scholarly journals Discretionary power as a political weapon against foreigners

2020 ◽  
pp. 89-106
Author(s):  
Alexis Spire
Keyword(s):  
Participant Observation ◽  
Migration Policy ◽  
Discretionary Power ◽  
Front Line ◽  
Administrative Practices ◽  
Unequal Treatment ◽  
Street Level ◽  
The Law ◽  
Street Level Bureaucrats ◽  
Political Weapon

The administrative practices of officials who process the admission of immigrants show severe variations in the ways in which migration policy is enforced on the ground. For the author, inequality of treatment lies in the very hierarchy of tasks and services of what he dubs, following Pierre Bourdieu, the immigration "field". According to the author, the governments’ securitizing priorities favour the sort of suspicion towards foreigners that the media then reproduces, thus authorizing so-called street-level bureaucrats to act with great leeway with regard to immigrants. Under pressure, governments implement what the author calls a "trompe-l’oeil policy" that explores the ambivalence between international and domestic law: while the state enforces repressive laws that apparently comply with fundamental human rights, it leaves to low-ranking civil servants enough discretion to make those rights ineffective. This point is the author’s central contention. The arbitrariness of these officials is neither contingent nor accidental: it actually constitutes a purposive "front-line policy" to enlarge the discretionary power of street-level bureaucrats in charge of regulating admissions. Unequal treatment comes in three flavours in this context. First, officials are asked to ensure that each right granted to a foreigner will not threaten the national order, which means the economic, social and political order. They are therefore in a position to judge the suitability of each application in view of their own arbitrary interpretation of what such "threats" consist of. The question of discretionary power is in this way intimately linked to the problem of equality before the law. Second, the scarcity of material and human resources allocated to services in charge of welcoming migrants starkly contrasts with the expenditure incurred to deport foreigners. Inequality also arises from how agents perceive users and the leeway they have to implement the law. Third, inequality is related to foreigners’ abilities and means to challenge discretionary power, especially through the legal tools they use or through legal intermediaries. The author thus concludes that such "front-line policy" has increasingly been used as a weapon against migrants, especially since the early 2000s, when immigration and detention policies were generalized in France. More broadly, in Europe as well as in United States, immigration reforms have made greater use of detention and focused on enforcement rather than on hosting programs and services for asylum seekers. But they have also strengthened the role of legal intermediaries. Hence the need to investigate how discretionary power is challenged as it sheds light on the power relations between states and migrants. Keywords: foreigners, discretion, sociology, participant observation, front-line policy, illegalism, jobs, insecurity, legal intermediaries

scholarly journals Public agents of front line: the creator of administrative law

2019 ◽  
Vol 1 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Juliana Bonacorsi de Palma
Keyword(s):  
Decision Making ◽  
Public Policies ◽  
Administrative Law ◽  
Front Line ◽  
The Public ◽  
Public Action ◽  
Street Level ◽  
The Subject ◽  
Street Level Bureaucrats

<span>Abstract: The role of the front-line public agents in the implementation of the public policies created by the first-tier is the subject addressed by the author. From the notion of street-level bureaucrats, it seeks to identify the difficulties encountered by such public agents in decision-making and the need for standards that provide for institutes and administrative dynamics that in fact lead to more efficient, impersonal and guaranteeing public action to protect the well-intentioned front-line public agent to fully exercise the discretion he needs in case-by-case action.</span>

Dealing with disgust: Street-level bureaucrats as agents of Kafkaesque bureaucracy

Organization ◽  
2019 ◽  
Vol 27 (6) ◽  
pp. 882-899
Author(s):  
Muhammad Azfar Nisar ◽  
Ayesha Masood
Keyword(s):  
Waste Management ◽  
Technical Efficiency ◽  
Group Norms ◽  
Contemporary Society ◽  
Front Line ◽  
Street Level ◽  
Factors Influencing ◽  
Street Level Bureaucrats ◽  
Social Organizational ◽  
Bureaucratic Behavior

Bureaucracy is deeply implicated in the biopolitical regimes that create and render invisible social waste—individuals classified as abnormal, deviant, or useless—in contemporary societies. According to previous theorists, bureaucracy is able to carry out this critical task through moral distance and reliance on technical efficiency. By specifically focusing on street-level bureaucrats, a unique tier of bureaucracy which is often afforded neither moral distance nor clear directions, this article explains the microprocesses of classification, managing and recycling through which social waste management is carried out in contemporary society. In doing so, this article highlights that in addition to official policies, informal factors like social, organizational, and group norms are critical determinants of bureaucratic behavior in front-line organizations and problematize some of the key assumptions of Weberian bureaucracy. Unlike functional interpretations, we argue that, in some instances, the informal factors influencing street-level bureaucrats are more regressive than official public policies and help explain some of the dystopian features of contemporary bureaucracy and its impact on social inequity.

Working Within a System of Administrative Burden: How Street-Level Bureaucrats’ Role Perceptions Shape Access to the Promise of Higher Education

2021 ◽  
pp. 009539972110275
Author(s):  
Elizabeth Bell ◽  
Kylie Smith
Keyword(s):  
Higher Education ◽  
Administrative Data ◽  
Administrative State ◽  
Discretionary Power ◽  
Role Perceptions ◽  
Structural Inequality ◽  
Administrative Burden ◽  
Street Level ◽  
Street Level Bureaucrats ◽  
Local Agencies

Utilizing a statewide survey and administrative data, we explore how state-imposed burdens are translated by street-level bureaucrats (SLBs) into frontline practices that may alleviate or exacerbate onerous experiences of the administrative state. First, we find that SLBs’ role perceptions shaped not only uses of discretionary power—as either a force of client empowerment or disentitlement—but also program access. Second, we find that the local agencies with the largest proportions of income-eligible clients often had the least capacity for alleviating administrative burden, suggesting decentralization may be a mechanism by which administrative burden perpetuates structural inequality.

Gun Dealer Motivations for Complying with the Law: Lessons from the Australian Experience of Gun Control

2021 ◽  
pp. 073112142110211
Author(s):  
Suzanna Fay
Keyword(s):  
Control Policy ◽  
Gun Control ◽  
Sociological Research ◽  
Street Level ◽  
Mass Shooting ◽  
History Of ◽  
The Law ◽  
Street Level Bureaucrats ◽  
Australian Experience ◽  
Depth Interviews

Gun reform after a major mass shooting in Australia has largely been heralded as a success. However, understanding how compliance is encouraged among the gun owning community with a history of opposing regulation is currently limited in systematic sociological research. Gun dealers in particular appear to be important for understanding levels of compliance and possibilities for promoting compliance, as they are simultaneously involved in the compliance process and subject to its enforcement as members of the gun owning community. This paper positions gun dealers as street-level bureaucrats responsible for implementing gun regulations and uses a Compliance Motivation framework to explore the possible motivations for compliance and their role in promoting compliance within the gun owning community. Findings are based on 28 in-depth interviews with gun dealers across Australia and demonstrate the challenging but important role that gun dealer’s play in enacting gun control policy.

scholarly journals Discretionary Decision-Making in a Changing Context of Activation Policies and Welfare Reforms

2014 ◽  
Vol 43 (2) ◽  
pp. 269-288 ◽  
Author(s):  
JORUNN THERESIA JESSEN ◽  
PER ARNE TUFTE
Keyword(s):  
Decision Making ◽  
Local Level ◽  
Professional Autonomy ◽  
Discretionary Power ◽  
Managerial Control ◽  
Front Line ◽  
Street Level ◽  
Line Work ◽  
Independent Decision ◽  
Welfare Reforms

AbstractStreet-level bureaucrats are considered to be subject to bureaucratic managerial regimes and threatened by stronger regulation and a reduction in their ability to exercise control over their work. Contrary to the managerial approach, predicting curtailment of professional autonomy, theorists foretell the continuing importance of discretion in the translation of social objectives into actual service delivery. Given such opposite predictions, what is the perceived direction of change and scope for independent decision-making for front-line workers? This paper empirically investigates the contradictory hypotheses predicting continuing or declining opportunities for street-level discretion in a context of activation policies and welfare reforms. The data come from two surveys conducted among practitioners and local managers in the Norwegian employment and welfare services in 2004 and 2011. Despite managerial control and bureaucratic procedures that regulate many decisions, discretion still remains a characteristic of front-line work. Continued discretion is closely related to the implementation of activation goals and the merging of tasks and integrated services following the whole-of-government reform. The findings confirm the role of managers as key players in implementing policies at the local level. Concurrently, the discretionary power of trained social workers is decreasing and challenged by the push for uniform practices and a managerially regulated role.

Community Policing: Misunderstanding and Misapplication Following Police Shootings

2021 ◽  
pp. 009539972110450
Author(s):  
Joshua Malay
Keyword(s):  
Community Policing ◽  
The State ◽  
Role Of Government ◽  
Street Level ◽  
Police Shootings ◽  
Democratic Control ◽  
The Law ◽  
Street Level Bureaucrats

Prevailing community policing theory identifies the purpose of community policing being to empower state policing not diminish it. This basis identifies a major misconception of those arguing for police defunding, as it fails to address the realities and limitations of street-level bureaucrats in exercising their authority. Misapplying emotional calls for restructuring into perceived democratic control of the bureaucracy. This article explores the inherent problems within community policing and serves to link these problems within a larger discussion of governance and policing, making an argument that the calls for defunding and community policing at best demonstrate misunderstanding and at worst represent a poorly articulated political ploy. In either case, understanding the larger role of how the state legitimates policing identifies an inherent disconnect between policy and implementation. Substantive change in policing must come from changes in the law that provide the staying power for reform to overcome bureaucratic retrenchment to change and in our view of governance, specifically in what should be enforced and the role of government in maintaining order, to ensure that these reflect the realities of policing.

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