LIST OF PANELS

Objectives:

This panel aims at bringing together scholars from different regions that study policy implementation and frontline workers in contexts of low trust, social inequality and limited state capacity. The objective is to generate new insights about the way systemic conditions shape the nature of frontline work, develop a clearer focus on the coping mechanisms frontline workers and citizens develop in contested contexts, and open up research in low-trust contexts to the mainstream academic debate.

Research Context and Questions:

Most of the theory about policy implementation has been developed in USA and Western European countries, under ideal conditions related to liberal democracies, strong institutions and, in some cases, welfare states with low inequalities (Lipsky 1980, Maynard-Moody and Musheno, 2003, Hupe and Hill, 2007, Hupe, 2019, Hill, Hupe and Buffat, 2015). However, it is problematic to extrapolate some of the findings from this literature into contexts where conditions are strikingly different, such as countries characterized by weak democratic institutions and low state capacity, scarcity of resources, conservative societies and high socio-economic inequality. This panel invites scholars to reflect and test whether the findings and insights from implementation studies and literature about frontline workers can apply to these different contexts.

We invite papers that aim to address the following questions:

•          What happens to policy implementation in countries with weak institutions and low trust? How do these characteristics (i.e. corruption, clientelism, neopatrimonialism and patronage) affect policy implementation?

•          Which factors influence frontline workers’ work and motivation in contexts of high inequalities, scarcity of resources and weak institutions?

•          How is the interaction between frontline workers and citizens affected by these characteristics? What coping strategies are developed by frontline workers and citizens?

We invite papers that analyze different types of policies (social, economic, fiscal, environmental, infrastructure and so on); using different methods (qualitative, quantitative or mixed) and different approaches either about implementation, frontline workers or administrative burdens. We also invite comparative studies.

Expected impact on public policy research:

We expect the panel to contribute to implementation studies and frontline worker theory through evidence from contexts and countries different than those already studied by the literature. We expect that these studies contribute to fill the gap of understanding policy implementation in different contexts and testing some of the theories already proposed by mainstream literature. Discussions may also contribute to the literature about development and developing countries, improving the knowledge about policy implementation challenges in these contexts.

Tentative output suggestions:

The panel aims to impact the debate on frontline work, street-level bureaucracy, policy implementation and administrative burdens in Latin America and the broader international academic community. The ambition is to become an international reference for studies on street-level bureaucracy and citizen-state interactions. More specifically, the panel will pursue various publication outlets, including the possibility of an international book project and a special issue in a prominent international journal on public administration. The panel will also seek to be a platform for researchers to participate in the broader international academic community, such as academic conferences on street-level bureaucracy or policy implementation. Finally, the panel aims to foster exchange of researchers among universities and institutes.

The vast majority of what we know about street-level bureaucracy, policy implementation and administrative burdens comes from studies in advanced democracies. But what happens in different social, political and administrative contexts? Implicit assumptions about professionalism, state capacity and social trust shape the way we have come to understand frontline work and citizen-state interactions. In this workshop, we invite scholars to address the challenges of frontline work under conditions of low trust, social inequality and limited state capacity. The objective of the workshop is to generate new insights about the way systemic conditions shape the nature of frontline work, develop a clearer focus on the coping mechanisms frontline workers and citizens develop in contested contexts, and open up research in low-trust contexts to the mainstream academic debate. This panel has the objective of bringing together scholars from different regions that study policy implementation and frontline workers in contexts of low trust, social inequality and limited state capacity.

We invite papers that analyze different types of policies (social, economic, fiscal, environmental, infrastructure and so on); using different methods (qualitative, quantitative or mixed) and different approaches either about implementation and frontline workers. We also invite comparative studies.

Questions that should guide the papers:

·         What happens to policy implementation in countries with weak institutions and low trust? How do these characteristics affect policy implementation?

·         How do characteristics of low trust countries, such as corruption, clientelism, neopatrimonialism and patronage, affect policy implementation?

·         Which factors influence frontline workers that work in contexts of high inequalities, scarcity of resources and weak institutions?

·         How is the interaction between frontline workers and citizens affected by these characteristics?

·         In contexts of high inequality and conservative societies, are frontline workers confronted with different kinds of roles and decisions than already proved by the existing literature?

Main Topics:

- Frontline work in weak institutions

- Administrative burdens

- Social inequality and policy implementation

- Low trust and citizen-state interactions

- Professionalism and accountability

- Street-level corruption and clientelism