On the ground floor of government, citizens interact with teachers, medical staff, police officers and other professionals in public service. It is during these encounters that laws, public policies and professional guidelines gain further substance and form. In this insightful book, Peter Hupe brings together expert contributions from scholars across the globe to study the social mechanisms behind these public encounters. Integrating empirical case studies with cutting-edge theory, The Politics of the Public Encounter investigates what happens when citizens meet the state. Adopting a realist perspective, contributors examine the dichotomy between what is expected to happen and what actually happens at the street level of government. Chapters explore topics such as rule application and individual agency, the relationship between discretion and accountability, the consequences of digitalization and citizens’ impression management. Hupe concludes with a reflective essay and gives an account of what has been left aside, advancing a clear agenda for future research into the relationship between citizen and state. Advanced students and scholars of law, political science, public administration, sociology and philosophy interested in the mechanisms behind the citizen/state encounter will benefit from the book’s multi-disciplinary approach. Its realist insights will also be an essential reference point for public service professionals.

The Graduate School of Public Policy (GSPP) at Nazarbayev University, invites applications to join our international faculty and to share in our vision of becoming the leading public policy school in the Central Asia region.

The PhD candidates of the Centre for European Studies and Comparative Politics organize on 8th December 2022 their fourth doctoral workshop, on the theme “Cities and migration: perspectives on interdependencies”

While the evidence base on successful practices in knowledge exchange is rapidly growing, much less attention has been given in the academic literature to documenting and reflecting on failures in trying to exchange different types of evidence between academics, practice partners and policy makers. However, learning from failures is just as important, if not more crucial, than celebrating successes.