Varieties of welfare markets from a street‐level perspective: Comparing long‐term care services in Germany and Israel
Published date | 01 March 2023 |
Author | Nissim Cohen,Tanja Klenk,Maayan Davidovitz,Sarah Cardaun |
Date | 01 March 2023 |
DOI | http://doi.org/10.1111/puar.13549 |
RESEARCH ARTICLE
Varieties of welfare markets from a street-level perspective:
Comparing long-term care services in Germany and Israel
Nissim Cohen
1
| Tanja Klenk
2
| Maayan Davidovitz
3
| Sarah Cardaun
4
1
The Division of Public Administration and
Policy, University of Haifa, Haifa, Israel
2
Professorship for Public Policy and Public
Administration, Helmut Schmidt University/
University of the Federal Armed Forces
Hamburg, Hamburg, Germany
3
Wagner Graduate School of Public Service, New
York University, New York City, New York, USA
4
Faculty of Economics and Social Sciences,
Helmut Schmidt University/University of the
Federal Armed Forces Hamburg, Hamburg,
Germany
Correspondence
Maayan Davidovitz, Wagner Graduate School of
Public Service, New York University, New York
City, NY, USA.
Email: maayandavidovitz@gmail.com
Funding information
German-Israel Foundation for Scientific
Research & Development, Grant/Award Number:
I-1414-119.4/2017
Abstract
How does the marketization of social service provision impact the practices of
street-level bureaucrats (SLBs) towards their clients? To explore this question, we
compare the markets for ambulatory long-term care for the elderly in Germany
and Israel, which differ in the latitude of choice offered to clients and the intensity
of state regulation. Based on 52 qualitative interviews with SLBs and managers of
care providers, our study shows that in both countries, institutional contexts play a
significant role in shaping street-level bureaucracy practices. We found that SLBs
and managers in Israel engage in entrepreneurial behavior, whereas their German
counterparts adopt administrative practices. By identifying these tendencies as
responses to the respective welfare market characteristics, the article makes an
important contribution to the field of comparative SLB research and furthers our
understanding of the broader implications of the marketization of welfare services.
Evidence for practice
•This comparative study of long-term care providers in marketized institutional
settings shows that different types of welfare markets impact the practices of
street-level bureaucrats (SLBs) towards clients differently.
•The findings from our qualitative interviews provide evidence that consumer-
driven markets (Israel) encourage both SLBs and their managers to engage in
entrepreneurial behavior. In contrast, our interviewees working in a state-driven
market (Germany) do not behave entrepreneurially but have a strong focus on
administrative practices.
•State-driven markets do not necessarily lead to “moving away from”or “against
clients.”In fact, home care nurses and their managers in both countries use their
own resources and “move towards clients”due to professional considerations
and—in the Israeli case—business orientation.
INTRODUCTION
Relationships and exchanges of street-level bureaucrats
(SLBs) with clients are the focus of many implementation
studies. Scholars use various approaches to discuss how
these interactions shape public service production. Given
SLBs’considerable discretion in their day-to-day practices
(Dias & Maynard-Moody, 2007; Lipsky, 2010, p. 3), they are
the actors who decide de facto how to distribute social
(Gofen, 2014) and personal (Lavee, 2021) resources to cli-
ents. Usually, the literature highlights the role of street-
level bureaucracy perceptions (Lavee & Strier, 2019) and
their attitudes towards clients (Keulemans & Van de
Walle, 2020) in understanding their behavior.
SLB practices are always embedded in a context
(Hupe, 2019). In recent decades, however, New Public
Management (NPM) reforms, including the introduction
of quasi-markets, have radically altered this context.
These reforms have changed both the work environments
Nissim Cohen, Tanja Klenk, Maayan Davidovitz and Sarah Cardaun contributed
equally to this article.
Received: 2 August 2021 Revised: 13 July 2022 Accepted: 31 July 2022
DOI: 10.1111/puar.13549
This is an open access article under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits use, distribu tion and reproduction in any medium, provided the
original work is properly cited.
© 2022 The Authors. Public Administration Review published by Wiley Periodicals LLC on behalf of American Society for Public Administration.
Public Admin Rev. 2023;83:419–428. wileyonlinelibrary.com/journal/puar 419
To continue reading
Request your trial