frontline workers and citizens develop
in contested contexts, and open up research in low-trust contexts to the mainstream academic debate. This panel
has the objective of bringing together scholars from different regions that study policy implementation and
frontline workers in contexts of low trust, social inequality and limited state capacity.

We invite papers that analyze different types of policies (social, economic, fiscal, environmental, infrastructure
and so on); using different methods (qualitative, quantitative or mixed) and different approaches either about
implementation and frontline workers. We also invite comparative studies.

Questions that should guide the papers:

· What happens to policy implementation in countries with weak institutions and low trust? How do these
characteristics affect policy implementation?
· How do characteristics of low trust countries, such as corruption, clientelism, neopatrimonialism and patronage,
affect policy implementation?
· Which factors influence frontline workers that work in contexts of high inequalities, scarcity of resources and
weak institutions?
· How is the interaction between frontline workers and citizens affected by these characteristics?
· In contexts of high inequality and conservative societies, are frontline workers confronted with different kinds of
roles and decisions than already proved by the existing literature?

Main Topics:
- Frontline work in weak institutions
- Administrative burdens
- Social inequality and policy implementation
- Low trust and citizen-state interactions
- Professionalism and accountability
- Street-level corruption and clientelism
(Virtual) T06P03 / Street-level bureaucracy in weak institutions
Chair : Rik Peeters (CIDE)
Second Chair : GABRIELA LOTTA
Third Chair : Fernando Nieto Morales, (El Colegio de Mexico)

Session 1 Late afternoon

Monday, July 5th 14:00 to 16:00 (Virtual 01)

(Virtual) Officer-recipient relationships and the effectiveness of policy implementation: The case
of Prospera, Mexico
Viviana Ramírez (Universidad de las Américas - Puebla)

This article has the purpose of exploring the relational character of the implementation process of public policies
by analysing the relationship between front-line officers and recipients of one of the most notorious social
protection programmes in the world and Latin America specifically, the Oportunidades-Prospera programme in
Mexico. Oportunidades-Prospera is a conditional cash transfer that, because of its emphasis on
conditionality/co-responsibility, produces constant and compulsory interactions between health officers and
recipients during the delivery of the programme’s health conditionality. This article explores the nature of this
relationship from the perspective of health officers and analyses its implications over the quality of programme
delivery and of the implementation process. The perspectives of physicians and nurses from two localities of the
state of Puebla, an indigenous rural locality and a non-indigenous semi-rural locality, were compared through
semi-structured interviews and observations of the provision of health workshops. The results suggest that the
attitudes of health staff towards the recipients influenced significantly the quality of the workshops and the medical
attention provided as part of the programme. In turn, these perceptions and attitudes from officers about
recipients and themselves, their respective roles in the programme and the way programme delivery should take
place, was framed by three key aspects: the discourse of conditionality of the programme, the contrasting
identities between officers and recipients as well as the job position of officers within the health clinics. Ultimately,
this study shows that the relational context of the implementation process of social programmes has an important
role on the success of the programme’s aims but more importantly on the recipient’s experience of the
programme.

(Virtual) Title: The ambiguities of implementing rights. Formation, work, and relationship with
the public of street-level bureaucracy in a context of weak institutions: The case of an older
persons’ pension program in Uganda in comparative perspective.
Ronan Jacquin (Institut d'Etudes Politiques de Paris (Sciences Po))

Ronan Jacquin
PhD Candidate (Center for International Studies - Sciences Po)
ronan.jacquin@sciencespo.fr

Supervision : Richard Banégas (Center for International Studies – Sciences Po) & Philippe Bezes (Center for
European Studies and Comparative Politics – Sciences Po)

Title: The ambiguities of implementing rights. Formation, work, and relationship with the public of
street-level bureaucracy in a context of weak institutions: The case of an older persons’ pension program
in Uganda in comparative perspective.
In Africa, cash transfer (CT) programs (small public grants distributed to vulnerable targeted populations) have
now become a common feature of many governments. CT are described as a milestone in the development of
welfare in developing countries, developing new rights, and promoting an equal relationship with the state for
vulnerable citizens (Ferguson 2015).

Implementation of social policies have been long studied in industrialized countries with established
welfare-states and strong bureaucracies (Soss 2000). However, CT are often implemented precisely in national
environments characterized by weak institutions: neopatrimonial political settings, governments relying on foreign
aid, and limited resources for bureaucracies and public services, where poor people are most liable to be
deprived of their rights.

Uganda is one of those countries. It is described as a hybrid regime (Tripp 2010) marked by neopatrimonial rule,
and corruption in public administrations (Asiimwe 2013 ; Mwenda & Tangri 2005). Moreover, social policies have
historically known low levels of public funding and political commitment, being primarily driven by private and
international actors (Hickey 2013 ; Ulriksen & Katusiimeh 2014). Finally, local administrations have recently
experienced a severe reduction of their financial and political power, fueled by an authoritarian dynamic of
recentralization (Titeca 2018). How does this weak institutional context influence the implementation work of
street-level bureaucracies ?

This paper argues that those dynamics of neopatrimonialism, low administrative capacities and political
centralization impact the implementation process of the SAGE (Social Assistance Grant for Empowerment), a CT
program for older people in Uganda. Not only does it shape the street-level bureaucracy and its work, but also the
relationship with beneficiaries and the political effects on them. During two fieldworks in Uganda totaling 4
months, 54 semi-structured interviews were conducted with both beneficiaries of the SAGE program and various
political and administrative authorities involved in the implementation (SAGE employees, village chairpersons,
Parish Chiefs, development officers, etc). The study is completed by personal observations during paydays and
the consultation of archives from the program’s regional center in Kiboga district.

The effects of institutional weakness on the implementation process are developed along three main lines: First,
low administrative capacities of the SAGE program force them to rely on local political (village chairpersons),
administrative (parish chiefs) and private (bank employees) authorities to implement the program, leading to the
formation of a specific type of street-level bureaucracy structured by these local intermediaries. Second, the fact
that the program implementation goes through this heterogeneous and loose coalition working with limited
resources have different consequences on the work of frontline workers (especially regarding official guidelines)
and their interactions with beneficiaries. Third, I more specifically argue that these relationships between frontline
workers and beneficiaries are characterized by paternalism more than by neutral and bureaucratic procedures.
Thus, despite being rightful recipients of a public program, beneficiaries think of themselves and act more as
clients and “patients of the state” (Auyero 2012).

In conclusion, the paper outlines the political consequences of weak street-level bureaucracies in neopatrimonial
contexts, the difficulty to build trust and accountability between the state and its populations and to enhance
citizenship for marginalized people in rural areas.

References

Asiimwe, Godfrey B. 2013. « Of Extensive and Elusive Corruption in Uganda: Neo-Patronage, Power, and Narrow
Interests ». African Studies Review 56 (2): 12944.

Auyero, Javier. 2012. Patients of the State: The Politics of Waiting in Argentina. Duke University Press.

Ferguson James. 2015. Give a man a fish : reflections on the new politics of distribution / James Ferguson. The
Lewis Henry Morgan lectures. Durham London: Duke University Press.

Hickey, Sam. 2013. « Beyond the Poverty Agenda? Insights from the New Politics of Development in Uganda ».
World Development (43) : 194-206.

Mwenda, Andrew M., & Roger Tangri. 2005. « Patronage Politics, Donor Reforms, and Regime Consolidation in
Uganda ». African Affairs 104 (416): 44-67.

Soss, Joe. (2000). Unwanted claims: The politics of participation in the US welfare system. University of Michigan
Press.

Titeca, Kristof. 2018. « More is less? Decentralisation and regime control in neoliberal Uganda ». In Wiegratz,
Jörg, Giuliano Martiniello, et Elisa Greco (eds.), Uganda: The Dynamics of Neoliberal Transformation, 111?126.
London: Zed Books.

Tripp Aili Mari. 2010. Museveni’s Uganda : paradoxes of power in a hybrid regime. Challenge and change in
African politics. Boulder: Lynne Rienner Publishers.

Ulriksen, Marianne S., & Mesharch W. Katusiimeh. 2014. « The History of Resource Mobilization and Social
Spending in Uganda ». UNRISD Working Paper 20146. Geneva: United Nations Research Institute for Social
Development (UNRISD).

Wiegratz, Jörg, Giuliano Martiniello, et Elisa Greco (eds.). 2018. Uganda: The Dynamics of Neoliberal
Transformation. London: Zed Books.
 (Virtual) Teenage mothers: social workers as "street-level bureaucrats"
Anastasia Volodarsky (University of Haifa)
Michal Koreh (University of Haifa)
Roni Strier (University of Haifa)

Personal social services play a vital role in serving deprived populations and addressing the problems of
individuals, families, groups, and communities, yet are often characterized as weak institutions. This weakness is
attributed, among others to the weakness of the populations they serve, which tend to suffer from the intersection
of marginal locations (poverty, gender. Minorities etc.).
Social workers employed in personal social services are front line employees of the public administration and are
often considered in the literature as street-level bureaucrats. They often operate in arenas characterized by
inadequate or vague policies that urge them to develop interventions from the bottom up.
While the weakness of their targeted populations has been argued to affect social services power and resources,
we know very little on how they affect the need for street-level bureaucracy and the unique patterns of action that
are developed as a result of this encounter. The proposed paper addresses these questions through qualitative
and dyadic research of adolescent mothers and their social workers in social service departments. Adolescent
mothers live in the intersection of marginal locations, where generally four main identity categories cross shape
their realities and intensify the oppression and inequality to which they are exposed to. These categories are age,
gender, ethnicity, and status.
One of the main findings of the study is that the likelihood for vague and insufficient policy that necessitates the
formation of street level bureaucracy increases when the target population suffers from multiple marginal
locations. We find that while the services had relatively coherent policies guiding their work with specific groups,
such as 'girls in distress' and 'families', there were no designated guidelines for 'adolescent mothers'.
Consequently, these teen moms are treated by 'family' social workers which lack formal tools and resources that
are adapted to the age characteristics of the girls and to their unique situation as adolescent mothers. The
findings suggest two possible reasons for this connection. The first is that the weakness of these populations
hampers their ability to demand from the state and from the services appropriate policies and sufficient resources.
Second, it appears that the multiplicity of marginal locations and the complexity it brings with it, makes it difficult to
formulate proper and comprehensive policies.
The study also finds that the absence of formal and suitable policy guidelines forced social workers, working with
teen moms, to take decisions and develop interventions that exceed formal policy guidelines. These interventions,
which the workers termed "granny practices" were based mostly on their emotional capital. Trying to compensate
for the lack in policy and resources social workers offered their private time and their personal connection in order
to answer these teen mom's needs. While connection is invaluable, these practices remained at the personal level
and did not translate into policy practice that mobilize resources, personnel and training that are essential for
providing adequate services.
(Virtual) T06P03 / Street-level bureaucracy in weak institutions
Chair : Rik Peeters (CIDE)
Second Chair : GABRIELA LOTTA
Third Chair : Fernando Nieto Morales, (El Colegio de Mexico)

Session 2 MORNING SESSION

Tuesday, July 6th 10:00 to 12:00 (Virtual 01)

(Virtual) Politicians’ Involvement in Street-Level Policy Implementation: Implications for Social

Equity
Maayan Davidovitz (University of Haifa, Israel)
Nissim Cohen (University of Haifa)

The study explores whether the involvement of elected officials in how street-level bureaucrats implement policy
affects social equity. This question is addressed empirically through interviews and focus groups with 84
educators and social workers in Israel. Findings indicate that elected officials involve themselves directly and
indirectly in how street-level bureaucrats implement policy. Furthermore, this involvement reduces social equity in
the provision of services. The study contributes to the literature on policy implementation by enabling a deeper
understanding of the factors that shape the decision-making process of street-level bureaucrats when providing
services and that ultimately impact policy outcomes.

(Virtual) Policy Implementation in Weak Institutions: Learning from experiences of street-level

bureaucrats and program claimants in Pakistan
Aniqa Farwa (Australian Catholic University)

Street-level bureaucracy theory has been developed and researched mostly in the perspective of USA and
Western European countries with archetypical conditions. The debates and discussions predominantly originate
from the same theoretical and epistemological context where institutions are strong, and conditions are ideal. On
the contrary, in the global south, street-level bureaucracy operates differently from that of the global north with
diverse socio-economic and political context. This paper examines how policy is performed in countries with weak
institutions and low trust levels and explore how front-line providers working for two social assistance programs in
Pakistan implement the policy and how program claimants experience it.
Pakistan's social protection system embraces some social assistance programs built on the traditional religious
practice of charity and almsgiving known as Zakat and Pakistan Bait ul Maal (PBM) (World Bank, 2010). Both
programs offer a range of initiatives, but only cash assistance provided to marginalised and underprivileged
groups of people was studied in this doctoral project. In street-level organisations literature, scholars
conceptualise street-level bureaucrats as ‘key players’ in enacting policy (Riccucci, 2005) and view them as ones
who formulate the policy (Hupe & Hill, 2007). Front-line workers of Zakat and PBM are classic examples of
street-level bureaucrats (SLBs) because they decide who will receive the benefits and influences lives of people
(Hill & Hupe, 2014). Forty-one qualitative in-depth interviews with street-level bureaucrats and program claimants
across two programs were conducted.
The empirical findings from fieldwork offer both positive aspects and challenging experience for SLBs and
applicants. The programs have policy and procedures, but the way street-level bureaucrats perceived and
implemented the policy varied. The loose eligibility criteria put a lot of trust in the fairness and sensibility of the
SLB and can further expose the system to problems of inconsistency, patronage, and misdirection of the benefit.
On the other hand, broad criteria also allow SLB to exercise discretion for marginalised people who become
ineligible due to bureaucratic disentitlement. Owning to weak institutions in a developing country and low state
capacity program claimants express a high level of doubt and mistrust, and SLBs face allegations and fear of
corruption allegations. In everyday operation of SLBs, scarcity of resources creates a substantial public service
gap intensified by the citizens' lack of trust. Many everyday routines, including going to the claimant’s door to
provide information, visiting the SLBs home at odd times, giving extra care to the elderly and women are created
by the street-level bureaucrats as their unique routine of work. The findings suggest that both SLBs and program
claimants in programs understudy experience it differently. The process is less formal, broad and creates space
for political patronage and an opportunity to benefit those who can miss out. The lack of information about the
system and funding process and scarce resources creates doubts and space for corruption or perceived
corruption.

(Virtual) Encroaching upon the world class city: Street-level bureaucrats and traders' illegal
occupation of public land in Karachi's bazaar
Sophie RUSSO (Sciences Po Paris)

Karachi is Pakistan's economic capital and its major trading port. The merchants working in the old city's
wholesale markets control all of the country's imports and distribute all the locally grown and manufactured
merchandise. Yet, traders routinely engage in illegal activities. Firstly, most of these exchanges are
undocumented so as to evade taxation. They are agreed upon orally, without legally enforceable contracts, and
payments are made in cash. Further, the majority of the offerings is contraband smuggled through the Afghan
transit trade. Food items are often adulterated, and some of the merchandise on the stalls is simply not allowed
for sale in the country. Finally, traders illegally occupy land. This practice, called "encroachments", is what
occupies us in this contribution. Encroachments range from whole shops built on public land to the presence of
vendors and stalls on sidewalks and streets. The state has repeatedly attempted to crack down on this illegal
practice by carrying multiple so-called "anti-encroachment drives", most recently in 2018. Yet, all efforts have
been unsuccessful.
This contribution endeavors to explicit how informal contacts between merchants and the state officials in charge
of the implementation of public policies in the markets enable the persistence of this "economy of illegalisms"
(Foucault 1975). It analyzes the discrepancy between, on the one hand, the objectives of the 2018
anti-encroachment drive as they were stated by the Mayor and high-ranking municipal officials, and, on the other
hand, the way that the operation was actually carried out by officials on the ground. My focus is especially on the
relationships that traders have with the street-level bureaucrats (Lipsky 1980) charged with fighting
encroachments on the frontlines, namely police and municipal officials. Going beyond the paradigm of corruption
and institutional decay, I intend to show that traders' "quiet encroachment of the ordinary" (Bayat 2009) is based
on their adherence to a common set of moral values. Bazar traders all ascribe to an "ethic", according to which
the "ideal man of honor" (Weber 1905) must promote stability in the market, whatever the letter of the law.
Common adherence to this ethic is constitutive of relations of domination, whereby merchants exert authority over
the state officials charged with regulating economic activity. My intent, hence, is to shed light on the sociological
depth of informal state-society relations, by showcasing how alternate sources of authority constrain the state's
policy-making endeavors.
This contribution is based on interviews and observations carried out with traders, police officers and municipal
officials in Karachi's Old City markets over eight months in 2018 and 2019.

(Virtual) The role of street-level bureaucrats in prompting citizens to act as vigilantes

Ofek Edri (University of Haifa)
Nissim Cohen (University of Haifa)

What role do street-level bureaucrats (SLBs) play in prompting citizens to act as vigilantes and take matters into
their own hands? This study examines the unintended effect of street-level bureaucrats’ implementation of public
policy on citizens' vigilantism. In addition, we explore how the SLBs’ work characteristics and client process
routines affect citizens' perceptions about the law enforcement system.
Vigilantism is an illegal activity, carried out by a private citizen in response to a criminal activity committed by
another private citizen, against that same perpetrator. The existing literature suggests that the factors that lead to
vigilantism are correlated with distributive justice and the outcome that the crime victims receive. We argue that,
in order to characterize the relationship between the public and the authorities, we must focus on the process that
citizens experience throughout their interaction with law enforcement agencies – not merely on its outcomes.
Street-level bureaucrats are front-line workers of the public sector, who implement and even design public policy
through their daily interactions with the public. The characteristics of their work require processing information
about large numbers of customers. Therefore, SLBs develop coping mechanisms in the form of work routines,
which include stereotypes about more or less "deserving" customers. These routines are maintained by
controlling the customers and the work environment. In fact, interactions are structured so that SLBs will control
their content, timing, and pace.
Procedural justice is an element of street-level work. It refers to the degree of fairness in the process of allocating
public goods. The literature shows that such decisions are significant because they indicate to citizens their value
and place in society. Processes that lack procedural justice prevent citizens from voicing their concerns. They
also imply that decisions are being made based on personal opinions, which signals to people that they are
unworthy. We maintain that when SLBs’ work routines impair citizens' ability to make their voices heard during the
interaction, they might choose to act in vigilante ways.
We will use a qualitative methodology, which includes in-depth interviews with police officers and civilian crime
victims, as well as non-participatory observations of the complaint process. We hope to contribute to the literature
by shedding further light on the reasons why people resort to vigilantism and the possible effects of street-level
bureaucrats' discretion in this decision.
(Virtual) T06P03 / Street-level bureaucracy in weak institutions
Chair : Rik Peeters (CIDE)
Second Chair : GABRIELA LOTTA
Third Chair : Fernando Nieto Morales, (El Colegio de Mexico)

Session 3 AFTERNOON SESSION

Tuesday, July 6th 16:30 to 18:30 (Virtual 01)

(Virtual) Championing Low-Trust Bureaucracy: Evidence from Bangladeshi Street-Level

Bureaucracy During COVID-19
Shahjahan Bhuiyan (The American University in Cairo, School of Global Affairs and Public Policy (GAPP))

There has been a gradual decline of trust in public bureaucracy in many developing countries. The Bangladeshi
public bureaucracy is reportedly highly corrupt, which contributes to a trust deficit between bureaucrats and
citizens. As a result, there is an absence of efficiency and effectiveness in public service delivery. Against this
backdrop, street-level bureaucrats in Bangladesh, particularly public healthcare workers, have risked their lives to
deliver healthcare services to COVID-19 patients since the onset of the pandemic. Available data reveal that, as
of December 30, 2020, at least 8149 healthcare professionals have been infected with COVID-19 and 127
physicians have died. The objective of this article, therefore, is to understand the reasons behind why public
healthcare workers risk the lives in delivering healthcare services to COVID-19 patients. Based on survey and
interviews with public healthcare workers and professionals, the finding of this empirical study demonstrates that
they risked their lives of safeguard the lives of COVID-19 patients for reasons such as to uphold the value of
humanity, support the government's efforts of crisis management, loyalty to their profession, and to ensure
bureaucratic accountability. The study finding further shows that this unusual bureaucratic behavior, in the
Bangladeshi context, made them trustworthy to citizens, COVID-19 patients, and their family members, in
particular.

(Virtual) Study of the interaction within the implementation of social programs in Cali, Colombia,
using the Contextual Interaction Theory
andrea peroni (universidad de chile)
Francisco Ulloa Osses (Universidad de Chile)

Research on the implementation of public policies has had to face the current challenges imposed by the
pandemic and its measures to tackle it, both in monitoring and evaluation of its processes and results. These
challenges have largely depended on social, economic, cultural, environmental, and infrastructural conditions,
beyond policymaking.

Therefore, research on this should not just consider the extent and capacity of the institutions implementing
initiatives and policies, but also the sociocultural features of specific societies, such as the quality of democracy,
trust in, and accountability of formal organizations.

The case of Colombia in this regard proves to be particularly interesting due to the fact that it contrasts both
mentioned sides. On one hand, its public management is recognized in Latin America for its level of
development, as it counts with a high level of differentiation in the organization of tasks, many indicators, and the
planning of long-term public policies, among other factors. On the other hand, it is a country that has a history of
strong clientelism, patronage, and de facto legal and illegal economic groups meddling in politics.

This dichotomy results in a rich case study, to research how the interaction process finally unfolds within the
implementation of policies where all these divergent elements are bought together; employing emerging theories,
such as the Contextual Interaction Theory CIT (Javakhishvilo & Jibladze, 2018), which focuses on three main
dimensions: motivation, information, and power of stakeholders.
Using a multiple case methodology, this presentation seeks to identify the social links and the approaches to four
different social programs in Cali that are configured at the implementation level between the different actors
engaged. These four programs to be analyzed were selected following a typology proposed by Martínez Nogueira
(2004) where they can be distinguished according to the degree of interaction and the homogeneity in the tasks
involved.

Results show that low interaction between the target population, policy makers and street bureaucrats may lead
policymaking and implementation for a beneficiary population, without considering this population. Furthermore,
the political instability and the meddling of private sectors ends up being a threat to the continuity and efficiency
of the programs, which push the target population to take an active role in the implementation, and street
bureaucrats to widen their discretion while coping with not previously overlooked and complex factors.

(Words: 383)

(Virtual) Implementation of top-down policies by frontline workers in Mexico during the Covid-19
pandemic
Alejandra Penilla Diez de Bonilla (Centro de Investigación y Docencia Económicas)

Michael Lipsky´s work (1980) made evident the fundamental role that street-level bureaucrats (SLB) have
implementing public policies (Lipsky, 1980). It is throughout them (front-line officers, police officers, social
workers, teachers, nurses) that the government will carry out the public policy decisions and who will have final
contact with citizens (Kelly, 1994 cited in Carrington, 2005, p. 141). This approach is essential to understand the
behavior of SLB during the implementation of a policy (Lipsky, 2010). However, the literature on SLB emphasizes
on the interaction between them and the citizens they serve, their discretion, their cope mechanisms they utilize to
comply with their demanding jobs. In this article, I am interested in examining how frontline workers collectively
implement a top-down policy during the pandemic crisis.

Throughout the use of in-depth interviews, I will examine how teachers and principals at the middle school level
implement the policy of their School Technical Council in Mexico City. The technical councils were a collegiate
body present at some schools since the beginning of the XIX century. However, they became mandatory in every
primary and middle school in the country until 2013 with the educational reform. The members of these councils
are the school's teachers and their principal, who meet the last Friday of every month, a day where classes are
cancelled for students. The main goal of the technical council is to be a collegiate space that promotes the
exchange of ideas and actions to better solve the hurdles of the school and its students. In order to achieve this
goal, at the beginning of each school year, teachers and their principal elaborate an annual project with the most
prevailing tasks they must achieve to improve student's development and education quality. Some of the research
done by Mexican scholars around this topic have focused on how these councils promotes in-service teacher
education, how they might be used as a mechanism to evaluate teachers’ performance, how technical councils
might improve inclusion, and how schools adopted this policy.
This article fits this panel’s criteria since Mexico’s context differs from those developed by the literature. For
instance, there has been several attempts to decentralize Public Education, but the most significant components
of the educational system continue to be centralized, such as curriculum, teachers’ hiring and promotion
processes, and teacher’s evaluation. Moreover, the teacher’s labor union is a powerful political actor in the
country, which is one of the factors that will be analyzed during this paper as well. Other aspects that I am
interested to analyze are whether teachers identify themselves more as professionals or government employees,
the effect that the implementation of top-down policies has on their trust of the policy and the current government,
if different styles of a principal’s leadership has an effect on the way teachers implement the policy, how well
prepare are the principals to propitiate a collaborative environment during the council’s gatherings, and how the
online meetings have modified the interaction of the council's members during the current health crisis.
(Virtual) T06P03 / Street-level bureaucracy in weak institutions
Chair : Rik Peeters (CIDE)
Second Chair : GABRIELA LOTTA
Third Chair : Fernando Nieto Morales, (El Colegio de Mexico)

Session 4
Wednesday, July 7th 16:30 to 18:30 (Virtual 01)

(Virtual) HIV POLICY IN A CONTEXT OF HIGH INEQUALITIES: BETWEEN POLITICAL AND

SOCIAL CATEGORIES
Laura Salatino (FGV EAESP)
Juliana Rocha Miranda
Maria Izabel Costa

This paper aims to discuss the HIV local policy implementation context in the city of Sao Paulo, particularly in a
high vulnerable territory. The analysis is based on street-level bureaucrats' perspective, focusing on young people
who access the HIV policy. Furthermore, it reflects on the alignments between the categories used by
professionals and those proposed by the policy regarding risk behavior and prevention strategies.
Therefore, this work explores the connections and disconnections between the political and social categories
articulated by these actors (LOTTA and PIRES, 2020; HARRITS and MOLLER, 2013; COSTA and LOTTA, 2019)
in an environment with high inequalities and limited resources, including unequal access to information. In
addiction, it seeks to discuss how this categories’ articulation influence the construction of different concepts of
worthiness operated by professionals (LOTTA, 2017; SALATINO, MIRANDA, LOTTA, 2019), which, in the end,
means different access to the service and asymmetrical treatments to citizens.
This proposal is part of a larger research which aims to investigate the potencialities and gaps in the
implementation of the HIV local policy for young people present in a vulnerable and unequal territory of the city of
São Paulo. To meet this goal, 45 interviews were carried out with health professionals from different equipment in
the region, from primary health care to specialized services in mental health and sexually transmitted infections
(STI). The interviews were examined using NVIVO software. The analytical proposition was to identify the
categories applied by street-level bureaucrats to citizens, bureaucrats’ perceptions about young people's risk
behaviors for HIV infection, their knowledge about prevention policies and strategies and the different ways to
distribute available resources.
In Brazil, the rate of HIV/AIDS detection has been increasing over the last decade in the 15 to 29 age group, both
male and female (BRASIL, 2018), despite advances in controling the epidemic seen in the previous decades. The
main challenges to combat the virus are related to services’ accessibility and quality of care for HIV/AIDS (MELO,
MAKSUD and AGOSTINI, 2018). Specifically, it can be mentioned those issues related to the policies’
suspension, within vulnerable groups, and to social inequalities and unequal access to information and resources
(both among citizens and professionals).
In São Paulo, ranking the highest number of HIV and AIDS cases among brazilian cities, there is a local policy
which consolidates the combined prevention strategy. Considering epidemic’s profile and trend in the municipality,
the program has dedicated special attention to groups considered to be more vulnerable, such as LGTBQs and
sex workers, alongside priority population segments, such as young people and black people (SMS-SP, 2019).
Although the policy presents categories related to these groups’ vulnerabilities, in the field, the categories used
are more associated with the idea of risk, which is the issue this paper is set to discuss.
 (Virtual) Challenges in implementing emergency obstetric care (EmOC) policies: perspectives
and behaviours of frontline health workers in Uganda
Moses Mukuru (Department of Health Policy, Planning and Management, Makerere University School of Public
Health)
Suzanne Kiwanuka (Makerere University School of Public Health)
Freddie Ssengooba (Makerere University )

Uganda is among the sub-Saharan African Countries which continue to experience high preventable maternal
mortality due to obstetric emergencies. Several Emergency Obstetric Care (EmOC) policies rolled out have never
achieved their intended targets to date. To explore why upstream policy expectations were not achieved at the
frontline during the MDG period, we examined the implementation of EmOC policies in Uganda by; exploring the
barriers frontline implementers of EmOC policies faced, their coping behaviours and the consequences for
maternal health. We conducted a retrospective exploratory qualitative study between March and June 2019 in
Luwero, Iganga and Masindi districts selected based on differences in maternal mortality. Data were collected
using 8 in-depth interviews with doctors and 17 midwives who provided EmOC services in Uganda’s public health
facilities during the MDG period. We reviewed two national maternal health policy documents and interviewed two
Ministry of Health Officials on referral by participants. Data analysis was guided by the theory of Street-Level
Bureaucracy (SLB). Implementation of EmOC was affected by the incompatibility of policies with implementation
systems. Street-level bureaucrats were expected to offer to their continuously increasing clients, sometimes
presenting late, ideal EmOC services using an incomplete and unreliable package of inputs, supplies, inadequate
workforce size and skills mix. To continue performing their duties and prevent services from total collapse,
frontline implementers’ coping behaviours oftentimes involved improvisation leading to delivery of incomplete and
inconsistent EmOC service packages. This resulted in unresponsive EmOC services with mothers receiving
inadequate interventions sometimes after major delays across different levels of care. We suggest that SLB
theory can be enriched by reflecting on the consequences of the coping behaviours of street-level bureaucrats.
Future reforms should align policies to implementation contexts and resources for optimal results

(Virtual) The Compliance with the Transit Law of Mexico City: Analyzing How People Perceive
the Sanctions established in Transit Regulation
Vladimir Rodríguez Giménez (Centro de Investigación y Docencia Económicas)

Governments use the implementation of administrative sanctions to shape people’s behavior in such a way that
they adhere to the rules. Particularly, sanctions established in the transit laws avoid and discourage behaviors
that are considered socially dangerous on the roads. There are two main perspectives to analyze the effect that
sanctions have on people’s compliance behavior: the general deterrence theory, and the psychology of social
justice perspective. On one hand, existing studies from the general deterrence theory have found that perceived
certainty and severity of sanctions foster compliance with the law. On the other hand, findings from the
psychology of social justice perspective focus on how people perceive the sanctions enforcement authorities. The
common ground on these two perspectives is the perceptions that people have.

However, three main aspects have been unexplored in the existing studies. Firstly, little systematic research
analyzes how bureaucratic and police corruption can be associated with noncompliance behaviors, especially in
contexts with weak institutions and low trust. That is, current studies have not addressed the next question: do
expectations of corrupt behavior by public policy implementers affect the compliance behavior of people?
Secondly, this is the first study that conjugates comprehensively both perspectives. The integration of these
perspectives constitutes an endeavor to the better understanding of how the use of public policies, such as
sanctions, can more effectively promote compliance with the laws. Lastly, the main studies of compliance with the
law focus on the analysis of one or two breaking rules behaviors. In terms of better analyzing the effect of
sanctions, this study considers five non-compliance behaviors.

Analyzing data from an online survey in Mexico City, I study how perceptions of the sanctions established in the
transit regulation affect its level of compliance with the law. Understanding that compliance could be a matter of
degrees, this study does not focus just on the non-compliance decisions of individuals, but also on the frequency
of such as noncompliance.

This research shows that perceptions of severity and certainty of sanctions, as well as perceptions of legitimacy
and trust of authorities, are statistically associated with transit law non-compliance behaviors. However, the
incidence of the variables of each perspective can be greater or lower depending on the non-compliance
behaviors. That is, compliance behaviors are affected by the variables of these perspectives in different degrees
individually. This research also shows that the perceived transit police corruption is an important factor to explain
the five non-compliance behaviors, specially in scenarios with weak institutions and low trust such as Mexico City.
In particular, a low willingness by citizens to engage in bribery is associated with higher levels of compliance with
transit regulation.
(Virtual) T06P03 / Street-level bureaucracy in weak institutions
Chair : Rik Peeters (CIDE)
Second Chair : GABRIELA LOTTA
Third Chair : Fernando Nieto Morales, (El Colegio de Mexico)

Session 5
Thursday, July 8th 16:30 to 18:30 (Virtual 01)

(Virtual) Standing by as work? How public defenders do their job by waiting

Milena Ang (UT-San Antonio)

Current studies argue that the criminal justice system can reproduce and exacerbate existing inequalities because
vulnerable populations are targeted by police and other coercive agents of the state. In this paper, I argue that
public defenders are a crucial--and often overlooked--public office whose role can help us understand the
conditions that allow the criminalization of already vulnerable populations. I study the inner workings of the offices
of public defenders in Mexico, institutions whose goal is to provide adequate legal defense to vulnerable
populations in a country characterized for its dysfunctional judicial system. Mexican public defenders are
overworked and under-budgeted---they represent around 90% of those facing a judicial process (either through
the entire process or at some points of it) and receive less than half of the budget allocated for their counterparts
in the adversarial process, the Public Ministries or Ministerios Públicos. Drawing from fieldwork conducted in
Oaxaca city, Mexicali, and Tijuana, I find that the public defenders spend a considerable amount of time waiting:
waiting in the office for their next case to be assigned, waiting to receive a file, or waiting for the judge. Although
superficially this waiting is interpreted as "doing nothing", I argue that it allows public defenders to do their jobs
given the budget constraints they face: waiting allows them to socialize with agents of the Public Ministry, cops,
and other courthouse workers, interchanging key information about specific cases. It also allows them to keep
family members informed about the status of the case, and even obtain relevant information that they can then
use in their building of their defense. Waiting, in a way, allows public defenders to provide a legal defense in the
absence of resources (time and money) to investigate, thus keeping the criminal justice system running. As such,
this paper theorizes that public defenders enable the reproduction of social inequality not by failing to do their job
but, paradoxically, by doing it even under harsh conditions.

(Virtual) Travails and Coping of SLBs in the Electricity Distribution Sector in India
Sneha swami (Indian Institute of Technology, Bombay)
Subodh Wagle (Indian Institute of Technology Bombay)

India faces the challenge of simultaneously increasing economic growths and reducing economic inequality[1].
Both require a reliable, adequate, and quality supply of electricity. However, electricity supply remains unreliable,
inadequate, and low-quality in most parts of the country, which is seen as rooted in the poor performance of
public distribution utilities (PDUs), especially in the last mile of the service delivery. PDUs suffer from low-levels of
public as well as consumer trust and weak institutional structures. A large part of the blame is often passed to
PDU’s work-force, especially to frontline workers, who are seen as corrupt, lacking discipline, capacities,
accountability, and motivation[2].

This paper presents research that was aimed at understanding different dimensions of functioning of frontline
workers of PDUs, and effect of their functioning on policy implementation in the electricity sector. The research
used the lens of the Street-Level Bureaucracy (SLB) Theory proposed by Michael Lipsky, which investigates
effect of stressful working conditions of SLBs and their coping strategies on policy implementation. These
strategies are influenced by factors like attitudes, power dynamics, and discretion exercised by SLBs.

The research questions were: ‘How do working conditions shaped coping strategies of SLBs of PDUs? How these
coping strategies shaped implementation of electricity sector policies?’ The research used the
qualitative-interpretive approach, focusing on the experiences of participants—SLBs of PDUs. The location for the
field research was field offices of the PDU operating in the Indian state of Maharashtra. The data collection
methods employed included: semi-structured interviews, informal conversations, and non-participant observation.
The data was analyzed using the thematic analysis technique and the NVivo software.

The paper described anarchic working conditions of these SLBs that are, marked by absence of standardized
operating procedures (SOPs), lack of training, unscheduled additional tasks, high risks to life, aggressive
consumers, neopatrimonialism of local politicians, corrupt private contractors, and local mafia. It documents and
analyzes diverse coping strategies adopted by these SLBs, including: innovative use of locally and easily
available material to tide over scarcity of material, own financial contribution to pay consumers’ bills or for laying
additional wires, rearrangement of task priority, deception with consumers, and cherry picking of consumers.

The paper also traces influence of different factors, such as power dynamics, discretion, and individual attitudes
of these SLBs on their coping strategies. It described multifaceted and complex power relationships of SLBs with
consumers, local politicians, supervisors, and peers. Further, intimate knowledge of consumer’s behavior,
detailed understanding of physical infrastructure, and flexibility exercised by superiors provide significant
discretion to SLBs, which is often converted into blatant rule-violation by SLBs in absence of effective monitoring
and accountability mechanisms.

Finally, the paper presents some theoretical reflections by comparing these empirical findings with observations
and lessons presented in the SLB literature from developed countries, covering aspects like individual and
professional characteristics of SLBs, coping strategies of SLBs, and availability and use of discretion.

[1] (Chauhan, R K., et al., 2016; Deaton, A., & Dreze, J., 2002).
[2] (Sharma T. et. al., 2016).

(Virtual) Street-Level Bureaucracy in Developing Countries: A Review of the Literature

Rik Peeters (CIDE)
Sergio A. Campos (Centro de Investigación y Docencia Económicas (CIDE))

Traditionally, the literature on street-level bureaucracy and frontline work has been dominated by studies from
advanced democracies, such as the U.S. and Western Europe (Kelly, 2017; Stanica et al., 2020). Recently,
however, there has been a new wave of studies emerging from Latin America (Ambort & Strachnoy, 2018; Cerna
et al., 2017; Eiró, 2019; Lima & D’Ascenzi, 2017; Lotta & Marques, 2020; Meza & Moreno, 2020; Peeters et al.,
2018; Perelmiter, 2016; Zarychta, Grillos & Andersson, 2020), Eastern Europe (Stanica et al., 2020), Africa
(Gibson, 2004; Kelly, 2017; Walker & Gilson, 2004), and Asia (Nisar, 2018; 2020; Zang, 2017). Studying
developmental and post-authoritarian contexts contributes not only to understanding the specific nature of
frontline work there, but also to identifying the sometimes implicit or taken-for-granted conditions of frontline work
upon which mainstream concepts and theories are built. Improving the dialogue between researchers from
different institutional contexts is, therefore, beneficial to advancing research and theorizing on frontline work as a
whole.
As a contribution to this dialogue, we present findings from an ongoing systematic review of the current literature
on street-level bureaucracy and frontline work in developing countries. We seek to draw together the many recent
empirical contributions into a coherent conceptual framework through the well-established notion of ‘public service
gaps’ (Hupe & Buffat, 2014). While acknowledging the significant differences between developing countries
(Kuhlmann, 2019), we analyze the similarities in demands or imperatives for frontline action on the one hand
(Hupe & Van der Krogt, 2013) and the resources frontline workers have for this on the other hand (Brodkin, 2011).
Among the relevant ‘demand’ factors are politicization of the bureaucracy (Zarychta et al., 2020) and the high
levels of poverty among public service clients (Ambort & Straschnoy, 2018; Cerna et al., 2017; Eiró, 2019;
Gibson, 2004; Kelly, 2017). On the ‘supply’ side, studies highlight, among other things, the lack of job security
(Cerna et al., 2017; Eiró, 2019; Lima & D’Asenzi, 2017), the limited formalization of working procedures (Kelly,
2017; Lotta & Marques, 2020; Stanica et al., 2020), the lack of managerial guidance and training on the job
(Ambort & Straschnoy, 2018; Eiró, 2019), and the scarcity of basic resources (Cerna et al., 2017; Gibson, 2004;
Lima & D’Ascenzi, 2017; Walker & Gilson, 2004). Consequently, we argue that structural societal and institutional
factors have a profound impact on frontline working conditions and that, consequently, frontline workers in
developing countries face bigger public service gaps than their peers in advanced democracies.

(Virtual) How SLB deal with target populations when governments fail
Cynthia Michel (Center for Research and Teaching in Economics (CIDE))
Guillermo Cejudo (Centro de Investigación y Docencia Económicas (CIDE))

The literature on street level bureaucrats (SLB) —mostly based on administrative settings in developed
 countries—, was initially devoted to understand how they cope with red-tape, uncertainty and ambiguity (Lipsky
1980; Brodkin 1987; Maynard?Moody et al. 2003;). More recently, the focus has shifted towards the role SLB play
in ensuring citizen compliance (Weaver 2014; Gofen 2015) and in their interactions with target populations
(Sandfort, Kalil & Gottschalk 1999; Gofen et al. 2019).

In developing countries, bureaucracies work differently. For instance, Peeters and Nieto (2020) have shown that,
in low trust bureaucracies, citizens must develop strategies to cope with administrative dysfunctions (De Jong and
Rizvi 2008; Moynihan and Herd 2018). However, not only do citizens face additional challenges in these settings,
but also SLB, who have to perform their roles with greater inefficiencies, lack of resources, and unpredictability.

SLB do not only need to deal with uncertainty and ambiguity, but also with a target population that identify them
as being in charge of delivering specific outcomes. In this paper, we argue that, in dysfunctional bureaucracies,
SLB’s work is twofold: one the one hand, they are responsible for attaining policies’ goals in a context where
programs and policies are poorly designed, processes are incomplete, deadlines are not met by the central
administrations, budgets are insufficient and administrative support is lacking. On the other, they have to address
the target populations’ immediate needs in a context where they are the only way to access a government they do
not trust. We offer a typology of the strategies SLB use to continue performing their work in these conditions, with
a focus on their relationships with target populations. We illustrate this typology with interactions identified in
social programs in Mexico. The paper is based on semi-structured interviews with SLB working for the federal
government’s social policies, and their target populations.

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