To Comply or Not to Comply, That Is the Question

The Street‐Level Implementation of Jurisprudence by Migration Officers

Dados Bibliográficos

ID6452050
AutoresCarla Mascia (0000-0003-0332-3895, Université libre de Bruxelles Institut de Sociologie Ixelles Belgium, autor correspondente)
Ano2025
Volume59
Fascículo4
Páginas656-665
Data de publicação2025-04-22
Peer ReviewedSim
Open AccessSim
TipoARTICLE
PeriódicoSocial Policy and Administration (JOURNAL)
Identificadores do periódicoISSN: 0144-5596 • E-ISSN: 1467-9515
EditoraWiley (PUBLISHER • GB)
DOI10.1111/spol.13143
OpenAlexW4409709384
IdiomaEN
Citações recebidas3
Referências citadas65

Building on Lipsky's scholarship, street‐level research conceptualises street‐level bureaucrats as policymakers who redefine policies through their discretionary practises. By focusing on decision‐making, this literature highlights the crucial role of non‐legal factors in shaping discretion. Consequently, the impact of judicial review on street‐level bureaucrats' practises is often overlooked or considered limited, and frequently attributed to a lack of legal expertise. To better understand why judicial decisions seem to have such a limited influence on administrative practises, this paper examines what happens within the administration after court rulings are issued. Drawing on ethnographic fieldwork conducted within the Belgian Immigration Office—the public agency responsible for processing family reunification applications—I show that court decisions trigger a collective interpretative process involving both caseworkers and legal experts, which can be understood as a form of epistemological bricolage. By questioning the aim of such a process, this paper makes two interrelated contributions. It challenges the assumption that bureaucratic noncompliance stems from a lack of legal knowledge, showing instead that administrative actors may deliberately choose not to comply and may even engage in strategic litigation. Consequently, it reveals that street‐level actors shape policy not only through case‐by‐case bureaucratic reasoning but also by actively participating in forms of legal activism

Business · Jurisprudence · Political science · Sociology · Law · Migration, Health and Trauma · Migration, Racism, and Human Rights · Migration, Refugees, and Integration