Original scientific paper

The Moral Economy of Street-Level Policy Work

Tony Evans orcid.org/0000-0001-8269-2490 ; Department of Social Work at the University of London, United Kingdom

Abstract

The discretion exercised by frontline workers can have a significant effect on the implementation of public policy and service provision. The deployment of discretion tends to be characterised as self-serving. However, while people often act in far from ideal ways, this does not mean that their actions do not also reflect ethical concerns. In the first section of this paper, I argue that an ethical analysis of the moral economy of practice helps us to see discretionary practices as practical evaluations of and responses to the policy context, and as a source of situated principles to examine professional discretion in action. In the second part of the paper, I draw on these ideas to illustrate how a research study can illuminate front-line workers’ ethical evaluation of their work environment, the role they have within that setting, and their deployment of discretion in response to the issues that concern them. Discretion affects the translation of policy
through practice into a service for citizens. Here the perspectives of policymakers and citizens on the use of discretion are clearly important. However, in looking at discretion from the perspective of front-line professional staff, I have sought to recognise that their views are also important and can reflect serious ethical analysis. Convenience and self-interest can play a part in how front-line staff
choose to use discretion, but to understand the extent and impact of these motives we also need to understand (and not exclude) the possibility that discretion can also be influenced by ethical commitments and valid critique of policy. Ethical analysis of the moral economy of discretion, where discretion is not assumed to be necessarily good or bad, offers critical insights into policy, challenges in implementation, and service at the front line.

Keywords

discretion; moral economy; policy implementation; professionals; street-level bureaucracy

Hrčak ID:

129780

URI

https://hrcak.srce.hr/129780

Publication date:

29.6.2014.

Article data in other languages: croatian

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