Street‐level bureaucrats in a relational state: The case of Bougainville

Abstract

We explore how street-level bureaucrats (SLBs) as 'agents of the state' operate in circumstances where there is very little state, at least as state form is understood in the context in which street-level bureaucracy theorising has developed. Using the example of post-conflict Bougainville, we suggest SLBs actually construct the state through their wide-flung and deep networks of relationality. We propose that SLBs in the majority world may be helpfully understood through utilising two different lenses of the state, both of which tell an accurate but only partial story. The first lens is the edifice of the Weberian or Bureaucratic state and the second lens is that we term the Relational state. We illustrate how these two lenses together provide a more complete understanding and analytical insights into the role of SLBs through drawing upon our empirical data.

Do visiting monks give better sermons? “Street‐level bureaucrats from higher‐up” in targeted poverty alleviation in China

“…It is affected by the structure of the professional network and its professional status within the network (Frisch‐Aviram et al., 2021; Halliday et al., 2009; Keulemans & Groeneveld, 2020). Street‐level policy entrepreneurs are embedded in a more complex network of relationships, influenced by a combination of policy implementation pressures and local demands (Peake & Forsyth, 2021; Zhang et al., 2021). SLBs are required to respond to community needs while providing services.…”

Relationality

“…2 At the same time as scholars acknowledge the importance of the relational, almost none attempt to analyze and describe relationship in enough richness and use such rich description to better understand policy processes and outcomes. One exception is Peake and Forsyth (2022), who call for a wider use of ethnographic interviews with street-level agents to understand how their interactions and programmatic contexts intertwine. As we will discuss in Section 4, this approach is one effective way of getting at the nature of relationships that influences the policy agent's thinking and action.…”

“…Clientelism, which is a broad classification of what is essentially a relational phenomenon, is often associated with weaker governance systems (and younger, less developed democracies) in the developing world (notwithstanding the inherent orientalism in this view). Peake and Forsyth, in distinguishing between the Weberian, bureaucratic state and the informal, relational state, comment on how, in immature polities, the relational dominates governance (Peake and Forsyth, 2022).…”

Make-work and workshops

“…15 I went on to write an article with a colleague from The Australian National University about these hard-working and dogged bureaucrats who leverage their histories, connections and affiliations to get things done, just as these bureaucrats did when trying to tackle land issues in Bougainville, which felt at times like the stickiest of bureaupathology problems. 16 We are too silent on the importance of these individual actors. Let's name them and give them at least the acclaim that can be acquired in a book.…”