The Effect of Clients' Attributes on Street-level Bureaucratic Outcome

EasyChair Preprint 1163

Abstract

Interactions between street-level bureaucrats and clients constitute a neglected field within research into public administration. Consequently, we do not know much about the significance of the character of these interactions in relation to street-level decision-making. This paper investigates whether clients’ demeanour and characteristics affect street-level bureaucrats’ decision-making practice. The effect of clients’ demeanour and characteristics is studied based on a stated preference method, a quantitative technique allowing for an elicitation of discretionary preferences. The paper draws on nationally representative survey data from prisons, mobile police squads and drop-in centres in Denmark (N =402, 56.0% response rate). The findings confirm that clients’ demeanour and characteristics do affect bureaucratic decision-making practice – regardless of type of organisation, but that it is not all clients’ attributes that have an effect. The analyses also show that client demeanour and characteristics, when compared to legislative provisions, play a minor role in relation to overall decisions in client cases.

Keyphrases: Biases and Discrimination, Client Behavior, Street-Level Behaviour, decision making

@booklet{EasyChair:1163,
  author    = {Didde Cramer Jensen},
  title     = {The Effect of Clients' Attributes on Street-level Bureaucratic Outcome},
  howpublished = {EasyChair Preprint 1163},
  year      = {EasyChair, 2019}}