Neither the Magic Bullet Nor the Big Bad Wolf: A Systematic Review of Frontline Judges’ Attitudes and Coping Regarding Managerialization

• Published date: 01 May 2023
• DOI: http://doi.org/10.1177/00953997231157748
• Author: Émilien Colaux,Nathalie Schiffino,Stéphane Moyson
• Date: 01 May 2023
• Subject Matter: Articles

https://doi.org/10.1177/00953997231157748

Administration & Society

2023, Vol. 55(5) 921 –952

© The Author(s) 2023

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DOI: 10.1177/00953997231157748

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Article

Neither the Magic

Bullet Nor the Big Bad

Wolf: A Systematic

Review of Frontline

Judges’ Attitudes and

Coping Regarding

Managerialization

Émilien Colaux1, Nathalie Schiffino1,

and Stéphane Moyson1

Abstract

How do frontline judges perceive managerial reforms, and how do they

cope with them? We relied on concepts from street-level bureaucracy to

systematically review the effects of managerial techniques on frontline judges

in 35 studies. We find that judges’ attitudes toward managerialization are

more heterogeneous than might be anticipated. Beyond facing an increasing

caseload, judges are pressed to reduce treatment times and costs as well as

to play managerial roles. Judges’ mechanisms to cope with pressures include

rationing, prioritizing, and routinizing. While managerialization is a solution

to the increasing caseload, it might well affect the quality of justice.

Keywords

coping mechanism, discretion, frontline judge, new public management,

street-level bureaucracy, systematic review

1Université catholique de Louvain (UCLouvain), Mons, Belgium

Corresponding Author:

Émilien Colaux, Institut de Sciences Politiques Louvain-Europe (ISPOLE), Université

catholique de Louvain (UCLouvain), Chaussée de Binche, 151 Box M1.01.01, Mons 7000,

Belgium.

Email: emilien.colaux@uclouvain.be

1157748AAS0010.1177/00953997231157748Administration & SocietyColaux et al.

research-article2023

922 Administration & Society 55(5)

Introduction

Since the 1980s, the managerialization of many public services, that is, the

introduction of management techniques inspired by the private sector in the

public sector, has been ongoing around the world. This trend has reached the

judicial sector, although later most of the time. While managerialization was

initially designed to increase the efficiency and efficacy of public administra-

tions and policies in the context of budget cuts, it has been increasingly sus-

pected to miss its objectives, among other things, because it places multiple

constraints on frontline public officials—for example, increased controls—

without necessarily improving the quality or decreasing the costs of the pub-

lic service they deliver. Scientific research suggests that this applies, currently,

to the work of frontline judges, that is, those who interact with various citi-

zens and handle a heavy caseload on a daily basis, most generally in lower

courts. However, this research is less prolix and more scattered than the

mainstream literature on managerialization. How do frontline judges per-

ceive managerial reforms? What pressures actually result from these reforms?

How do frontline judges concretely cope with these pressures? The purpose

of this article is to address these questions on the basis of a systematic review

of political and social science. We find that while many suspicions regarding

managerialization are confirmed from the perspective of frontline judges’

attitudes and behaviors, there are also reasons to believe that some dimen-

sions and effects of managerialization effectively contribute to preserving

public service while addressing the judicialization of society, which increases

caseload.

For many years, public policy and administration research has been domi-

nated by top-down approaches. In the early 1980s, many researchers ques-

tioned the preponderance of this approach and decided to adopt bottom-up

perspectives (Sabatier, 1986). In this context, Lipsky (1980/2010) demon-

strated and theorized the influence that “street-level bureaucrats” can exert

on public policies. Street-level bureaucrats are public officials who directly

interact with various citizens-clients on a daily basis and hold, to the extent

that they respect the rules, some discretionary power in making administra-

tive decisions for citizens-clients, which shapes public policy on the ground

(Evans, 2011; Hupe & Hill, 2007; Hupe et al., 2015).

In recent decades, frontline agents have faced changing managerial mod-

els and, in turn, increasing organizational pressures. The working conditions

of public officials have been affected, among other factors, by the principles

and practices of New Public Management (NPM) (Brodkin, 2011). The logic

of governance by performance has major implications for the way in which

street-level public agents carry out their tasks (Jacobsson et al., 2021):

Colaux et al. 923

increased work standardization generates tension with the autonomy and dis-

cretion of street-level bureaucrats (Brodkin, 2011) and affects their personal

relationships with citizens-clients (Mik-Meyer, 2018). Performance assess-

ments and increased attention to agents’ accountability (Brodkin, 2012) lead

to informal practices meant to preserve their work conditions (e.g., bypassing

lengthy controls) or the public service delivered to citizens-clients (Brodkin,

2011). Street-level bureaucrats defend their professional identity and values

in the face of managerial principles and changes (Evans, 2011; Hendrikx,

2021).

In this article, we focus on a specific category of street-level bureaucrats:

frontline judges, that is, those dispensing justice to many citizens on a daily

basis, most generally at the lowest levels of jurisdiction. These judges can

cover various matters (family, traffic, neighborhood disputes, youth, etc.) and

typically deal with the most common disputes. Despite various legal studies

about the spread of NPM in the justice sector (Bouhon & Pironnet, 2017;

Nachtergaele & Piraux, 2017; Vigour, 2017), the way in which judges con-

cretely deal with new managerial rationalities has been addressed mostly

implicitly. Moreover, street-level approaches to judges and their practices

remain quite rare in public administration research, although the relevance of

this approach has been supported by Lipsky (1980/2010) and reiterated by

some recent studies (e.g., Biland & Steinmetz, 2017; Dallara & Lacchei,

2021).

How do frontline judges perceive managerial reforms, and how do they

cope in practice with the pressures that these managerial reforms bring about?

To address this research question, we present the results of a systematic

review of peer-reviewed articles in social and political science based on the

Preferred Reporting Items for Systematic Review and Meta-Analyses

approach (PRISMA: Moher et al., 2009). In doing so, theoretically, we test

the often stated but rarely substantiated critique related to the (negative)

effects of managerialization on street-level public services (Brodkin, 2011) in

the judicial sector. Empirically, we illuminate the relations between different

dimensions of judiciary management and the attitudes and behaviors they do

or do not trigger among frontline judges. In turn, we provide some perspec-

tive on the concrete impact of NPM on the delivery of public service in the

judicial sector.

After an overview of the theoretical perspectives of the analysis as well as

a presentation of the methods and scope of the literature review, the results

focus on the influence of judiciary management on frontline judges. We start

with judges’ attitudes toward the evolution of judiciary management. Then,

we examine the pressures resulting from these managerial evolutions that