Sessione 34 - Causes and effects of street level bureaucrats’ discretion

Coordinatori / Coordinatrici di sessione: Alberta Andreotti (Università Bicocca di Milano), Diego Coletto (Università Bicocca di Milano)

Abstract:
The concept of Street Level Bureaucracy (SLB) was introduced in the Seventies and Eighties of the last century and has since experienced an important development in terms of empirical research and theoretical reflection, as much as to give rise to a specific research approach. One of the key elements for this interest was the discretional power (discretion) that characterizes the work of street-level bureaucrats (SLBs) through which they shape and reshape normative provisions, concretizing public policies. According to Lipsky (1969; 1980), who first developed the concept, SLBs represent the link between citizens and government, and are “people employed by government who (1) constantly interact with citizens in their job, (2) have independence in their work, and (3) have an impact on the citizens’ life”.

From the first years of 2000 attempts to enrich the Lipsky’s analytical framework arose. The diversification of providers widened the category of SLBs, the organizational factors emerged as important constraints, highlighting the tensions created within the street level organizations (SLOs) (Brodkin 2012), and comprehensive analytical frameworks have been developed, keeping together the factors affecting discretion at the individual, organizational and system level (Hupe and Hill 2006, 2021; Rice 2012).

Nevertheless, the question of how and to what extent variation in discretion patterns is attributable to person-bound variety or to differences in institutional settings at the macro level remains open.

Accepted paper:

• Il fattore discrezionalità tra standard di intervento e presa in carico territoriale a livello di Servizio. Evidenze empiriche dall’indagine sull’implementazione di policy di contrasto alla povertà e per l’inclusione attiva di Cristiana Ranieri (INAPP)
• Street-Level Bureaucracy Theory Meets Southern Countries: Towards New Theoretical Challenges di Dario Raspanti (Università degli Studi di Firenze), Daniela Leonardi (Università degli Studi di Torino), Rebecca Paraciani (Università degli Studi di Bologna)
• Service Integration in Practice. The Role of Discretion in the Implementation of the Italian Policy Reddito di Cittadinanza in Two Regional Contexts di Anna Rio (Università degli Studi di Milano-Bicocca)
• An international comparison of social workers as street-level bureaucrats during the Covid-19 lockdown di Lluis Francesc Peris Cancio (La Sapienza Università di Roma)
• La discrezionalità operativa nell’implementazione del reddito minimo di Tommaso Frangioni (Università degli Studi di Torino), Tatiana Saruis (Regione Emilia-Romagna)

Contributed paper:

• Street-level workers dealing with the temporalities of waiting in the Italian asylum system di Pamela Pasian (Università Ca' Foscari)