Abstract
Civil servants in local government are increasingly expected to engage and collaborate with citizens and stakeholders. This article takes a practice approach to develop a generic picture of everyday work at the front lines of public engagement, highlighting the relational and improvisational aspects of that work that, to date, have remained understudied. Our data and analyses build on the existing literature and contribute to it by describing five specific practices of civil servants. Based on our in-depth interviews with 45 frontline civil servants in the Netherlands, we found that civil servants try to bring together a range of different interests, values, perspectives, and resources by understanding the situation, building rapport and trust, developing shared resolutions, aligning processes “outside” and “inside” city hall, and supporting practically. Furthermore, we substantiate the idea that the practices of frontline workers entail embedded agency, which we specifically label as bricolage. We demonstrate how agency is constrained and enabled by the local bureaucracy and its policies, and that civil servants seek alignment possibilities and resolutions.
Highlights
The environment of Western governments has substantively changed over the past decades (Dickinson et al, 2019; Van der Wal, 2017)
From recent public administration literature, we learn that civil servants can play an important role in public engagement processes (Bartels, 2017; Eckerd & Heidelberg, 2019; Laws & Forester, 2015) and that they have been expected to adopt new roles and skills to effectively work with the public (Dickinson et al, 2019)
On the basis of our analysis, we present five practices that the civil servants we talked to use in their work: understanding the situation, building rapport and trust, building shared resolutions, aligning processes “outside” and “inside” city hall, and practical support
Summary
The environment of Western governments has substantively changed over the past decades (Dickinson et al, 2019; Van der Wal, 2017). In this changed environment, governments are expected to engage citizens and other stakeholders more than ever in the development and implementation of projects and policies, and to respond to local communities’ initiatives, complaints, and needs. From recent public administration literature, we learn that civil servants can play an important role in public engagement processes (Bartels, 2017; Eckerd & Heidelberg, 2019; Laws & Forester, 2015) and that they have been expected to adopt new roles and skills to effectively work with the public (Dickinson et al, 2019). This article seeks to build upon and extend the literature by examining the following research question: How do frontline civil servants work with and for the public in the context of present-day public engagement?
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