The Fate of Mice in Bellows: Rule-breaking among Street-Level Bureaucrats Facing Dual Pressures

Street-level bureaucrats carry the dual roles of “state agents” and “public agents”, requiring that they balance the dual responsibilities of “accountability upwards” and “accountability downwards” in their enforcement practices. When facing enforcement pressures to strictly implement policies and response pressures to meet public demand, street-level bureaucrats find themselves in a “bellows' dilemma” of dual pressures. This study explores whether street-level bureaucrats will make pro-social behavioral choices when facing such conflicting pressures; specifically, how will enforcement pressures and response pressures influence their propensity for pro-social rule-breaking.

Using survey experiments, the study empirically analyzes the causal and moderating mechanisms of enforcement pressures, response pressures, and the street-level bureaucrats' propensity for pro-social rule-breaking. By simulating grassroots enforcement scenarios, the results show that response pressures significantly affect street-level bureaucrats' propensity for pro-social rule-breaking, while enforcement pressures do not have a significant impact. Additionally, enforcement pressures do not significantly influence the relationship between the response pressures and the street-level bureaucrats' propensity for pro-social rule-breaking. By simulating enforcement scenarios, this experimental research avoids the endogeneity issues common in quantitative research methods like surveys. The introduction of pressure scenarios expands the research perspective on pro-social rule-breaking by street-level bureaucrats and enriches the empirical studies on pro-social rule-breaking among grassroots enforcement officers in the Chinese context.

The main research findings include the following two points. First, response pressures significantly affect the propensity for pro-social rule-breaking among street-level bureaucrats. When policies affect a large number of people, resulting in significant losses and carrying the risks of inciting public resistance and collective actions, street-level bureaucrats will become more sensitive to the suffering of the populace and more cognizant of the negative effects of such policies. The resultant empathy, self-imposed moral discipline, and critical spirit lead street-level bureaucrats to prioritize responding to public demands and pressures. Second, pressures from superiors to enforce policies have no significant impact on the propensity for pro-social rule-breaking among street-level bureaucrats and do not significantly moderate the relationship between the response pressures and their behavior. This implies that street-level bureaucrats are not merely rigid enforcers who follow orders and implement policies strictly by the book.