Institutions have diverging positions with regard to what should be morally accepted in society and what not. Research has identified so-called institutional logics that guide the decision making of public administrations in different public policy sectors (Skelcher and Smith, 2015; Thomann et al., 2016; Thornton, 2004; Thornton and Ocasio, 1999). To what extent these logics trigger loyal behavior at the street-level is so far understudied. This question is of special interest for morality policy, as due to political conflict, moral-laden policies are often vaguely formulated, leaving a considerable amount of discretion to the lowest implementation stage. Therefore, the key research questions of the paper are: (1) how is morality policy implemented (2) how and why does implementation vary between institutional settings? I argue that institutional logics christallize at the street-level, resulting in different implementation styles in organisations associated with the logics of the state, religion and civil society. In detail, FBOs (faith-based organisations) pronounce the religious aspect present within decisions on moral issues, CSOs (civil-society organisations) campaign for humanitarian values and the state focuses on rational solutions in the spirit of compromise. Subsequently, I expect that street-level behavior will reflect a traditional-restrictive logic within FBOs, a liberal-permissive logic within CSOs and an instrumental (e.g., neutral) logic within state bureaucracies.
The paper explores these expectations for three different morality policies (i.e. abortion policy, prostitution policy and migration policy) in two German states, Berlin and Bavaria. By means of a Q-study, I gather insight in street-level implementation styles within these conflictive policy sectors. Q is a mixed-method approach for studying individual preferences and value positions within a small sample (Brown, 1980; Stephenson, 1935). It allows to detect if street-level workers within the same institutional setting employ the same implementation style, and if this implementation style points back to the central paradigms institutions hold with regard to abortion, prostitution and migration.
Putting street-level actors’ perspective in the focus, this paper connects to research in the field of behavioral public administration. As the macro-micro-approach of institutional logics allows to examine the process of policy-making in detail, it moreover speaks to the community of public policy analysis. In a greater context, the study sheds light on the value-driven logics underlying public service provision within a corporatist welfare state.
