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ABSTRACTWhy does the ability of political leaders to control the bureaucracy vary? With strong meritocratic recruitment and tenure protections, Brazil appears an ideal case for successful bureaucratic resistance against political control. However, our analysis reveals how Bolsonaro overcame initial resistance by recalibrating strategies, ultimately dominating many key sectors of the bureaucracy. Drawing on over 100 interviews with public officials, we find that strategies of political control and bureaucratic resistance unfold in a dynamic, yet often predictable, pattern based on leaders' previous experiences and their ability to learn, adjust, and tighten their grip on the instruments of the state. The Bolsonaro administration transformed the regulatory framework and targeted individual state employees, reducing arenas of contestation and inducing public sector workers to remain silent, implementing the president's policy preferences. We examine these control strategies in environmental agencies, their replication, and potential long-term consequences.

Abstract
This article aims to contribute to street-level bureaucracy (SLB) theory by bringing to the forefront the experiences and perspectives of the Global South. Our argument is that mainstream literature in this field overlooks the social tensions that are more explicit in developing societies, resulting in a structurally limited analytical framework. We identify two key factors from the Global South that are often underestimated: the high degree of social inequalities that fundamentally affect state–citizen relationships, and the ways in which the state itself reflects and reproduces these inequalities. Our critique represents a step toward decolonizing the field and highlighting the conceptual contributions that studies from and of the Global South can offer. By examining the experiences of the Global South, we can gain insights into the crises societies in the Global North are also experiencing. Our article aims to contribute to SLB theory by emphasizing the value of incorporating these perspectives into the study of SLB.

This article analyzes categories operated by bureaucrats when classifying types of users and their effects on the distribution of services, observing contexts of high inequality and universal policies. We analyze how teachers, as street-level bureaucrats, implement the policy by categorizing different types of students. We adopt an analytical lens of cultural schemes, which considers that individuals internalize associations between official and social (informal) categories from their experiences. The analyzed data were collected through vignettes applied to 40 teachers from the municipal education system of São Paulo, Brazil. We analyzed the use of categories through socio-semantic and semantic networks of categorizations and the construction of referral networks. The results show that teachers simultaneously mobilize political and social categories and that the introduction of the variable vulnerability in cases opens space for the introduction of social categories that generate different types of treatment for students with similar behaviors. ; Este artículo analiza las categorías operadas por los burócratas al clasificar los tipos de usuarios y sus efectos en la distribución de servicios, observando contextos de alta desigualdad y políticas universales. Para ello, analiza cómo los docentes, como burócratas a nivel de calle, implementan la política categorizando diferentes tipos de estudiantes. Adoptamos aquí la lente analítica de los esquemas culturales, que considera que los individuos internalizan las asociaciones entre categorías oficiales y sociales (informales) a partir de sus experiencias. Los datos analizados se recolectaron a través de viñetas aplicadas a 40 docentes de la red municipal de São Paulo. Analizamos el uso de categorías a través de redes sociosemánticas y semánticas de categorización y construcción de redes de referencia. Los resultados muestran que los docentes movilizan simultáneamente categorías políticas y sociales y que la introducción de la variable "vulnerabilidad" en los casos abre espacio para la introducción de categorías sociales que generan diferentes tipos de tratamiento para estudiantes con comportamientos similares. ; Este artigo analisa categorias operadas por burocratas ao classificar tipos de usuários e seus efeitos em distribuição de serviços, observando contextos de alta desigualdade e políticas universais. Para tanto, analisa de que modo professores, como burocratas de nível de rua, implementam a política categorizando diferentes tipos de alunos. Adotamos aqui a lente analítica de esquemas culturais, que considera que indivíduos internalizam associações entre categorias oficiais e sociais (informais). Os dados analisados foram coletados de vinhetas aplicadas com 40 professores da rede municipal de São Paulo. Investigamos o uso de categorias por meio de redes sociossemânticas e semânticas de categorizações e construção de cadeias de encaminhamentos. Os resultados apontam que os professores mobilizam de forma concomitante categorias oficiais e sociais, bem como que a introdução da variável "vulnerabilidade" nos casos abre espaço para introdução de categorias sociais que geram diferentes tipos de tratamento para alunos com comportamentos similares.

This study analyses how street-level bureaucrats' categorisation of citizens is embedded within conceptual systems. We observe the process of categorisation as embedded in cultural schemata used by street-level bureaucrats. We provided vignettes to 40 teachers in São Paulo public schools to observe how they categorise similar behaviours of students within different social contexts. We then determined if there were differences in the systems of categories created and actions proposed to deal with similar behaviours in different contexts. The data showed that, depending on the way in which context triggered the teachers' system of categorisation, distinct actions were proposed. These different actions produced different types of deservingness that, in the case analysed here, are related to actions inside or outside the school. These findings have important implications for policymakers in ensuring more equal access to services for students requiring additional support in the classroom.

AbstractStreet-level bureaucrats, confined by meager discretion, often find themselves reconciling the challenging terrain of inflexible policies with messy frontline realities. With a phenomenological lens, we examine how Indonesia's frontline healthcare workers exercise discretion and improvise informal practices to adapt policies and deliver care despite scarce resources during the COVID-19 crisis. As formal emergency protocols lie encumbered under conditions of austerity, a grassroots motivation for communal action occurs from exchanges between peers mired in resource quandaries, encapsulating an improvisational "we" cohering frontline allies. Manifesting through focused responses drawing on unwritten collegial knowledge, these collaborative efforts embody the relational essence and defining contours of frontline policy repair, as opposed to isolated discretion. Probing further into these repair processes surfaces how shared struggles have the power to ignite collective capacity, empowering bureaucrats to govern complexity in concert, construct agency despite constraints, and promote equity in times of scarcity. Our findings champion tending to institutional receptivity and solidarity-anchored creative frontline initiatives, endorsing agile, adaptive processes finely tuned to situational realities that contests paradigms fixated solely on compliance.

ABSTRACT Objectives: this paper aims to analyze boundary-crossing strategies, henceforth BCS, a complex and relatively new coordination trend in public administration. To do so, we investigated how three prioritized coordination policies from different sectors were designed and implemented in Brazil. Methods: following a literature review on BCS, the paper employs content analysis of the programs' legislation and government white papers. To understand how the programs actually functioned, we interviewed key government stakeholders. Results: they suggest that two macro policies incorporated most of the boundary-crossing features in their formal design and, more importantly, implementation processes. However, the degree to which these characteristics are present varies according to the research focus or the interviewee's position. Conclusions: main findings of BCS strategy are that policy effectiveness and continuity depend on the consensus of different stakeholders about policy goals; the empowerment of leaders; adoption of new coordination instruments; and continuing policy prioritization. Finally, by exploring the adaptation of an international trend to the Brazilian public administration context, the paper shows crucial insights for innovation in terms of policy coordination and implementation.

AbstractWhat factors influence street‐level bureaucrats' (SLBs) use of violence? To answer this question, we focus on police officers, a typical example of SLBs, who can lawfully use violence whenever they deem it necessary. Based on ethnographic work among Brazilian police officers dealing with protests, we analyze how violence erupts in the interaction between police officers and protesters. We contribute to the literature by suggesting that no single factor alone can explain the actions of SLBs regarding the use of violence, as previous research has posited. We demonstrate how the interplay between four factors explains the use of violence by SLBs: (1) institutional logic, (2) type of situation, (3) desire for revenge and having fun, and (4) lack of accountability. As such, we propose a more complex account of SLB's use of violence.

AbstractThis article seeks to contribute to the discussion of the dynamics of trust in street‐level public sector work, especially in settings where relationships between agencies, frontline workers, and society are fragile. Data was gathered in different vulnerable areas of the city of São Paulo, Brazil using interviews with frontline workers and complemented with field notes from a five‐year longitudinal study in one high‐density area with a history of violence. Concern was to understand how, despite a lack of reciprocal trust, citizens and service providers create ways of meeting daily demands and how, in doing so, they see each other. Results show that in vulnerable settings, issues of inter‐agency cooperation and territorial connectivity between different public sector services can be more important than individual agency performance in helping citizens find solutions to the problems they are facing. In the absence of an effective inter‐institutional framework, trust is quickly eroded.

AbstractPolicy implementation is an interactive process between citizens and street‐level bureaucrats. Although the literature has already addressed different factors that influence discretion, there is still a gap in understanding if and how bureaucrats' relational profiles affect policy implementation. This article analyses bureaucrats' interactions and the relational environments in which they exercise their discretion. The hypothesis is that bureaucrats' different relational profiles specify policy implementation at the street level. We study bureaucrats in a Brazilian health care programme involving community workers that requires regular visits to beneficiary families' homes. The research departs from ethnography and network analyses with workers from three very different contexts. We analyse bureaucrats' practices, the discursive styles mobilized in their interactions, and their personal networks. The results show that organizational factors are central to explain variations in practices, and their relational profiles highly influence the discursive styles used by bureaucrats in their interactions with citizens. The article concludes that relational elements can affect the exercise of discretion and influence interactions at the street level and should be incorporated more systematically in the implementation literature.

Este artigo tem como objetivo analisar arranjos Institucionais Complexos recentemente implementados no Brasil que tem inovado no desenho de formulação e implementação das políticas, buscando promover o envolvimento e a coordenação horizontal (entre os setores de políticas), vertical (entre entes federativos) ou com outras organizações ou sociedade para alcançar a efetividade das políticas públicas. A hipótese é de que, embora ainda não consolidadas, as experiências de novos arranjos apontam para um movimento de mudança que passa de um formato de gestão baseado em visão, hierarquizada, funcional, setorial para modelo mais transversal, intersetorial, sistêmico, com algum grau de participação dos vários atores envolvidos e voltado à efetividade.