On the Outside, Looking in : Understanding Transparency at the Frontline

This doctoral dissertation examines the effects of transparency on the daily work of street-level bureaucrats and their interactions with citizens. By studying food and product safety inspectors, this dissertation shows that transparency helps street-level bureaucrats do their job. By studying citizens’ perceptions of multiple enforcing street-level bureaucrats (e.g. parking wardens), this dissertation reveals that citizens are biased about the street-level bureaucrats they meet, but this does not mean they will make what street-level bureaucrats do transparent to others

Street-level Enforcement Style: A Multidimensional Measurement Instrument

This study investigates street-level bureaucrats’ enforcement style and its underlying dimensions by developing and validating a multidimensional measurement scale. Developing a measurement scale for enforcement style is relevant because the number of underlying dimensions is contested and studies developing measurement scales are scarce. This complicates cross-sector and cross-national comparisons. Using a survey among inspectors of the Netherlands Food and Consumer Product Safety Authority, street-level enforce

Does Disclosure of Performance Information Influence Street-level Bureaucrats' Enforcement Style?

Governments use different regulatory instruments to ensure that businesses owners or "inspectees" comply with rules and regulations. One tool that is increasingly applied is disclosing inspectees' performance information to other stakeholders. Disclosing performance information has consequences for street-level bureaucrats because it increases the visibility of their day-to-day work. Using a survey (n =507) among Dutch inspectors of the Netherlands Food and Consumer Product Safety Authority, this article shows that the disclosure of performance information has an impact on enforcement style at the street level. Findings show that perceived disclosed performance information positively enhances all three dimensions of street-level bureaucrats' enforcement style (legal, facilitation, and accommodation). This effect is strongest for facilitation and accommodation and weakest for the legal style. Perceived resistance by inspectees partly explains this effect. Contrary to expectations, more perceived disclosure does not result in more but in less perceived resistance of inspectees by street-level bureaucrats

Blaming the bureaucrat: does perceived blame risk influence inspectors’ enforcement style?

Is there a relation between street-level bureaucrats’ enforcement style and their perception of the risk of getting blamed? This article answers this question on the basis of a survey (n = 507) among inspectors of the Netherlands Food and Product Safety Authority. We included perceived media attention on their work as a factor that might influence street-level bureaucrats’ perception of blame risk and their enforcement style. Three dimensions of enforcement style were distinguished from earlier research: legal, facilitative and accommodative. We found that when inspectors perceive more blame risk, they employ a slightly less legal style and, instead, employ a more accommodative style. Thus, they act a little less formally and less coercively (i.e. legal) and take greater account of their peers’ opinions (i.e. accommodative). However, perceived media attention did not have a significant influence on enforcement style. Points for practitioners: 1. When inspectors perceive more blame risk, they tend to pay more attention to the opinion of peers (other inspectors, supervisors, etc.). 2. Blame risk does not lead to the use of a more formal inspection style. 3. Media attention does not play an important role in enhancing the blame risk perception of inspectors. 4. This media and blame risk is less important than often found in the case of politicians. This may be connected to the fact that the work of inspectors as street-level bureaucrats is less visible to the wider public (and the media)