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This wide-ranging edited volume provides a state of the art account of theory and research on modern street-level bureaucracy, gathering internationally acclaimed scholars to address the varying roles of public officials who fulfill their tasks while interacting with the public. These roles include the delivery of benefits and services, the regulation of social and economic behavior, and the expression and maintenance of public values. Questions about the extent of discretionary autonomy and the feasibility of hierarchical control are discussed in depth, with suggestions made for the further development of research in this field. Hence the book fills an important gap in the literature on public policy delivery, making it a valuable text for students and researchers of public policy, public administration and public management.

The concept of 'street‐level bureaucracy' was coined by Michael Lipsky (1980) as the common denominator for what would become a scholarly theme. Since then his stress on the relative autonomy of professionals has been complemented by the insight that they are working in a micro‐network of relations, in varying contexts. The conception of 'governance' adds a particular aspect to this: the multi‐dimensional character of a policy system as a nested sequence of decisions. Combining these views casts a different perspective on the ways street‐level bureaucrats are held accountable.In this article some axiomatic assumptions are drawn from the existing literature on the theme of street‐level bureaucracy and on the conception of governance. Acknowledging variety, and arguing for contextualized research, this results in a rethinking of the issue of accountability at the street level.

It is well known that staff in public agencies have substantial discretion in carrying out their tasks. And it is widely claimed that heavy caseload pressure exacerbates such discretion. This study tests models of discretionary behavior induced by heavy caseloads in public agencies. It finds strong support for the argument that, facing both high short- term and long-term case volume, staff will segment caseloads by using readily identifiable "cues" to select cases for predominant attention, consistent with dominant staff values. This segmentation, or tracking, is found in turn systematically to distort allocation of outcomes, because of correlations between cues and characteristics of clients. The analysis is based on both intra- and inter-agency variation in caseload pressure, using quantitative data derived from the study of consumer protection and white collar crime prosecution bureaus in local prosecutors' offices nationwide.

Most contemporary justice theories focus on the basic structure of society but pay relatively little attention to the implementation of laws and policies at the street-level. As agents of the basic structure, social caseworkers and street-level bureaucrats are, however, potentially in a unique position in the fight to deliver justice at the coalface of social inequality. Introducing a paradigm of 'Justice as Action', we explore how street-level bureaucrats can work with both citizen-clients and, indeed, political philosophers, to promote justice. Although the Justice as Action paradigm does not involve entirely abandoning ideal justice theories, we show how it provides a potential method for paying heed to the objections of political realists about the need to direct attention to the concerns of people 'now and around here' if we are to produce both meaningful political theory and meaningful political action. Our conclusion is that it is essential for front-line workers and street-level bureaucrats and political theorists to have more conversations with one another than they currently do in order to advance their shared cause.

In this book, street-level bureaucracy scholars from South Asia, sub-Saharan Africa, the Middle East, and Latin America analyse the conditions that shape frontline work and citizens´ everyday experience of the state. Institutional factors such as political clientelism, resource scarcity, social inequality, job insecurity, and systemic corruption affect the way street-level bureaucrats enforce rules and implement policies. Inadvertently, they end up implementing inequities in citizens' access to rights and services —despite efforts to repair organisational deficiencies and broker relations between vulnerable citizens and a distant state. This book illuminates these realities and challenges and provides unique insights into critical themes such as resource scarcities, bureaucratic corruption, control practices and the complexities of dealing with vulnerable population groups