Street-Level bureaucracy in public administration: A systematic literature review

Abstract

Research on street-level bureaucracy has burgeoned since Michael Lipsky published his seminal book on the topic in 1980. Yet little effort has been made to comprehensively overview this stream of research. This study undertakes a systematic literature review on street-level bureaucracy in the field of public administration. Our analysis confirms that street-level bureaucracy is a centrally important and ever-popular topic in public administration, but more as a setting or context for research rather than as a primary research topic. We also find that researchers tend to interpret street-level bureaucrats’ behaviours differently based upon their disciplinary frame of reference.