Policy Entrepreneurship at the Street Level

Abstract

This Element aims to connect the literature of street-level bureaucrats with that of policy entrepreneurship in order to analyze why and how bureaucrats operating at the street level can promote policy change in public administration at the individual level. I demonstrate how street-level bureaucrats act as policy entrepreneurs in different contexts around the globe to promote policy change and analyze what they think of policy entrepreneurship and what they do about it in practice. For this purpose, I use multiple research methods: a survey, in-depth interviews, focus groups and textual analyses. I also offer recommendations to decision-makers to promote street-level policy entrepreneurship, highlighting the benefits of doing so. Lastly, I critically discuss the normative aspects of street-level policy entrepreneurship: ultimately, is it desirable?

Pandemic lockdown as policy window for street-level innovation of health and substitution treatment services for people who use drugs

“…Notably, street-level bureaucrats, whose discretionary autonomy and influence on everyday policy implementation is well described but whose "upward influence" on policy making is less well understood Cohen, 2021), exercised considerable influence on the changes described in this article. We have seen above how this occurred on two levels.…”

“…Rather than tied to specific positions in the political system, policy entrepreneurs are thereby defined by their ability to build and exploit momentum for pressing policy problems. A growing body of work has pointed to the influence of street-level bureaucrats to influence policy making and, hence, function as policy entrepreneurs (Cohen, 2021;. In this paper, we build on such work to show how in Denmark, the pandemic offered a policy window for street-level bureaucrats to exercise considerable "upward influence" on policy making .…”

“…To summarize, the pandemic crisis worked to collapse horizontal barriers between organizational "silos" that traditionally limit cross-sectoral collaboration around services to PWUD and vertically to permeate barriers between bureaucratic layers that normally restrict the upward influence of street-level bureaucrats on policy making. With reference to the latter, Cohen (2021) points to such barriers as factors that may prevent street-level bureaucrats from influencing policy design. As argued by Cohen (2021, p. 24), their possibilities for doing so are normally restricted due to everyday workloads and because they typically lack the authority as well as "formal channels of communication with high-level bureaucrats and politicians" needed to communicate needs and policy solutions to higher levels within the "political stream".…”

How Street-Level Bureaucrats Collaborate for Policy Entrepreneurship: Insights From Anti-Poverty Policy Implementation in China

“…This study has several limitations. First, it cannot cover all types of collaboration, such as those across jurisdictional divides (G. Cohen & Cohen, 2021) or cross-sectoral collaboration (Lahat et al, 2023;Loyens, 2019). Subsequent research may enrich the collaboration typology.…”

When social workers impact policy and don't just implement it: A framework for understanding policy engagement. By JGal, IWeiss‐Gal, Bristol, UK: Policy Press. 2022, 2023. pp. 184

“…This concept refers to SLBs who influence the formation of policies through innovative and entrepreneurial strategies. As professionals with insights and familiarity with the field that are important for shaping public policy, SLBs can operate in various arenas to influence policy in different areas and at different levels (Cohen, 2021; Cohen & Aviram, 2021).…”