How Do Citizens Assess Street-Level Bureaucrats’ Warmth and Competence? A Typology and Test

Abstract

Citizens encounter many street-level bureaucrats in their lifetime. How do they assess the traits of the bureaucrats they meet? Understanding citizens’ assessments of bureaucrats is important, because citizens are not passive receivers of policies. This article explores citizens’ classifications of street-level bureaucrats based on their core task. Using a factorial survey (n = 580), three clusters of bureaucrats are identified: those who are regulation oriented, those who are service oriented, and those who are both regulation and service oriented. Then, the article tests how these three types of bureaucrats are assessed on warmth and competence and whether their gender matters. A between-subjects experiment (n = 1,602) reveals that regulation-oriented bureaucrats are assessed as least competent and warm. Moreover, regardless of core task, female bureaucrats are assessed as warmer than males. Female and male bureaucrats are assessed as equally competent. This article shows that bureaucrats are stereotyped by citizens and discusses the implications for the public management literature. Evidence for Practice: While researchers and practitioners tend to focus on commonalities between street-level bureaucrats, focusing on differences—for instance, in terms of core task and gender—may be helpful to understand how citizens see and react to their encounters with bureaucrats. Much like street-level bureaucrats’ stereotypical notions of citizens, citizens stereotype the bureaucrats they encounter. These stereotypes are based on cues related to the bureaucrats’ core task and gender. Especially for regulation-oriented organizations and street-level bureaucrats, such as inspectorates, being aware of stereotypes may be useful when engaging with citizens because they are rated as the least competent and warm.