The intuition behind this proposal is sociologist and political scientist Michael Lipsky's analysis of a single large category of workers: the street-level bureaucracy . They share a commonality of direct interaction with users, as in the case of school teachers, service workers, educators, nurses, and doctors. The work of the SLB cannot fail to be influenced by two ongoing changes: the new role of the user, now understood as an active collaborator and bearer of resources and responsibilities, and the advent of managerial policies, which, through mechanisms of decentralization of services, tend to distance the individual from the bureaucrat and, therefore, from the institution. The discretion of the SLB represents the last bastion of a human vocation for work, and it must be preserved through the mediation of the street-level bureaucracy.
The ambiguous role of street-level bureaucracy
Michael Lipsky inaugurates the discussion of street-level bureaucracy, arguing that they exercise unbridled discretion in the choices that affect the users with whom they interact. In the direct interaction that characterizes them, they also bring their individual emotional world, shaping discretion through their behavior and attitude. The hard core of the role of street-level bureaucrats is, therefore, their discretion . This does not mean that SLB workers are not subject to the rules, regulations, or directives of their superiors or to the norms and practices of their professional group, but that, given the margins of uncertainty in bureaucratic action, they are free to break free from the rules. The use of discretion involves issues that require the development of guidelines that cannot be programmatically foreseen, but must be studied and constructed with the user themselves for their specific situation.
The street-level bureaucracy is required to act quickly when faced with a user's request. Once it understands the situation, it begins an extensive research process, for which it has insufficient time and inadequate resources. These conditions require the development of simplifications and modifications to procedures, both to address the pressure of institutional responsibilities and to engage with the user and personalize the solution to their problem, working to improve their quality of life.
The agencies, organizations, and institutions that provide services involving the SLB rely on assurances that the standards and guidelines on which their work is based have been developed to achieve standards of fairness. However, the street-level bureaucracy is constantly confronted with the inequitable treatment to which users are subjected. SLB workers act with the hope that the measures they adopt and the treatment afforded to users are as humane as possible. SLB workers are the key intermediaries between the institution and the user, and their work is the channel through which the trust and consensus placed in public services and, therefore, to a certain extent, in the state, travels. The professional discretion of the SLB grants workers a certain freedom to resist external pressure from the organization they work for, customizing their actions.
A bureaucrat/user interaction based on individual attention allows the bureaucrat to act by understanding the user's strengths and weaknesses, working for them, not viewing them as clients, but restoring their dignity as individuals , human beings , and social actors . To do this, it is necessary to achieve a balance in managing the dual role of the bureaucrat: oriented toward the informality of his institutional role, yet emotionally engaged in the personal dynamics of others, which are respectively bureaucratic and individual identities.
Bureaucratic identity and individual identity
The bureaucratic encounter is "structurally asymmetric ," as Vincent Dubois argues. Users, generally poor or marginalized, are dependent on the institution from which they request services and therefore have no control over the relationship. Furthermore, users generally lack specific knowledge of the service, further reducing their control. The bureaucrat embodies the power and prestige attributed to the entire institution, which allows him to maintain unequal relationships. This lack of expertise with respect to technicalities and specific practices leads to the bureaucracy being perceived as a "system," a single entity that provides services and can respond to all requests.
Users, aware of their incompetence and their neediness, adopt an attitude of absolute submissiveness and abdicate all responsibility. One of the first moments of any interaction is the establishment of a bureaucratic identity , that is, the process by which a person's personal and individual characteristics are set aside, prioritizing solely and exclusively their professional profile and role.
However, bureaucratic interaction is still a relationship and cannot completely ignore personal intentions. The personal traits of SLB workers influence the relationship and lay the foundation for the creation of so-called spontaneous sociology . Bureaucratic interaction, which is direct and immediate in the case of SLB, is based on a natural and instantaneous adaptation and adjustment to the user. Fears and aspirations constitute the value system that brings individual histories into bureaucratic practice, contaminating the purely professional role with the dimension of individual identity.
Safeguarding the well-being of the user and the bureaucrat
This contamination is expressed through various methods, all aimed at safeguarding the well-being of both the user and the bureaucrat. The first method is known as moral detachment . For operators, faced with daily discomfort, the approach known as "moral detachment" represents the most effective protective one. Moral detachment consists of limiting oneself to the bureaucratic function, which protects the operator themselves. However, such detachment is not always possible in the case of SLB, given the direct confrontation with the user, the valorization of human contact, and personalized assistance. Another useful resource for managing bureaucratic interactions is the process of personalization . Personalization reassures the user, reduces the formality of the relationship, and allows for a conversation to be established on a confidential level. Personalization, on the one hand, exacerbates the operator's monopoly on the relationship, creating dependency; on the other, it facilitates the user's openness, who finds a human point of reference within the intricacies of institutional bureaucratic formalism.
Individual attention must be elevated to the cornerstone of every bureaucratic relationship because it positively impacts the preparatory, educational, action of the relationship. Another important mechanism, which serves to manage the conflict between the exposure generated by involvement in the relationship and the preservation of the professional role, is represented by so-called splitting tactics . These practices are a set of informal techniques through which workers can reconcile their personal and bureaucratic identities, shifting from one to the other to tolerate and manage the situation. They are a collection of small gestures and behaviors, which in most cases influence the management of interaction times. The SLB worker can offer their full support, ensuring personal assistance beyond simple technicalities, while always maintaining their educational role as a link between the agency and the individual.
The advent of managerial policies
Discretion plays a fundamental role in the relationship between bureaucrat and user, and especially in choosing the level of user involvement. The advent of management in welfare services has significantly contributed to fostering a strong propensity for innovation, challenging traditional and historically rooted values and behaviors, activating processes of change, and injecting dynamism into static organizations. The most significant aspect is a widespread and mature dissemination of the concept of responsibility, which leaves behind the culture of compliance and formal regularity as an end in itself.
The main shift lies in the transition from a culture of action to a culture of results , in which greater importance is given to the purpose for which social policies and welfare were designed, and institutions orient their concrete work toward empowerment , understood as equal access to resources of all kinds. The shift also involves a shift from administrative hierarchy to decision-making decentralization, which enhances the work of street-level bureaucracy, legitimizing its ability to make more relevant decisions. It therefore represents a shift from the formalization of rules and procedures to the simplification and adaptability of bureaucratic action.
The focus of managerial innovation in public services now shifts to the ability to express entrepreneurship through the experimentation of initiatives useful for meeting needs, which must activate relationships with the social actors who express those needs, namely, users. The connection between the institution's strategic direction and the organization of user relations has a new nature, and is mediated by the street-level bureaucracy, which mediates between the corporate strategy development process and the concrete implementation of social policies. Entrepreneurship is no longer simply about techniques, but is expressed through the internalization of a more humane approach, aimed at the user's best interests.
Professionalism and humanity: a possible union?
The convergence between renewed theories on the role of the social actor and attempts to establish sustainable management has borne fruit. User participation has become the focus of public welfare management, and the ability to improve the welfare society is increasingly attributed to the users themselves and to the activation of their resources, undoubtedly stimulated by the action of street-level bureaucracy. Users have moved from being seen as recipients of services to being seen as active collaborators.
Street-level bureaucracy expresses its specific professionalism in the direct and immediate connection it creates with users. But it also expresses, through concrete assistance, a humanity that does not stigmatize users and avoids rigid categorizations, manifesting itself through informal gestures. Street-level bureaucracy works to understand users and engage with them, paving the way for an educational journey toward self -determination . Through this openness in the relationship with the bureaucrat, users will be able to shape themselves and their life paths, realizing their specific potential.
Professionalism and humanity can be reconciled
The former is expressed through the repeated use of procedures, which crystallize into rules and routines; the latter maintains the subjective dimension that distinguishes the bureaucratic action of the SLB and attempts to circumvent the rules for a noble purpose. The vicious circle between bureaucratic formalism and individual action is still in place, but it can be overcome through discretion. This allows for specific attention to the individual case, which must shape the rationalization of bureaucratic action differently whenever the context requires it. The rationality of the social action framework, combined with ritualism, grants individual acts a normative nature, but the discretionary action of the SLB can grant normative nature to acts it deems appropriate to pursue ends beneficial to the user.
The professionalism of street-level bureaucracy is not lost, but rather modified whenever the individual situation requires it, to ensure a relationship between user and institution that is not simply a request and provision of a service, but a starting point for establishing a relationship based on trust , empathy , and dialogue , and to foster the emergence of an increasingly humane bureaucracy, one that truly has at heart that supreme interest: the well-being of the individual.
Antonella Verduci
Bibliographic and web references
- Åkerstrøm Andersen N., Grønbǣk Pors J., The Welfare of Potential. Public Management in Transition, Milan, Mimesis Editions, 2016.
- Crozier M., Friedberg E., Social Actor and System: Sociology of Organized Action, Milan, Etas libri, 1978.
- Dubois V.,The Bureaucrat and the Poor. Managing Poverty, Milan, Mimesis, 2018.
- Goffman E., The ritual of interaction, Bologna, Il Mulino, 1988).
- Lipsky M., Street-level bureaucracy: Dilemmas of the individual in Public Services, New York, Russell Sage Foundation, 1980.
- Touraine A., We Human Subjects: Rights and New Movements in the Postcolonial Era, Milan, Il Saggiatore, 2017.
- Valotti G., Public Management: Issues for Change, Milan, EGEA, 2005.
