Originally the exclusive preserve of the private sector, the mystery shopper technique is increasingly being used in the public sector. In the wake of the reforms to modernise the state, accountability and performance-monitoring exercises are on the rise. They focus, in particular, on service quality and user-customer satisfaction. The article makes a twofold contribution to this topic: methodological and substantive. First of all, the article undertakes a scoping review of the literature on the mystery shopper. This review makes it possible to present the mystery shopper technique and its use in the public sector. For this bibliometric study, a sample of 34 papers was analysed. Second, the article offers a summary of the research into the mystery shopper technique, its potential and its limitations. Points for practitioners This article describes the use of the mystery shopper technique in the public sector. The areas for which mystery shopper surveys are commissioned are relatively limited, most being undertaken in the health sector. However, the scoping review emphasises the potential importance of mystery shopping for the purposes of the evaluation. As such, investigating other areas can be very interesting and promising for the public authorities. We also observe from this literature review that the challenges identified during mystery shopper studies can be overcome.

Dans le cadre des mutations de la démocratie, les conceptions qu’ont les élus de la représentation politique et de la participation citoyenne méritent d’être analysées, car elles permettent de comprendre la potentielle insertion de nouvelles formes démocratiques dans les régimes parlementaires actuels. La position des élus oscille entre méfiance et usage des dispositifs de démocratie participative. Grâce à une méthode qualitative de codage d’entretiens avec des parlementaires fédéraux belges, nous montrons que les représentants nationaux ne partagent pas tous la nécessité d’une participation citoyenne. Ils soulignent que la politique demande une compétence technique ainsi qu’une forme de professionnalisation afin de comprendre les enjeux et les contraintes liées à la gouvernance moderne. Les discours des parlementaires diffèrent néanmoins sur la question de la place à accorder aux citoyens, ce qui invite à distinguer trois profils idéal-typiques : élitiste, corporatiste et hybride.

Les décideurs publics contemporains gouvernent des démocraties sous tensions. Qu’il s’agisse d’une crise, d’une fatigue ou d’une mutation, le lien qui unit gouvernants et gouvernés est aujourd’hui largement considéré comme sujet à transformation. Cet enjeu questionne la légitimité des décideurs publics ainsi que leur place dans l’architecture des démocraties contemporaines. En ces temps de remise en question du modèle représentatif, cet article examine dans un premier temps comment les décideurs publics perçoivent leur propre position. Ensuite, l’article aborde la manière dont les décideurs publics conçoivent la représentation politique. Finalement, l’analyse porte sur la place qu’accordent les décideurs à une participation plus directe des citoyens dans l’action publique.

Belgium and Italy stand out within Western Europe as countries that have shown pronounced reluctance to regulate assisted reproductive technologies (ART) and embryo research in the 1980s and 1990s, while the new millennium brought about major public policy ‘punctuation’. Belgium has changed from a strategy of non-decision to a permissive regulation on embryos and ART practices. Italy has moved from a lack of ART regulation to a relatively restrictive framework. The purpose of this contribution is twofold. First, it aims at explaining Belgium and Italy’s reluctance to regulate ART until roughly 2000. The authors rely on three explanatory factors: the deeply divided character of societies, the weight and the divisions of political parties, and the autonomy of physicians. Second, referring in part to the punctuated equilibrium model of Baumgartner and Jones, they explain the policy change in both Belgium and Italy in the first decade of the twenty-first century

In Belgium, there are about 250 advisory bodies at the federal level and 46 at the regional level. These advisory bodies tend to be highly integrated into the policy-making cycle. They also seem to rely more on experience-based expertise than on academic expert opinion, which is not surprising in a consensus-based political system with neo-corporatist traits where traditional stakeholder groups possess policy-making powers. This chapter analyses the cross-regional and cross-government variation of the nature and role of advisory bodies. It also discusses how the policy advisory system has become subject of reforms that seek to meet four challenges: restoring political primacy in policy-making, dealing with growing advice competition, addressing the coincidence of expert advice and representative opinion, and securing societal support for policy interventions from groups other than traditional representative organizations.

Street-level bureaucrats play a key role in the delivery of public services to the citizens with whom they interact. Using the Preferred Reporting Items for Systematic Review and Meta-Analyses approach, we rely on a street-level perspective to report a systematic review of 46 studies about officer-offender interactions in prisons and probation services. In doing so, we examine how correctional officers articulate state-agencywhereby they focus on the implementation of rules and policiesand citizen-agency

Probation officers (POs) operate in a high-risk environment. They are vulnerable to mediatic and political backlash and are confronted with managerial innovations that can conflict with their values. A thematic analysis of 29 interviews with Belgian POs reveals that classical coping mechanisms caused by time shortages, such as rationing and prioritization, are amplified by managerialism. POs also break rules which present limited meaningfulness and routinize offender control to alleviate pressure from accountabilities to both managers and the general public. The study demonstrates that managerialism and accountabilities to the managers, the public, and the politicians model coping mechanisms in high-risk environments.

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