Bureaucratic Discrimination Against Mobile EU Citizens

EU citizens enjoy important rights and access to public services in other member states than their own. To make effective use of this privilege, mobile EU citizens often rely on assistance and support from frontline bureaucrats; often from bureaucrats working at the local level. These frontline bureaucrats in host countries thus fulfil a key role in the EU’s multilevel structure of democratic governance. However, a steadily growing body of research shows that frontline bureaucrats regularly discriminate against minorities through the selective provision of support. Bureaucratic discrimination is not only unlawful but also dangerous as it not only undermines people’s trust in public administration but also their trust in political institutions more generally. While the norms guiding bureaucratic behaviour thus do not seem sufficient to avoid discrimination, it is an open empirical question of whether the extent of bureaucratic discrimination is merely a reflection of discrimination within society at large. This paper addresses this research gap by asking two questions: are public sector norms and values able to suppress discrimination when compared to the benchmark of societal discrimination? And can the establishment of accountability measures effectively reduce bureaucratic discrimination? To answer these questions, we conduct a population-based conjoint-experiment with members of the general public and a sub-sample of people working within public administration. Within a hypothetical-choice situation, respondents are asked to prioritize different requests by mobile EU citizens: requests relating to the participation within local elections and requests relating to the access to welfare benefits. With this approach, the paper contributes to the debate on representative bureaucracy as well as to research on the ability of managerial interventions to minimize discrimination in public service delivery.