Client experience of street-level activation practices: Implementation of discourage policy in the Czech Republic

Introduction

Activation policies are in OECD countries understood as policies designed to encourage the unemployed to increase their job search (Immervoll and Scarpetta, 2012). The activation policies aim to (re)-integrate individuals into society through paid employment (Mareš and Sirovátka, 2008). Moreira (2008) notes that this is done through a combination of negative and positive incentives. Some authors (Lødemel and Trickey, 2001; van Berkel, Møller, 2002) identify two model approaches to activation that are viewed as ideal types. Due to their bipolarity, they are compared to two-faced Janus (Torfing, 1999). One face represents a work-first model that, through the emphasis on obligations and sanctions, seeks to push people back into the labour market as quickly as possible, regardless of the quality of services and financial compensation. On the other end of the spectrum there is the human resource development model focused on investment in human capital, which offers personal development and empowerment of beneficiaries of activation programmes (Bonoli, 2013). These abstract models are not represented in their pure form in any national policy system. In practice, activation strategies generally include elements of both approaches (Sirovátka, 2016). All activation strategies and programmes are implemented on a continuum between coercive practices that value hard outcomes (employment, income, housing) and empowerment that values   soft outcomes (self-efficacy and quality of life) (Thorén, 2008).

Some authors distinguish the workfare version of activation (Lødemel and Trickey, 2001; Moreira, 2008). Workfare is understood as ‘programmes or schemes that require people to work in return for social assistance benefits’ (Lødemel and Trickey, 2001: 6). Key aspects of workfare are: the primary emphasis is on work rather than training or other forms of activation; a crucial aspect is the relationship between work and assistance; workfare is applied mainly at the ‘lowest’ level of the social security system (i.e. for social assistance clients); it is primarily sanctions and coercion that create motivational potential; workfare is viewed as an obligation, but is sometimes defined as a right (Kulhavý, 2003). However, according to Lødemel and Trickey (2001), workfare represents a fundamental change in the balance between rights and obligations in the provision of assistance.

Critics of street-level activation practices from different European countries report that job seekers are subject to coercive measures and forms of psychological pressure in order to place them in low-income and precarious jobs available in the labour market (in the UK e.g. Friedli and Stearn, 2015). Suvarierol (2015), using the example of Dutch policy, points out that street-level bureaucrats are becoming an extended arm of the government, treating social assistance subjects without empathy. In the Czech context, Kulhavý (2003) points out that as a result of activation policy implementation processes, part of the registered unemployed becomes non-registered unemployed, who subsequently become dependent on the extended family and focus on the care of their relatives, the shadow economy, etc. According to research results in various national contexts (e.g. Lødemel and Trickey, 2001; Pérez Eransus, 2008; Sirovátka, 2016), activation policies fail as tools to combat poverty and social exclusion both at organizational and political levels.

Much activation policy research works focus on the experiences and views of street-level bureaucrats implementing activation policies (e.g. Kjørstad, 2005; Borghi and van Berkel, 2007; Kallio et al., 2013). This article using the example of the Czech Republic seeks to provide space for people who are directly affected by the implementation of activation policy and whose voices and experiences are still lacking in professional discourse. The article aims to examine how the activation policy is implemented in the Czech Republic from the perspective of job seekers and to identify street-level activation practices using a micro-institutionalist perspective.

Street-level implementation theory and micro-institutionalist perspective

Public policy is made not only in government departments but also at ‘street level’ – in the daily encounters between the public and staff in welfare-to-work programmes (McNeil, 2009). Street-level bureaucrats are public workers who meet citizens face-to-face when they provide various types of services in public organizations. Lipsky (1980) made a significant contribution to the understanding of policy implementation processes, organizational context and the work conditions on street-level bureaucracy. According to Lipsky’s model, cognitive-emotional utility functions of individual street-level bureaucrats together with the organizational context determine, whether street-level bureaucrats rigidly apply, creatively adjust, or undermine formal political goals in their interactions with clients (Rice, 2013).

Street-level bureaucrats play a key role in how clients understand and experience politics (Prior and Barnes, 2011). Activation is considered fair and effective only if it is adapted to the problems and needs of the individuals who are activated (Borghi and van Berkel, 2007). On the one hand, street-level bureaucrats are expected to treat clients as individuals, but on the other hand a growing number of clients force them to implement routine activities that allow them to ‘process’ clients on a mass scale (Elmore, 1978; Howard, 2012). Street-level bureaucrats are given a dual role in which they act as both helpers/advocates and gatekeepers (Sadeghi and Fekjær, 2019).

Gate-keeping is a common strategy in street-level bureaucracy theory, which limits demand for valuable recourses and services. Lipsky (1980) notes that the street-level bureaucrats change the concept of their work in order to reduce the gap between organizational goals and available resources. These coping strategies seek to reduce demand for services. One informal way to do this is to limit information about the services to which clients are obviously entitled. According to Lipsky (1980), another informal strategy to maximize the use of available resources is to categorize and stigmatize clients with sanctions being used to manage and monitor client behaviour. Street level practices based on normative assumptions and ideals of behaviour are prevalent, when the policy is based on unclear political foundations. Street level practices are streamlined with responsibility transferred to clients. ‘Classifying the behaviour or background of the client is a matter of discretion’ (Lipsky, 1980: 61).

The activation policy is thus partly formulated and implemented through the street-level bureaucrats’ discretionary practices and informal coping behaviours (Thorén, 2008). Brodkin (1997) points out that discretion is neither good nor bad, but depends on context. In particular, organizational context is important because it determines contextual boundaries of discretion (Thorén, 2008). According to Lipsky (1980), the organizational context of public organizations is characterized by conditions such as responsibility for a large number of social cases, unclear formal legislation, which often conflicts with organizational goals, unlimited demand for services, and scarce resources. Street-level bureaucrats develop various forms of simplification of their practice and informal routines. The need for routine, simplification and differentiation leads to the institutionalization of stereotypical tendencies and is supported by the racism and prejudice that permeate society and are grounded in the structure of inequality. If the policy resides in the accumulation of numerous decisions, the routines and categories developed to administer these decisions determine the policy within the parameters set by the authorities (Lipsky, 1980).

In order to perform a multilevel analysis of the implementation of activation policies, it is necessary to integrate street-level bureaucracy theory with an additional theoretical perspective in order to develop a broader and more nuanced picture of the nature of street-level implementation practices (Thorén, 2008). In this case, it is micro-institutionalist theory (Rice, 2013).

Institutional theory is often used to explain the adoption and dissemination of formal organizational structures, policies, standard practices, and new forms of organization (Peters, 1999; Scott, 2005). Institutions can be defined as structured social practices (Giddens, 1981). Institutions are thus conceptions that have probably been created through aggregated and standardized human interactions. Once created, they give meaning, purpose, and direction to human interaction in a particular type of situation, and thus also limit, for that type of situation, relevant, appropriate, and/or permitted patterns of behaviour (Rice, 2013). Microinstitutionalist theory argues that, just as individual human activity is rooted in institutional contexts, institutions are part of broader economic, political, or cultural systems. Based on that belief, Rice (2013) views street-level bureaucracy at three levels: (1) interactions between caseworkers and clients; (2) the environment of the implementing organization that shapes, and is shaped by, these interactions; (3) the relationship between the two levels of interaction and the broader economic, political, and social context. Micro-institutionalist theory contend that the welfare state is not just a product of the laws and regulations that elaborate how the welfare state should function, but is constantly and dynamically created and reproduced in human interaction. Rice (2013) argues that the aggregated actions of individuals implementing social policy have the power to change the institution of welfare state or broader social systems, while the welfare state can only be real if instantiated in personal interactions, thus differing in organizational and local contexts, in which these interactions are embedded.

Czech context of activation policy implementation

After the fall of the Communist regime in 1989, the Czech welfare state was continuously transformed to better meet the challenges of the market economy (Sirovátka, 2016). New instruments such as active labour market policies, unemployment protection and social assistance were introduced. Activation reforms play a key role in the broader context of welfare state reforms in the Czech Republic (Mertl, 2015).

The Czech Republic began to systematically introduce a workfare-based social system relatively late compared to other European countries (Mertl, 2015). It was actually only after the Czech Republic joined the European Union in 2004. Sirovátka (2016) distinguishes in the Czech context three phases of activation reforms: 2004–2006 the initial phase of activation (work first), 2007–2011 the radical phase (workfare), and 2012–2013 the failure of radical workfare. In 2004, Employment Act No. 435/2004 Coll. introduced stricter sanctions in the case of non-cooperation (exclusion from registers and benefits). The reform aimed to increase incentives to ‘activate’ beneficiaries. In this context, Jahoda et al. (2009) report a 58% reduction in the number of social assistance beneficiaries between 2006 and 2007. There was a drastic and rapid progress of reforms in the following years, described by Sirovátka (2016) as the radicalization of workfare. One of the arguments for faster and more far-reaching adopting of measures was the financial market crisis, which has affected the global economy since 2007 (Mertl, 2015). Since 2008, the period covered by unemployment benefits has decreased, the amount of benefits has decreased. In 2010, the right-wing coalition continued strong activation reforms, as well as reforms aimed at reducing public expenditures (Sirovátka, 2016). The dictate of reducing public expenditures has led to reducing the number of street-level bureaucrats, and approval procedures have been non-transparent and non-standard. Political arguments for the introduction of other measures were, for example, streamlining the functioning of the social security system, prevention of the abuse of social assistance, prevention of undeclared work and strengthening of personal responsibility (Mertl, 2015).

In 2012, sKarta became the most controversial measure, which served as a regular payment card, as an identification card for beneficiaries of social assistance, and to control the spending of social benefits through automated computer software based on dataveillance (Mertl, 2015). Dataveillance is related to re-centralization, which was completed one year before the introduction of identification cards. Integrated services were established, including social assistance, social security, and employment services. The single social assistance payment point has become easier to be controlled and more efficient to manage in terms of administration. This was followed by other workfare measures such as the introduction of ‘compulsory service’ – public service for the unemployed registered at the employment office for more than two months, or the DONEZ project, where selected job seekers (often young Roma) had to check in with the Czech POINT contact centre twice a week, established at the Czech post offices. The official project objective was to reduce undeclared work and increase employment.

The above measures (identification cards, public service as a compulsory activity and DONEZ) were markedly disciplinary and repressive; they suffered serious weaknesses and were heavily criticized, thus most of the reforms had to be abandoned after a short time (Sirovátka, 2016). The main factors leading to radicalization were political and institutional factors associated with the so-called ‘compost model of policy-making'. The ‘compost model’ means that workfare reforms have led to a process of gradual change, in which the failing parts of the system do not disappear, but rather eventually change into something else, thus creating the ground for the emergence of a new system. Although new reforms failed, they helped to ‘take apart’ an existing social security system (Sirovátka, 2016), which allowed reforms to continue, but transformed.

The Czech Republic is today the country with the lowest unemployment rate in the European Union (Eurostat, 2020). At the same time, at least one fifth of job seekers are excluded from the register of job seekers. In 2018, there were more than 85,000 sanctions enforced resulting in removal from the register, which put a halt to benefits payments and thus potentially leaving people to face economic hardship (Trlifajová and Gajdoš, 2019). Act No. 435/2004 Coll. lists a number of reasons for which the employment office can exclude clients from the register (these are, for example, cases where job seekers do not show up at the employer to which they were referred to by the employment office, do not attend an arranged meeting at the employment office, or they are caught working illegally). Today, job seekers can be sanctioned for up to six months (when the law is amended, an increase to up to nine months is considered) and during this period they temporarily lose their entitlement to receive unemployment benefits. At the same time, the state ceases to pay health and social insurance for them, while payment for health insurance is mandatory and penalties arise in the event of non-payment. The penetration of the workfare principle into the social insurance system is a specific feature of the Czech activation policy reform (Sirovátka, 2016). Such excluded persons fall out of both the statistics and system, and the status of their subsequent situation is not clear. Roma often belong to this group due to institutional racism in the policies, processes, and practices (Cashman, 2017). Racism is widely denied in the Czech Republic, and Roma are accused of irresponsible lifestyle choices and anti-social behaviour (Čada, 2012). According to Cashman (2017), it is apparently a ‘legacy’ of communist assimilation policy that characterized the Roma as a socially deviant subclass rather than an ethnic minority; stereotypes of Roma as inadaptable or incorrigible are commonly used today to justify inaction in dealing with inequality and discrimination. The key areas of institutional racism include housing (e.g. Černušáková, 2020), education (e.g. Cashman, 2017), and the labour market (e.g. Trlifajová and Hurrle, 2019) – these areas are interrelated. Although there are no official statistical data that follow developments in Roma unemployment, Pavlovaite (2018) states that the Roma unemployment rate is higher than in the majority society and has long been above 30%. Another large proportion of Roma work in public services or some type of short-term employment (European Commission, 2018).

Methods

This article presents the research study data carried out in 2019, which aimed to understand how the activation policy is implemented at the Czech Employment Office. Using a qualitative research strategy, we sought to capture how participants understand concepts, relationships, and actions in the reality under research (Rubin and Babbie, 2011). We based our assumptions on a critical theory, which warns us that the social world stakeholders actively construct their reality through their actions, but their actions are largely limited by the external influence of existing power discourses (Gubrium and Holstein, 2003).

Participants were selected through deliberate sampling through organisations (specifically through non-profit organisations that provide help and support to people in an adverse social situation, especially to the unemployed) and using a snowball technique (Lewis-Beck et al., 2004). The criteria for the selection of participants were as follows: (1) a job seeker included in the register of job seekers of the Employment Office of the Czech Republic (possibly a former candidate within 2 months from the end date of the registration); (2) Minimum of 5 months in the register; (3) willingness to participate in research.

In order to avoid one-sided results, job seekers’ prospects were complemented by interviews with a small group of caseworkers, who help participants to integrate into the labour market. The caseworkers included an employment office worker, a municipal social worker, a non-profit organization manager, and a community worker.

A total of 16 in-depth interviews (12 individual, 2 two-person interviews and 2 group interviews) were conducted with 19 job seekers (14 women and 5 men aged 16 to 63) and 4 caseworkers (n=23). The job seekers included both Roma minority and majority society job seekers.

Interviews were designed using the ORID method (Stanfield, 2000). The ORID method (Objective, Reflective, Interpretive, Decisional) allowed us to dynamically structure and naturally develop the conversation through targeted discussion.

The persons who participated in the research granted their consent to the processing of their statements for research purposes. Anonymity was ensured by neither disclosing their identity nor any specific personal data of the research participants in any phase of the research. Pseudonyms were used to identify the participants. The research was subject to the University research ethics approval by the University of Ostrava.

We based our data analysis on contemporary approaches to the grounded theory such as the constructivist approach by Charmaz (2006). In the research based on the principles of constructivist grounded theory, classes and relationships between them are discovered inductively, based on empirical data. The data were analysed using two main types of coding, which Charmaz (2006) describes as follows: (1) initial line-by-line coding: calls for detailed study of the data and the launch of conceptualization of concepts; (2) focused coding: enables separation, classification and synthesis of a large quantity of data. Coding means assigning designation to data segments, which are indicative of the content of the segments (Charmaz, 2006). The resulting designations are not topic-oriented, but are action- and process-oriented. During and after encoding, we created memos (memo-writing). Memo writing helps to bridge the gap between coding and theoretical analysis (Charmaz, 2006).

Findings

In this part we analyse in-depth interviews with job seekers and their caseworkers and interpret their experiences with implementation of activation. The data show how factors influencing the street-level implementation of activation work on three levels – structural, organizational, and individual. At the same time, it is possible to observe how these levels overlap allowing the implementation of street-level activation practices.

Conclusion

The micro-institutionalist perspective allowed us to understand the practices of street-level bureaucrats in a broader context. The presented data show not only how particular levels of activation intertwine, but also how they strengthen and create a comprehensive normative system around work, unemployment and financial support, thus enabling the implementation of the above street-level activation practices.

Findings show that a discretionary power of street-level bureaucrats is quite broad (Lipsky, 1980), but at the same time is subject to intense control (Brodkin, 2011). This control works on all levels - individual, organizational and the policy system, and moves in the direction of coercive practice. The coercive nature of the activation requirements is often concealed (Thorén, 2008). The re-centralization enabled a more targeted application of punitive measures, disciplining, surveillance techniques, and discouragement strategies. This broadly supports the applicability of ‘workfare’, which operates in an authoritarian way and has the greatest impact on people living in poverty and experiencing social exclusion. The penetration of workfare into the welfare system enables punitive measures to continue to be carried out in a transformed form, meaning that failing measures were not abandoned altogether but took on a different form, while the goal remained unchanged.

Workfare is gendered and heavily racialised, because implementation of street-level practices is often aimed at young men from the Roma ethnic group, who are usually viewed as passive, or dependent on social benefits and working illegally. The social construction and categorization of clients are guided by moral assumptions about unemployed social assistance recipients rooted in neoliberal discourse, and they facilitate finding the solution to dilemmatic situations (Lipsky, 1980). Interactions are managed by cost-cutting goals in order to reduce social assistance expenditures. Sanction practices to change clients’ behaviours and a gate-keeping street-level strategy both control the demand of support. The implementation of activation policy takes the form of a discourage policy, which constitutes an effective tool for reducing the number of clients and brings savings in public spending.

Activation policy implemented as a discourage policy contributes to deepening of social exclusion. Regular employment is an important policy goal, but activation implementation toward the work-first model and coercive practice increases the potential risk of placing clients in unstable work situations. People registered in the Employment Office of the Czech Republic often face multiple barriers when entering the labour market (Władyniak et al., 2019) and acquiring a job is not enough to change the clients’ social situation. These people need comprehensive support in overcoming their social disadvantage. However, the coordinated provision of services in this area is not yet available.