From Passive Recipients to Active Participants: A Systematic Literature Review of Citizen Participation in Street-Level Bureaucracies

Ricotta, A., Generet, C., Moyson, S., Schiffino, N. and Schoenaers, F. (2025), From Passive Recipients to Active Participants: A Systematic Literature Review of Citizen Participation in Street-Level Bureaucracies. European Policy Analysis. https://doi.org/10.1002/epa2.70019

Abstract

How do citizens participate in interactions with street-level bureaucrats? We systematically reviewed 50 studies and identified a repertoire of citizens' attitudes and behaviors, ranging from compliance to opposition, with exit as a last resort. We related them to civil servants' practices using Tummers et al.'s (2015) typology. Citizens' attitudes and behaviors include: compliance with formal rules, informal practices, and officers; attempts at persuasion, such as negotiation, begging, complaints, and blaming; forms of opposition, including resistance, manipulation, lie and aggressiveness; and exit, manifested as either avoiding encounters or disengaging psychologically from interactions. Compliant and persuasive citizens tend to prompt officers to move toward them. Those who exit can push officers to move away. Opposition tends to lead civil servants to either move away or toward, depending on how it is expressed. These results deconstruct the image of citizens as passive recipients and reposition them as active participants in frontline public services.