Street-level bureaucrats and democratic backsliding

Street-level bureaucrats (SLBs), such as teachers, doctors, or the police force, are a group directly tasked with the implementation of the relevant government policies. Their work is crucial for the exact shape that policy ends up taking and, consequently, for citizens’ satisfaction. This becomes particularly important in a situation when policy changes significantly, as it does after populist parties come into power, especially when the government’s policies lead to democratic backsliding, as they did in Hungary and Poland in the 2010s. Given that SLBs’ attitudes are likely to affect the zeal with which they implement populist policies, it is important to know to what extent they support the government in power. Hence, this paper considers the support of SLBs for governments that presided over democratic backsliding and the extent to which the mean support is a function of selection into and out of working for the state. To do so, I first analyze data from the European Social Survey (ESS) 2008-2018 to investigate the differentials in support for governments among SLBs (compared to the general population) in countries that did and did not experience democratic backsliding. Then, to investigate selection, I zoom in on Poland and use the Polish Panel Survey (POLPAN) to consider the extent to which democratic backsliding has led to a turnover in street-level bureaucracy.