How Street-Level Bureaucrats Collaborate for Policy Entrepreneurship: Insights From Anti-Poverty Policy Implementation in China

• Published date: 01 October 2023
• DOI: http://doi.org/10.1177/00953997231187082
• Author: Lu Liu,Yahua Wang
• Date: 01 October 2023
• Subject Matter: Articles

https://doi.org/10.1177/00953997231187082

Administration & Society

2023, Vol. 55(9) 1791 –1818

© The Author(s) 2023

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DOI: 10.1177/00953997231187082

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Article

How Street-

Level Bureaucrats

Collaborate for Policy

Entrepreneurship:

Insights From Anti-

Poverty Policy

Implementation in China

Lu Liu1 and Yahua Wang1

Abstract

Despite increasing attention to street-level policy entrepreneurship, it

remains unclear what strategies street-level bureaucrats employ during

implementation or how their strategies impact policy outcomes. Using

China’s Targeted Poverty Alleviation campaign, we argue that street-level

policy entrepreneurs construct collaborative arrangements with various

local networks to devise innovative solutions. They collaborate with

administrative leaders vertically or with citizens horizontally by adopting

three strategies: defining mutual interests, building trust, and leveraging

resources. Vertical collaboration contributes to effective policy outcomes

and formal upward accountability, while horizontal collaboration improves

public responsiveness. This study provides insights into collaborative

behaviors of frontline bureaucrats that alleviate rural poverty.

Keywords

policy implementation, poverty alleviation, policy entrepreneurship, street-level

bureaucrats, street-level policy entrepreneurship, collaborative governance

1Tsinghua University, Beijing, China

Corresponding Author:

Yahua Wang, School of Public Policy and Management, Tsinghua University, Room 612,

Beijing, 100084, China.

Email: wangyahua@tsinghua.edu.cn

1187082AAS0010.1177/00953997231187082Administration & SocietyLiu and Wang

research-article2023

1792 Administration & Society 55(9)

Introduction

Countries are confronted with a growing number of tricky problems that

impose significant challenges on policy design as well as street-level imple-

mentation. The success to meet these challenges is contingent on a variety of

policy actors who develop innovative solutions and put them into action

(Gofen & Lotta, 2021). To explain what drives policy innovation, the public

policy and administration literature has focused on the role of policy entre-

preneurs (PEs) who invest substantive time and resources to influence policy

processes and secure policy goals (Kingdon & Stano, 1984; Mintrom &

Norman, 2009). The majority of studies have focused on how high-level

elites, such as legislators, politicians, and administrators, advocate their ideas

in agenda setting, policy formation, and policy adoption (Anderson et al.,

2019; Roberts & King, 1991). A handful of studies have examined entrepre-

neurship during implementation, analyzing how elite entrepreneurs “fix” or

build on what has been accomplished in previous stages (Bardach, 1977;

Levin & Fennan, 1986). However, there is a lack of inquiry into whether

lower-level bureaucrats can bring about innovative outcomes in their imple-

mentation of public policies (Arnold, 2021; Frisch-Aviram et al., 2019).

A vein of emerging scholarship contends that street-level bureaucrats

(SLBs) can also serve as entrepreneurs to shape policy processes, a phenom-

enon that is referred to as street-level policy entrepreneurship (Arnold, 2013;

Durose, 2009; Lavee & Cohen, 2019; Petchey et al., 2007). Scholars have

asserted that street-level policy entrepreneurs (SLPEs) can perceive the need

for change and access policy-makers to improve the status quo (Frisch-

Aviram et al., 2018). They have examined the motivations of SLBs to become

SLPEs, as well as their strategies for bringing about policy changes (Aviv

et al., 2021; Gofen et al., 2021; Lavee et al., 2018). While most academic

attention has been diverted to SLPEs’ capacity to change policy design (Aviv

et al., 2021; N. Cohen & Aviram, 2021), analyses of their creativity and

improvisation in day-to-day implementation remain relatively sparse (Breit

et al., 2016; Lu et al., 2019; Masood & Nisar, 2021).

This study aims to address two questions: how do SLBs realize policy

entrepreneurship in policy implementation? What are the effects of their

entrepreneurial strategies on policy outcomes and accountability relations?

SLBs possess a certain level of autonomy to decide how to interpret policies,

distribute resources, and organize action to deliver policies (Keiser, 2010;

Sabatier, 1986). While there is a large body of literature on the coping strate-

gies of SLBs, most studies concentrate on how SLBs use discretion to bend

and break rules, routinize service delivery, or ration existing resources

(Tummers et al., 2015). Moreover, we argue that SLBs can develop new