Can street-level bureaucrats be nudged to increase effectiveness in welfare policy?

Article Article scientifique Article Can street-level bureaucrats be nudged to increase effectiveness in welfare policy? eng 2020 author Visintin Emilio Paolo author Bonvin Jean-Michel 28661 author Varone Frédéric 0000-0002-5620-3291 636949 author Butera Fabrizio author Lovey Max 836201 author Rosenstein Emilie 555601 10.1332/030557320X15955051687823 0305-5736 https://www.ingentaconnect.com/content/10.1332/030557320X15955051687823 This article investigates whether street-level bureaucrats can be incentivised to process information in ways that lead to more effective implementation decisions. It draws on the literatures on behavioural public policy (BPP) and street-level bureaucracy to analyse how civil servants implement disability insurance policy in Switzerland. We conducted a field experiment to assess whether a thought-provoking nudge improves the decisional effectiveness of street-level bureaucrats (SLBs). SLBs were assigned to either a ‘business-as-usual' control condition, or to an experimental condition, where they were called to pay attention to vulnerability processes along the beneficiaries' life course when making decisions. While we did not find that the thought-provoking nudge directly improved effectiveness, we found that it increased beneficiaries' humanisation. In particular, there was some evidence for indirect positive effects of the thought-provoking nudge on effectiveness via humanisation. These findings encourage BPP researchers to consider additional dimensions such as humanisation to nudge SLBs into processing information in better ways. Behavioural public policy Disability policy Effectiveness Field experiment Implementation Nudge Street-level bureaucrats Welfare policy Dewey 301 Dewey 320 Dewey 618.97 Swiss National Science Foundation NCCR LIves Grant N0.51NF40-160590 CH 14 Centre interfacultaire de gérontologie et d'études des vulnérabilités 0D6 121 Département de science politique et relations internationales T3 122 Département de sociologie T4 false Policy and Politics c996b9c5-14a2-457f-a7cc-ec8a16c92791 Article (Submitted version) Public PP_FT_Visintin_proof2-EPV_04.09.20.pdf 901885 application/pdf openAccess Centres et instituts / Centre interfacultaire de gérontologie et d'études des vulnérabilités Faculté des sciences de la société / Département de science politique et relations internationales Faculté des sciences de la société / Département de sociologie

Title	Published in	Year	Views	Downloads

Can street-level bureaucrats be nudged to increase effectiveness in welfare policy?	Policy and Politics	2020	559	515
Chaque génération a un autre rapport au sens au travail	HR Today	2017	388	583

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