In this book, street-level bureaucracy scholars from South Asia, sub-Saharan Africa, the Middle East, and Latin America analyse the conditions that shape frontline work and citizens´ everyday experience of the state.

In this book, street-level bureaucracy scholars from South Asia, sub-Saharan Africa, the Middle East, and Latin America analyse the conditions that shape frontline work and citizens´ everyday experience of the state.Institutional factors such as political clientelism, resource scarcity, social inequality, job insecurity, and systemic corruption affect the way street-level bureaucrats enforce rules and implement policies. Inadvertently, they end up implementing inequities in citizens’ access to rights and services — despite efforts to repair organisational deficiencies and broker relations between vulnerable citizens and a distant state. This book illuminates these realities and challenges and provides unique insights into critical themes such as resource scarcities, bureaucratic corruption, control practices, and the complexities of dealing with vulnerable population groups.

1. Street-level bureaucracy in weak state institutions: an introduction - Gabriela Lotta, Fernando Nieto- Morales, and Rik PeetersPart 1: Coping with institutional weakness2. Weak but not broken: resilience by repair in the times of COVID-19 - Ayesha Masood3. Paternalist street-level bureaucrats and virtuous recipients: the consequences of institutional weakness in a pensions programme in Uganda - Ronan Jacquin4. Street-level bureaucrats in environments of systemic corruption: sources of influence - Oliver Meza, Elizabeth Pérez- Chiqués, and Anat GofenPart 2: Exploring institutional contexts5. Weak institutions and dangerous working conditions: coping by the wiremen of public electricity distribution utilities in India - Sneha Swami and Subodh Wagle6. Underserving the disadvantaged: institutional failures and their consequences for frontline workers and vulnerable publics - Roberto Pires, Maria Paula Santos, Beatriz Brandão, and Luiza Rosa7. Frontline implementation conditions of the Families programme: labour precarity and territorial gaps as aspects of weak state institutions in Chile - Taly Reininger, Gianinna Muñoz Arce, Cristóbal Villalobos, and Mitzi Duboy Luengo8. Regime transitions and institutional weakness: the case of police reform in Poland in the early 1990s - Barbara Maria Piotrowska, Izabela Szkurłat, andMagdalena SzydłowskaPart 3: Bureaucratic encounters9. Coping with violence and precarious working conditions: law enforcement through the eyes of municipal police officers in Morelia, Mexico - Paulina Y. Guzmán Linares and Rik Peeters10. ‘You can tell they are just villagers when you look at them’: a phenomenological study of street- level bureaucrats’ differential treatment of clients in a Ghanaian rural hospital - Abdul-Rahim Mohammed11. When frontline work functions as an enclave: insights from Turkey - Elise Massicard12. Citizen agency in street-level interactions: navigating uncertainty and unpredictability - Sergio A. Campos13. Frontline work in weak institutions: implementing inequities - Fernando Nieto-Morales, Gabriela Lotta, and Rik Peeters