Between the Client and the Institutional System
Street-level Bureaucrats’ Discretion, Positioning, and Trust in Institutional Encounters with Forced Migrants in Finland and Sweden
Bibliographic Data
| ID | 12714850 |
|---|---|
| Authors | L Sundbäck (0000-0001-8550-9540, Åbo Akademi University, corresponding author) |
| Year | 2024 |
| Pages | 1-14 |
| Publication date | 2024-12-20 |
| Open Access | Yes |
| Type | ARTICLE |
| Venue | Social Policy and Society (JOURNAL) |
| Journal identifiers | ISSN: 1474-7464 • E-ISSN: 1475-3073 |
| Publisher | Cambridge University Press (CUP) (PUBLISHER) |
| DOI | 10.1017/s1474746424000538 |
| OpenAlex | W4405653498 |
| Language | EN |
| Citations received | 3 |
| References cited | 35 |
This article examines street-level bureaucrats’ positions between the institutional system and their clients with a forced migration background in their sensemaking of trust. Situated at the frontline of the institution, street-level bureaucrats are crucial agents for forced migrants settling in Nordic welfare states. Drawing on individual interviews with street-level bureaucrats in Finland and Sweden and theoretically leaning on street-level bureaucracy, positioning theory, and trust, this article explores how street-level bureaucrats navigate these encounters. By identifying five non-exclusionary ways in which street-level bureaucrats position themselves between the migrant client and the institutional system through their sensemaking of trust, I propose a typology of positions: resisting warrior, empathic carer, neutral mediator, pushing steerer, and critical questioner. Further, these positions reflect ambiguous narratives of being simultaneously an agent of the citizen and an agent of the state
Business · Discretion · Institutional change · Political science · Sociology · Law · Migration, Health and Trauma · Migration, Refugees, and Integration · Public Administration · Social Science and Policy Research
Typologies and Taxonomies
Abductive Analysis
Not So Different After All
When the State Meets the Street
Work and the Welfare State
Neoliberalism, Nordic Welfare States and Social Work
Playing defence
Welfare Service Professionals, Migrants, and the Question of Trust. A Danish Case
Trust Shaping in Forced Migrants’ Institutional Encounters in the Finnish Welfare State
Welfare Mediators as Game Changers? Deconstructing Power Asymmetries Between EU Migrants and Welfare Administrators
Precariousness among young migrants in Europe
Newly arrived migrants meet street-level bureaucrats in Jordan, Sweden, and Turkey
Deserving the Right to Work? Immigration Officials and the Work Permit in Germany
Conceptualising the Role of Deservingness in Migrants’ Access to Social Services
Ambiguous Expectations and Reduced Confidence
From welfare nationalism to welfare chauvinism
Going the Extra Mile? How Street‐level Bureaucrats Deal with the Integration of Immigrants
Practices of activation in frontline interactions
Working Within a System of Administrative Burden
I have learned my lesson”
Nordic welfare chauvinism
Dealing with the Dilemmas
Cultural Stereotypes and Positioning Theory
Refugees and the violence of welfare bureaucracies in Northern Europe
The Nordic Welfare State in Three Eras
State Agent or Citizen Agent
Positioning
Social Policies as a Tool of Migration Control
Exploring sensemaking of trust through the lens of time
Epistemic notions of trust and distrust in institutional encounters with forced migrants in Finland and Sweden
Invisibilised Visions
| Citations per year | 3 |
|---|---|
| Citation span | 2025 - 2026 (2) |
| Highly cited | No |