A Public Service Gap: Capturing contexts in a comparative approach of street-level bureaucracy

Abstract

Studies of street-level bureaucracy have introduced a variety of conceptualizations, research approaches, and causal inferences. While this research has produced several insights, the impact of variety in the institutional context has not been adequately explored. We present the construct of a public service gap as a way to incorporate contextual factors and facilitate comparison. This construct addresses the differences between what is asked of and what is offered to public servants working at the street level. The heuristic enables the systematic capture of macro- and meso-contextual influences, thus enhancing comparative research on street-level bureaucracy.

Key words:

• Street-level bureaucracy
• policy implementation
• policy outputs
• performance
• comparative research
• public service gap

ACKNOWLEDGEMENT

We are grateful to the referees and the Editor-in-Chief for their comments. At some stage of elaborating our ideas Menno Fenger, David Giauque, Michael Hill, Steven Maynard-Moody, Michael Musheno, Ioannis Papadopoulos, Guy Peters, and Harald Sætren also made valuable suggestions. A part of this elaboration was done during Peter Hupe's stay as a Visiting Fellow 2012–2013 at All Souls College, Oxford, UK. The Warden and Fellows are thanked for their generous hospitality.

Notes

1. As Lipsky (1980, p. 29) puts it, certain organizations will not encounter inadequacy of resources: ‘Some organizations may not be afflicted with resource scarcities at all.’