‘With a Heavy Heart’: Ethics,Emotions and Rationality in Norwegian Immigration Administration

Introduction

This article analyses the dilemmas and challenges faced by employees of the Norwegian immigration administration and aims to contribute to sociological debates about bureaucracy, ethics, emotions and rationality. According to Max Weber (1981: 21), a fully developed bureaucracy is ‘dehumanized’ in the sense that ‘love, hatred, and all purely personal, irrational, and emotional elements which escape calculation’ are eliminated. The bureaucratic principle of equal treatment according to formal rules eliminates traditional forms of governance based on personal relationships, power and privilege (Weber, 1981: 24–5). Nevertheless, the instrumental rationality of bureaucracy represents a great danger to modern societies because it is incapable of ethical action that is firmly grounded in compassion, responsibility and brotherhood (Weber and Kalberg, 2005: 245). The ambivalence in Weber’s work on the role of emotion and rationality in bureaucracy echoes a general philosophical debate: in moral philosophy, there is disagreement about whether the foundation for ethics is emotion or reason. According to the Kantian ethical tradition, emotions are seen as irrelevant and even an obstacle to justice (Ahmed, 2004: 195). Others have argued that emotions, or at least some emotions, are foundational to ethics, morality and justice (Nussbaum, 2001; Roeser, 2010; Solomon, 1995). Cultural theorist Sarah Ahmed challenges both these positions: while she rejects the Kantian tradition, she also argues that it is dangerous to make the judgement of right and wrong dependent on the existence of emotions (2004: 193).

Following in the tradition from Weber, several scholars have discussed the consequences of rationalization and bureaucratization with regard to ethics and humanitarianism (Bauman, 1989; du Gay, 2000; Herzfeld, 1992). The ambivalence found in Weber’s work is reflected in these debates. Sociologist Zygmunt Bauman criticizes modern bureaucracies for displacing moral concerns and argues that morality is a non-rational phenomenon (1989). He presents an ethic based on moral impulse rather than codified rules (Bauman, 1993). Sociologist Paul du Gay takes a very different position, arguing that bureaucracies are far from immoral, but have their own ethical and moral legitimacy (2000: 2). In a polemic defence of bureaucracy, he claims that a bureaucratic ethos, based on impersonal implementation of formal rules and regulations, is indeed a substantial ethical and democratic principle (2000, 2005, 2008).

This article poses the following research question: do the ethical reflections of civil servants at the Norwegian immigration administration resemble the ethos of bureaucracy described by du Gay (2000, 2005, 2008) or Bauman’s (1989, 1993) ethical position? ¹ Data were gathered during fieldwork in the Section of Family Migration of the Norwegian Directorate of Immigration. Here, civil servants assess case files – a central task for a bureaucratic organization (Weber, 1981) – without any direct contact with applicants or the public. Moreover, the Directorate is more focused on control and restriction than, for example, the welfare bureaucracies that provide assistance and benefits.

The Section of Family Migration of the Norwegian Directorate of Immigration is a valuable site for an analysis of bureaucracy, ethics, emotion and rationality for several reasons. First, regulating and restricting access to family relationships is politically and ethically sensitive. It also has emotional and practical consequences for the individuals and families subjected to regulations (Eggebø, forthcoming). Second, immigration law designates rights and privileges to citizens that non-citizens by definition do not have. Taking the principle of universal human rights as a point of departure, national citizenship and global inequality raise some serious concerns with regard to ethics and justice (e.g. Elias and Habermas, 1994; Nash, 2009). Third, the Directorate has been much criticized in Norwegian public debates for making inhuman and immoral decisions (Fuglerud, 2003; Gudbrandsen, 2011). Consequently, I argue that immigration administration is a context where bureaucrats are challenged as ethical beings, perhaps more so than in other bureaucratic organizations.

The article proceeds as follows: first, I present my theoretical framework and a brief literature review. Second, I introduce the Directorate of Immigration and discuss my methodologies. Third, the data are analysed. Here, I describe the presence of emotions in the individual bureaucrats’ jobs, analyse the collective management of emotion within the bureaucratic organization and show how the socio-cultural context influences emotional management and ethical reflections in the immigration administration. ² In conclusion, I argue that emotions have an ambiguous status in immigration administration and that the insights from this empirical investigation of emotions provide a contribution to general sociological debates about bureaucracy, ethics, emotions and rationality.

Ethics, Emotions and Bureaucratic Organizations

According to Bauman (1989, 1993), bureaucratic rules and formal justice displace moral concerns. In Modernity and the Holocaust, he argues that the Holocaust was not a result of ‘the tumult of irrational emotions’, but was rather ‘the organizational achievement of a bureaucratic society’ (1989: 13). This argument provides a powerful criticism of bureaucracy as such:

One of the most remarkable features of the bureaucratic system of authority is, however, the shrinking probability that the moral oddity of one’s action will ever be discovered, and once discovered, made into a painful moral dilemma. In a bureaucracy, moral concerns of the functionary are drawn back from focusing on the plight of the objects of action. They are forcefully shifted in another direction – the job to be done and the excellence with which it is performed. It does not matter that much how the ‘targets’ of action fare and feel. (1989: 159)

Morality is a non-rational phenomenon not to be found in organizations and institutions. Depersonalized bureaucratic systems are independent of feelings and personal commitments and displace moral concerns and dilemmas. Bauman develops a person-oriented ethics, arguing that morals are inextricably tied to human proximity, moral impulse and responsibility for the Other (1989: 189–92, 1993).

According to du Gay, Bauman’s charges against modern bureaucracy correspond with a widespread popular criticism in which bureaucratic conduct is represented as inherently unethical (2000: ix). He argues that Bauman romanticizes emotions and personal bonds, and challenges the view that emotions would represent a better form of judgement. In contrast to Bauman, du Gay claims that bureaucracy has its own ethical code and that ‘practices of formalistic impersonality gave rise to certain substantive ethical goals […] for instance, formal equality, reliability and procedural fairness in the treatment of cases’ (du Gay, 2008: 338).

Bauman and du Gay discuss the ethical possibilities of bureaucracy without studying empirically how emotions, reason and ethics are negotiated in specific bureaucratic organizations. As a part of a more general interest in emotions, in sociology as well as in other disciplines (Barbalet, 2002; Burkitt, 1997; Craib, 1995; Stets, 2010), there exists literature about how employees of different occupations and professions negotiate emotions and rationality at work (e.g. Fineman, 1996; Guy et al., 2010; Hochschild, 1979; Küpers and Weibler, 2008; Olesen and Bone, 2009; Sieben and Wettergren, 2010; Theodosius, 2006). ³ Central here is the concept ‘emotional management’ coined by Arlie Hochschild (1979, 1983). It refers to the way people actively try to manage emotions according to socially shared norms and values. These shared norms and values are so-called ‘feeling rules’ that define appropriate and inappropriate feelings in specific situations.

The research on emotions in organizations suggests that emotions play an ambiguous role in informing and shaping organizations in various positive and negative ways (Küpers and Weibler, 2008: 265). For instance, emotions may positively influence job satisfaction, but can also lead to burn-out (Guy et al., 2010: 295–6; Küpers and Weibler, 2008: 261, 286–7; Lipsky, 1980). Moreover, joyful feelings are motivating, while feelings of failure, fear and shame hamper action. Compassion and sympathy with clients may cause helping behaviour (Sieben and Wettergren, 2010: 11), while suppressing such feelings may lead to indifference (Graham, 2002: 210). While emotions are often assumed to have a negative impact on rational decision-making, some authors discuss how emotions can actually promote it (Elster, 1999: 284; Fineman, 1996: 547–11). In situations where rules or technical rationality provide no clear guidelines, gut feelings may give direction to decision-making (Knights and Surman, 2008: 2).

Stephen Fineman criticizes the literature on emotions in organizations for being based on individual-psychological models and serving narrow managerialist goals (2010: 24, 38). Fineman calls for a critical sociological perspective on emotions in organizations, one which analyses wider social and ideological structures and power relations and asks questions about ‘the moral and emotional orders that an organization takes for granted and sustains’ (2010: 38). Such a critical perspective is present in some recent studies investigating the emotional management of civil servants involved in immigration administration (Graham, 2002; Hall, 2010; Pérez, 2010; Wettergren, 2010). For example, Åsa Wettergren presents a critical discussion of work at the Swedish Migration Board, and argues that emotional management is required for employees to develop an identity of the self as a morally good person ‘without recognising the dehumanisation of both the self and the others’ involved in the practices of migration management (2010: 415). Analysing immigration administration and emotions, Alexandra Hall (2010), Mark Graham (2002), Alberto M. Pérez (2010) and Wettergren (2010) show that the hierarchical relationship between citizens and non-citizens may give rise to concerns about justice (see also Heyman, 2000).

In The Cultural Politics of Emotion, Ahmed (2004) investigates the role of emotions in the reproduction and transformation of social relations and hierarchies. Similarly to Bauman and du Gay, she is also preoccupied with the relationship between emotions and justice. Ahmed’s perspective, however, designates emotions a more ambiguous and complex role: while she rejects the Kantian ethical tradition, Ahmed also contends that emotions cannot be installed ‘as a form of access to truth, or indeed as a “better” form of judgement’; justice is not about having the right kind of feelings (2004: 195). Instead of presupposing that emotions are either irrelevant or foundational to ethics, Ahmed asks: what do emotions do? More specifically, she questions what feeling grief for the other does, and how it moves the subject into a relationship with the other (2004: 191–2). ⁴ While Ahmed does not study bureaucracies or immigration administration, her analysis of the relationship between emotions and justice is related to migration and otherness, and consequently it may prove useful for the empirical investigations here.

Managing Immigration to Norway

During the mid 1980s, immigration became a central issue on the Norwegian political agenda. ⁵ In 1988, the Norwegian Directorate of Immigration was established as a response to a marked increase in the number of asylum seekers in this period (Brochmann et al., 2010: 240-7; Utlendingsdirektoratet, 2008). While asylum seekers have been subject to considerable public attention, numerically, family migrants have been a far more important category. Between 1990 and 2008, family migrants constituted 40 per cent of all immigration to Norway; more than 150,000 persons in total (Henriksen, 2010: 5, 9). During recent decades, family immigration has become the subject of considerable attention from policymakers and the media (Gudbrandsen, 2011; Hagelund, 2008). ⁶

Compared to other Norwegian public institutions, the Directorate of Immigration has a poor reputation (Apeland Informasjon AS, 2010), and has faced recurrent criticism from the media, the Ministries and the public (Christensen et al., 2006; Fuglerud, 2003; Utlendingsdirektoratet, 2008). In 2006, the Ministry initiated an investigation which concluded that the Directorate had breached legal guidelines and had been too liberal in its law enforcement (Graver, 2006). Media, on the other hand, tends to characterize the decisions of the immigration administration as racist, barbaric and heartless (Fuglerud, 2003: 139), and most newspaper articles about family migration portray the individual applicant as a victim of restrictive immigration policies (Gudbrandsen, 2011). According to its employees, the Directorate is criticized by some for being too strict, and by others for being too soft (Øverås and Westborg, 2005: 54). Precisely because of this, improving the organization’s image has been a central concern for its managers (Utlendingsdirektoratet, 2008).

The Directorate of Immigration has more than 1200 employees. For many employees, this is their first post-graduation employment and it is seen as a stepping stone to a future career in the central bureaucracy or as a lawyer. The majority of employees have a Master’s degree in social science or law, and their main task is to assess case files (ASU, 2010; Fuglerud, 2003: 143). All new employees are introduced to the organization’s ethical guidelines, which stress loyalty to the employer as well as the bureaucrat’s individual responsibility for ethical reflection (Utlendingsdirektoratet, 2007).

The Directorate of Immigration is not a ‘street-level bureaucracy’ (Lipsky, 1980) where low-level bureaucrats meet clients face-to-face. While the police and Norwegian embassy personnel interview applicants, executive officers in the Section of Family Migration process case files and do not have direct contact with applicants. The Section of Family Migration is a division under the Managed Migration Department and has five units and one special team responsible for tackling forced marriages. Each unit has between 10 and 15 employees and is responsible for assessing applications from a particular country portfolio. According to executive officers, legal rules on family migration are mostly clear and unambiguous, and do not leave room to exercise extensive professional discretion.

Methodology

This article is part of a research project about the regulation of family migration to Norway (Eggebø, 2010, forthcoming). The data analysed in this article consist of qualitative interviews and field notes from short-term fieldwork at the Directorate of Immigration. I gained access to the organization after a formal request; no special permission was needed since I did not seek access to registers containing personal information about applicants. The Department for Strategy and Coordination handled the request and one of its advisors became my contact and helped me recruit informants.

During the fieldwork, I conducted 10 formal interviews: five with executive officers (one from each of the five units in the Section of Family Migration); three with bureaucrats in leading positions; and two with immigration officers at a local police station. Among the interviewees are officers with more than a decade of work experience, but most had worked there for a couple of years. Most informants were female and only one male. ⁷ While executive officers handle case files only, the immigration officers carry out interviews with applicants and sponsors. Some of the bureaucrats had also performed such interviews as part of their previous work experience.

A semi-structured interview guide informed the interviews and informants were asked to speak about their tasks and the challenges they face. The informants seemed conscious of their role as representatives of the organization and were careful to act and talk within the limits of their professional authority. Nevertheless, most informants talked willingly about their job. Some however, seemed reserved, anxious and even hostile. I got the feeling that as a researcher I sometimes came to represent the critical voices from the media and the public. Moreover, some might have felt pressured to participate in the study since interviews took place at work and an employee at the Directorate had mediated the request.

The data on which this analysis is based also include notes from a so-called ‘practice meeting’ observed during fieldwork. Practice meetings bring together 10 to 15 officers from the Section of Family Migration and are held regularly in order to establish precedence across units. At this particular meeting, the group discussed six general legal and administrative issues and five specific case files. This article presents two edited conversations from the meeting; these are reconstructed on the basis of the field notes. While the interview data may give access to narratives, justifications and professional identities, the observational data are suited to reveal negotiations and disagreements among employees as well as concrete considerations and dilemmas in relation to specific case files.

The research design did not include a specific focus on ethics, emotions and emotional management. Rather, this analytical focus was developed through the process of data analysis. Analysing the different types of data, I used a strategy resembling what Moran-Ellis et al. (2006) have described as ‘following a thread’: I worked inductively, searching for different themes and topics across interviews, and emotions and ethics appeared to be one common concern. Then, analysing the field notes, I picked up these themes from the interviews, and followed this ‘thread’ in order to ‘create a constellation of findings which can be used to generate a multi-faceted picture of the phenomenon’ (Moran-Ellis et al., 2006: 54).

The Ambiguous Status of Emotions

Emotions influence work in different ways and on different levels (Küpers and Weibler, 2008; Sieben and Wettergren, 2010). Face-to-face interactions between workers and clients have been analysed as important sites of emotional labour (Guy et al., 2010; Hochschild, 1983). Even though the civil servants of the Section of Family Migration at the Norwegian Directorate of Immigration do not have face-to-face contact with applicants, emotions and emotional management certainly seem to be important aspects of their job. They describe various manifestations of emotions; for example, emotional reactions to decisions, intuitive gut feelings directing case investigations, feelings of compassion, responsibility and guilt in relation to applicants, and joy and satisfaction from helping clients.

During interviews, informants described cases where the applicant was believed to circumvent regulations or abuse other people, and these cases seemed to provoke resentment accompanied by a resolve to reject the application. Other cases apparently evoked strong sympathy with the applicant and the family, accompanied by a willingness, if possible, to approve applications. Nevertheless, civil servants must, despite sympathetic feelings, reject applications when there are no legal grounds for approving them. One informant described how such a decision made her feel sad:

Sometimes it is difficult to reject an application even though it is evident that the requirements are not satisfied. It is my job to administer rules, and I do, but sometimes it is with a heavy heart. It is just sad when a man does not earn enough to satisfy the subsistence requirement for family reunification with his wife and children in Afghanistan and you know they are in a difficult situation there. (Bureaucrat 3)

In this case, the decision seemed to run contrary to the executive officer’s feeling of what would have been a good outcome, but regulations were clear and unambiguous and did not leave room for any other outcome than rejection.

According to another informant, emotional involvement with clients can become a problem for bureaucrats:

I remember thinking that if I am going to be so emotionally involved I have to quit this job. If I am to continue, I have to develop a more distant orientation. I think a lot of people have to make these kinds of considerations. (Bureaucrat 1)

The informant explained that emotional involvement with clients made the job too burdensome. Emotional detachment, then, provided a strategy to prevent burn-out (Lipsky, 1980). Developing a more distant and rule-oriented conception of case assessment proved to be an essential coping strategy for this informant.

Moreover, emotions may influence work in a quite different way: ‘In some cases you just have to follow a kind of gut feeling. You may have this feeling that there is something not quite right; something that has to be investigated further’ (Bureaucrat 2). In this quote, the word ‘feeling’ refers to an instinctive or intuitive feeling, and, according to the informant, such intuitive feelings may be useful to determine whether the case is to be subjected to further investigation. Intuition and gut feeling appear to be a resource when facts are hard to find, regulations are less clear and there is room for professional discretion. According to executive officers, this is typically the case in relation to forced marriages or abuse, marriages of convenience or considerations of what would be in the best interest of the child.

One bureaucrat interviewed has previous work experience from interviewing applicants at a Norwegian embassy, and she explained how face-to-face contact may give an intuitive feeling about a case:

When I met people face-to-face, I remember having this instant feeling about whether a particular marriage was genuine or not, whether everything was ok or not. Sometimes, I was really annoyed when the Directorate accepted an application when I had this feeling they were cheating. At the same time, I guess too many feelings should be avoided. (Bureaucrat 7)

According to the informant, direct interaction with applicants through interviews sometimes provided her with an intuitive feeling of what would be the correct decision. However, she stressed that regulations, rather than gut feelings, should determine decisions. Moreover, the quote also illustrates that the Directorate, the police and the embassy personnel perform different tasks within this bureaucratic system and sometimes have diverging opinions about cases (see also Econ Pöyry, 2010: 39–44). Several informants touched on the pros and cons of letting gut feelings direct case assessment: on the one hand, immediate gut feelings may be a source of valuable information and can reduce the amount of time and resources spent on investigations. On the other hand, feelings seemed to be regarded as a somewhat suspect source of information, which may threaten the transparency, objectivity and legitimacy of the decision-making process.

‘The Strength of Bureaucracy’

The emotional management that individual civil servants do is influenced by the structure, rules and norms of the organization. For example, emotional management may be endorsed by the division of labour between different institutions and functions within the bureaucratic system: ‘We who make the actual decisions are shielded from direct contact with applicants […] Working at the embassy also has some benefits in the sense that you have a short-term responsibility for the case’ (Bureaucrat 7). The informant explained how lack of face-to-face contact with applicants or limited decision-making power may reduce feelings of guilt and make otherwise difficult tasks less burdensome.

Another informant stressed that clear formal rules and regulations are important in reducing feelings of personal responsibility with regard to applicants’ lives and destinies:

As a bureaucrat, I would say it is good to know that my decisions are made on the basis of rules. In this way, I feel secure. I know why I make the decisions I do and that they are correct. Decision-making is a great responsibility. […] These decisions have a great impact on people’s everyday lives, and I am glad that we always have backing for decisions. That is the strength of bureaucracy. (Bureaucrat 1)

Clear regulations create a feeling of security for the bureaucrats, who sometimes feel they are left making decisions alone in their offices. Rather than advocating more autonomy and room for professional discretion, the employees tend to seek clear guidelines and coordinated practices. To this informant, rational, rule-oriented and collectively organized decision-making was preferable to a more individualized, subjective or emotional approach.

The organization’s rules and norms about impersonal and objective assessment are justified with reference to values such as justice and democracy. Liberal democracy implies a clear boundary between policymaking and administration, and this principle is emphasized by informants: ‘We administer the law. We do not decide the rules. Personally, I may not agree with the rules as they are. But they are there, and we administer them’ (Bureaucrat 8). This informant stressed that her task is to administer, as objectively and consistently as possible, the rules and regulations passed by policymakers. Bureaucrats who assess cases according to their own opinions and feelings would challenge the authority of democratically elected legal decision-makers and ultimately threaten democratic principles.

The principle of equal treatment is an important characteristic of bureaucracy (Weber, 1981). For one informant, equal treatment means that applications are assessed in due order:

Equal treatment means that even though you have the capacity to contact us through phone or e-mail and follow up on your application, we cannot prioritize your case. We are not trying to be difficult. We just ensure equal and just treatment of applications. (Bureaucrat 3)

Equal treatment means that no one should be able to work the queue; an ordered queue becomes a sign of justice. Another informant, a police officer whose tasks are to interview sponsors and prepare applications, related an incident when she gave some extra service to a client. Helping when possible seemed important for this informant’s job satisfaction and she illustrated how feelings such as compassion and sympathy can cause a helping behaviour (Sieben and Wettergren, 2010: 11). However, the informant was critical of her own engagement with clients and explained that if some applicants are given special treatment then the principle of equal treatment is threatened. According to the bureaucratic ethos, formally equal treatment is associated with justice, while personal engagement, emotional involvement, sympathy and helping behaviour threaten justice. The so-called ‘feeling rules’ of immigration administration are justified and maintained with reference to justice and democracy.

Informants frequently cite the principle of equal treatment. As a principle of justice, however, ‘equal treatment’ has some specific limitations in the context of immigration management; differential treatment of citizens and non-citizens is a fundamental premise for migration regulations and employees in the immigration administration are conscious about the exclusionary nature of national borders: ‘Immigration law is by definition a discriminatory system’ (Bureaucrat 8). The injustice of border control and global inequality must be kept out of sight in order to sustain the idea of a just system (Wettergren, 2010).

Even in a formal concept of justice limited to the equal treatment of non-citizens, such equal treatment is not always easily implemented in practice. A conversation from the practice meeting may illustrate this: one point on the agenda was a certain administrative practice related to the former Immigration Act, the so-called ‘seven-months-rule’. This practice was an exemption from the general rule that a person applying for family immigration must hand in the application in their country of origin and wait there while the case is processed. According to administrative precedent, women more than seven months pregnant and already residing in Norway were usually allowed to hand in applications for family immigration in Norway. The question under consideration was whether such a practice was consistent with the regulations established by policymakers:

This conversation exemplifies how the group worked through the questions under consideration. First, they presented practical arguments such as airline regulations, travel distance and health service conditions in the country of origin. Moreover, reference was also made to their own experiences of giving birth and this signalled empathy and identification with applicants. Finally, they referred to concepts such as ‘reasonableness’ and humanitarian principles, equal treatment and the authority of democratically elected lawmakers. There seemed to be a general agreement amongst those present that all of these considerations are legitimate. For instance, arguments based on the executive officer’s identification with the applicant were not dismissed. Nevertheless, rule-oriented lines of argumentation seemed to have more weight. While compassion-oriented arguments seemed to be legitimate and applicable, they were difficult to defend against the rule-oriented arguments. The conversation illustrates that the bureaucratic ethos, based on equal treatment and respect for the authority of democratically elected bodies, functions as a powerful argument in favour of tightening immigration practice.

‘We Are not Insensitive and Cold’

The norms, practices and emotional rules of an organization are developed in relation to the broader socio-cultural context (Fineman, 2010; Sieben and Wettergren, 2010). Public debate in Norway has been characterized by a critical stance towards the Directorate and the organization has a weak reputation. Negative media attention was a recurring theme during interviews, and previous research has highlighted that civil servants often feel they have to defend themselves from constant criticism (Fuglerud, 2003; Øverås and Westborg, 2005: 54). According to one informant, they are commonly accused of emotional insensitivity:

PR is a challenge for the immigration administration as we are often exposed to criticism in the media. […] We are often portrayed as cold and insensitive and incapable of making good assessments and decisions […] But we are not insensitive and cold. We do see that applicants are people affected by the decisions we make, and that family is what is most important to people. (Bureaucrat 8)

This informant responded to criticism by insisting on the bureaucrats’ ability to feel. Several other informants also emphasized that they do not want to be seen as distanced and formalistic and they talked about their feelings of empathy towards applicants: ‘Of course, you are moved and touched by people’s destinies’ (Bureaucrat 5). Accusations of being cold and insensitive seem to be based on a connection between emotional detachment and immoral and inhumane decisions. The idea that an emotional engagement with applicants is required for just and ethical immigration management frequently appears in the Norwegian public debate. Criticizing bureaucratic organizations for being emotionally detached and consequently immoral is quite widespread (du Gay, 2000), but such criticisms may have a particular resonance in the context of immigration management because decisions often have serious consequences for individual applicants. Bureaucrats responded to charges of coldness and insensitivity by referring to the ethos of bureaucracy. Nevertheless, the civil servants also insisted on their ability to feel empathy and compassion and to take ethical responsibility.

In the aftermath of a period of public investigations and criticism, the Directorate of Immigration revised the organization’s ethical guidelines. These new guidelines stress that the civil servants have a duty to be loyal to the organization and their supervisors. At the same time, however, they emphasize that bureaucrats have an individual responsibility to report unethical behaviour and for ethical reflection and conduct regardless of orders from supervisors (Utlendingsdirektoratet, 2007). One informant commented on the ethical guidelines:

If something completely contradicts our own ethics – it would be strange if that happened, but still – we should at least be able to ask another person to sign the decision as well. (Bureaucrat 1)

The informant’s expectation that the moral values of the executive officers would normally be consistent with the bureaucratic rules and regulations signals a strong belief in the ethical character of the Norwegian bureaucratic system. The ethical guidelines demand individual reflection and ethical responsibility from bureaucrats, despite their role as docile implementers of rules and regulations. This strong articulation of individual ethical responsibility has some resemblance to Bauman’s ethical position.

The civil servants relate to two different ethical positions. On the one hand, there is the idea that bureaucracy has its own ethos where justice is secured through rational, rule-oriented case assessment and the principle of equal treatment (du Gay, 2000). On the other hand, there is the idea that impersonal bureaucratic systems are inherently immoral and that ethical conduct is premised on a strong feeling of personal responsibility to the Other (Bauman, 1989, 1993). While these two ethical positions seemed to influence decision-making, a commitment to following the ethos of bureaucracy (du Gay, 2000) or a person-oriented ethics (Bauman, 1993) did not automatically solve the concrete considerations and dilemmas of case assessments. A discussion at the practice meeting I observed during fieldwork may illustrate how emotions do not give unproblematic access to truth or justice (Ahmed, 2004: 195–6).

A case under consideration at this meeting concerned a man who had applied for family immigration with his Norwegian wife and child. The applicant had previously applied for asylum and had then claimed to be a citizen of an African country. During the asylum procedure it was concluded, on the basis of language tests, that the applicant was not a citizen of the country he claimed. The application was subsequently rejected because of the incorrect information about his identity. Later, he applied for family immigration and provided a passport from another African country as identification. For a family immigration or asylum permit, the applicant’s identity has to be verified. However, since documents from some countries are generally not recognized because many are fraudulent, the passport provided was not regarded as sufficient documentation of his identity. When documents cannot be relied on, or if the applicant lacks official documents, the applicant’s own words and credibility are important. This applicant had little credibility because he had given incorrect and contradictory statements during the asylum procedure. The group discussed whether they could and should grant the applicant a residence permit:

In this case, immigration regulations did not give a definite answer to what a right decision would be, and the participants at the meeting expressed diverging opinions about how to interpret the regulations. However, taking emotions or intuitions as a point of departure for decision-making did not eliminate disagreement either. While some of the participants at the practice meeting seemed to think that separating the family would be inherently wrong, as the unity of the family is in the best interest of the child, others expressed resentment towards the applicant, whom they perceived to be a bad and irresponsible father, and consequently seemed to think that rejecting the application would be the right decision. Consequently, the above conversation gives support to Ahmed’s argument: emotions cannot be installed as a better form of judgement and they do not give immediate access to truth or justice (Ahmed, 2004: 191–6).

The relationship between justice and emotions is complex; while emotions do not give immediate access to truth or justice, emotions are not irrelevant to judgements of right and wrong (Ahmed, 2004: 191–6). The case discussed in the above conversation seemed to evoke various emotional responses (for example, guilt, sympathy and resentment), and these emotions were made relevant in the decision-making process. None of the participants at the meeting expressed much sympathy with the applicant. Rather, they seemed to feel sorry for the wife and child and signalled that a decision should be made in the best interest of the child. This may illustrate how emotional responses to others also work as forms of judgement (2004: 195–6). Affective responses are readings that give others meaning and value (2004: 28), and the bureaucrats’ reading of the case seemed to assign more value to the child than the father. What emotions do here is to create a hierarchy between the citizen child worthy of compassion, and the irresponsible and undeserving immigrant father. As Ahmed argues, ‘to be moved by the suffering of some others (…), is also to be elevated into a place that remains untouched by other others (whose suffering cannot be converted into my sympathy or admiration)’ (2004: 192). Thus, while the participants at the meeting were moved by the suffering of the innocent child, they remained untouched by the story of the applicant, and this shows how emotions are bound up with the reproduction of social relations and hierarchies (2004: 4).

Conclusions

This article has discussed the dilemmas and challenges faced by civil servants in the Norwegian immigration administrations. Even though these bureaucrats do not have face-to-face contact with clients, immigration administration is an interesting and relevant site for analyses of emotional labour. Emotions seem to have a fundamentally ambiguous status in bureaucratic work. On the one hand, emotions are seen as a useful, positive and essential human capacity, which is foundational for ethical conduct. On the other hand, emotions are seen as burdensome and ethically problematic because they may threaten democracy and justice.

Just as emotions are ambiguous, ethics are equally so, and the civil servants negotiate two somewhat different ethical principles: on the one hand, there is the idea that bureaucratic organizations are just, or at least have the potential of achieving justice, because everyone is treated equally according to democratically defined laws, rules and regulations. According to this ethics, emotions have no place in bureaucratic practice; the professional bureaucrat is required to control emotional reactions and resist emotional involvement in order to realize the principle of equal treatment. Du Gay (2000) advocates such an ethical position in his defence of bureaucracy. On the other hand, there is the idea that bureaucracies are essentially immoral and allow for injustice and atrocities because of emotional detachment, distance and rationalization. Bauman (1989) presents this argument forcefully.

The case study showed that the civil servants’ own ethical reflections resemble the bureaucratic ethos formulated by du Gay, but there are also signs of an ethical position resembling that of Bauman. Consequently, these positions both have relevance for understanding the ethical considerations of bureaucrats and of the broader public debate about immigration management. Nevertheless, this analysis also makes evident that neither of these moral positions seem to give an unproblematic access to justice. As Ahmed (2004) argues, emotions do not give access to some kind of privileged truth or morality, and justice is not just about having the right feeling. Consequently, drawing on Ahmed’s perspective on emotions and justice, this empirical analysis advances an important criticism of these two opposing views.