Frontline interactions on inequal treatment of clients: an analysis of (in)equality talk

Questions on equity and equality in public service delivery have been a central focus of study in different streams of literature in public administration, such as representative bureaucracy and studies on street-level bureaucrats’ decision making. These streams of literature generally start from predefined notions of equity or equality, such as the representation of the interests of minority clients, and reducing discrimination of clients based on their social background characteristics. There is still a lack of understanding of how street-level professionals themselves define and value equal treatment in decision-making processes about clients. A first qualitative study, involving interviews with frontline law enforcers and service providers, has conceptualized four notions of equal treatment: 1) law-based equality; 2) professionalism-based equality; 3) casuistry-based equality and 4) society-based equality (Raaphorst, 2023). The current study follows up on these individual-level findings to analyze how law enforcers and service providers respond to and deal with different types of inequality in interaction with each other. A focus group study on law enforcers and service providers in different policy domains in the Netherlands will be conducted (envisioned in spring 2024). The use of focus groups allows for analyzing the social interaction around inequality. Groups consisting of 4-6 frontline professionals with similar core tasks will be presented vignettes portraying different hypothetical stories of unequally treated clients. The vignettes will be constructed based on the four different notions of equality conceptualized in Raaphorst (2023), and adapted to the working contexts of the respective frontline workers. Focus group participants will then be asked what they think about the situation and how they would deal with it. The talk will be analyzed both in terms of content (what they talk about) and characteristics of the interaction (how they talk to each other). This research envisions two theoretical contributions. First, this research contributes to literature which has stressed and showed the importance of social interaction and deliberation for frontline decision-making (e.g. Bartels, 2013; Møller, 2021). Following scholars emphasizing the analysis of language-in-use in public encounters (Bartels, 2013; Hand & Catlaw, 2019), this study analyses how frontline professionals talk about inequalities in decision-making. Second, this study will contribute to research on (in)equality in street level decision-making, by examining how frontline professionals respond to different forms of inequality, and how these responses are patterned by their core task of either service provision or law enforcement. References Bartels, K. P. (2013). Public encounters: The history and future of face‐to‐face contact between public professionals and citizens. Public administration, 91(2), 469-483. Hand, L. C., & Catlaw, T. J. (2019). Accomplishing the public encounter: A case for ethnomethodology in public administration research. Perspectives on Public Management and Governance, 2(2), 125-137. Møller, A. M. (2021). Deliberation and deliberative organizational routines in frontline decision-making. Journal of Public Administration Research and Theory, 31(3), 471-488. Raaphorst, N. (2023). Treating like cases alike: A comparative study on how street-level professionals define and value equal treatment. Paper presented at the Public Management Research Conference, 28-30 June 2023, Utrecht, the Netherlands.