Who is Deserving of What? A Qualitative Analysis on German Street-Level Bureaucrats’ Attitudes Toward Deservingness and Need

Abstract

This article examines how German street-level bureaucrats exercise administrative discretion in welfare provision, focusing on perceptions of deservingness and need. Based on 37 interviews in job agencies, we identify four types of SLBs (hardliners, administrators, pragmatic social workers, and altruists), – each guided by distinct normative dispositions. These dispositions strongly influence decision-making and, ultimately, client outcomes and policy implementation. Findings show decisions are often value-based, shaping welfare practices. Our study contributes to public administration theory by linking discretion to justice principles and offers practical insights for fostering fairness and consistency in welfare services, particularly regarding need.

Introduction

Welfare programs belong to a set of redistributive policies implemented by governments in order to provide the resources needed by the less fortunate in a society to ensure their fundamental rights of participation and self-determination. When a government plans the provision of those resources for its most needy citizens, it has to answer the questions: Who deserves to be helped and what do those citizens need? Answers to these questions are given at different levels of government. General need levels are usually defined by law, as are the rules defining who is eligible for welfare state measures. The implementation of these rules then takes place at the local level. Here, street-level bureaucrats (Lipsky, 1980) adapt the general legal provisions to the individual situation of those in need. It is this street-level of welfare decision-making that we are interested in in this study. Specifically, we look at the individual attitudes of street-level bureaucrats (henceforth SLBs) toward need and deservingness.

Why is this a relevant focus? As already stated, the general decisions about who gets what are made by law-makers at various levels of a polity, from the national down to the local level. The implementation of welfare policy, however, takes place at Lipsky’s (1980) “street level,” where SLBs translate abstract legal answers to the who-gets-what-question to the level of case-specific individual decisions. This translation requires an appropriate response to a plethora of individual conditions. But neither the law nor administrative rules can regulate every single detail of every individual case (Lipsky, 1980, p. 15). They cannot, if the goal of welfare state policy is to provide help that appropriately fits the variety of individual needs. Hence, SLBs are given the discretion to judge each welfare case on its own merits and develop relevant welfare solutions (Frederickson, 2010; Grimm & Plambeck, 2013; Lipsky, 1980; Maynard-Moody & Musheno, 2003; Zacka, 2017). Discretion, then, is a necessary element of street-level decision-making (Evans & Harris, 2004; Frederickson, 2010; Lipsky, 1980; Zacka, 2017) and potentially has major consequences for the subjects of administrative action (Maynard-Moody & Musheno, 2000, pp. 334–335).

In the process of discretionary decision making, SLBs’ normative dispositions “act as filters that regulate how bureaucrats make use of their discretionary power” (Zacka, 2017, p. 12). Furthermore, Maynard-Moody and Musheno (2000, p. 333) claim that how an individual client is treated at the street level depends “less [on] [. . .] rules, training, or procedures and more [on] [. . .] beliefs and norms, especially beliefs and norms about what is fair.” Consequently, if we want to understand SLBs’ decision-making, we need to understand the normative dispositions on need and social justice guiding their discretionary behavior. To more fully address such aspirations, scholars have called for more qualitative research (Holcomb et al., 2023; Zacka, 2017) on a varied set of countries (Bell et al., 2021), encompassing a more heterogeneous set of administrative political cultures.

Against this backdrop we ask: Which clients do German SLBs consider as deserving, and how do they conceptualize need and need levels? To explore such questions, we start with the conceptual reconstruction of SLBs, especially SLBs in welfare services (Bell & Smith, 2022; Djuve & Kavli, 2015; Maynard-Moody & Musheno, 2003) as either state/compliance oriented or client/citizen oriented. We then move to the construction of clients by SLBs (and in part the wider public; Ingram & Schneider, 1993), including examining concepts like need and deservingness (Jilke & Tummers, 2018) as well as reciprocity and the attitude of clients toward SLBs and the welfare providing state (van Oorschot, 2000). Based on these conceptual perspectives and our data, we develop a two-dimensional typology of SLBs, in which we will locate SLBs’ attitudes along two axes, namely compliance versus normative orientation and equity versus need orientation. ¹

We empirically examine such questions using semi-structured interviews with 37 SLBs working in German welfare services. Here, perceptions of need and deservingness are particularly crucial as discretionary decisions affect the most vulnerable members of a community.

Our contribution to the literature is fourfold. We (a) augment the understanding of fairness as equity in public administration research by explicitly distinguishing between merit orientation/contribution orientation on the one hand, and need orientation in SLBs’ thinking about their clients on the other hand. We then (b) connect this dichotomy to that of state orientation and citizen/client orientation in SLBs, and develop a two-by-two classification of (welfare) SLBs. Doing so, we (c) derive a hierarchal concept of practitioners’ need orientation from our interview data. Finally, we (d) present empirical information on Germany, adding to knowledge about a very much culture-based phenomenon from a specific administrative culture.

The remainder of this article proceeds as follows. We first provide an overview of relevant scholarship. Based on this discussion we develop a two-dimensional typology to describe SLBs normative dispositions. Employing this typology, we analyze our empirical data, deriving four types of SLBs (hardliner, administrator, pragmatic social worker, altruist) and a hierarchy of need. The article concludes with a summary of our main results and a discussion of the study’s policy implications.

SLBs, Their Clients, Deservingness, and Need

The Construction of Types of Welfare SLBs in the Literature

SLBs’ normative dispositions are individual characteristics strongly shaped by the political and administrative cultures in which SLBs do their work. A large part of extant scholarship discusses this topic for the US-American administrative context (Baviskar & Winter, 2017; Bell & Smith, 2022; Jilke & Tummers, 2018; Keiser et al., 2004; Maynard-Moody & Musheno, 2003; Raaphorst & Groeneveld, 2019; Soss et al., 2011; Tummers et al., 2012; Zacka, 2017). Somewhat less focuses on European administrative systems; examples include Djuve and Kavli (2015) writing about Norway, and Grimm and Plambeck (2013), Hemker and Rink (2017), Glyniadaki (2021) examining the German administrative context.

Because of their design, most of these studies are not suitable for developing an in-depth understanding of the normative or ideological base of SLBs’ actions, as they emphasize on the effects of these values rather than on their meaning. Zacka (2017, p. 12), however, argues that a focus on effects is not enough: a substantive understanding of SLBs’ normative dispositions also is necessary, since these dispositions “act as filters that regulate how bureaucrats exercise . . . their discretionary power.”

An important contribution to this discussion was made by Maynard-Moody and Musheno (2003). Using qualitative interview data from the US, they construct the dichotomy of SLBs as being either citizen agents or state agents. Citizen agents feel more beholden to their clients; hence they often use discretion to the advantage of their clients rather than strictly interpreting and implementing the letter of the law. They accept additional work and even take personal risks as they push the discretionary space granted to them. In contrast, SLBs who act as state agents, on the other hand, concentrate on what they understand as faithful implementation of the law. Based on these two types of SLBs Maynard-Moody and Musheno (2000, p. 333) claim, similarly to Zacka (2017), that how an SLB treats an individual client in everyday exchanges depends “less [on] [. . .] rules, training, or procedures and more [on] [. . .] beliefs and norms, especially beliefs and norms about what is fair.” Consequently, if we want to understand SLBs’ concrete decision-making, it will help to better understand the normative dispositions guiding their discretionary behavior.

The Maynard-Moody /Musheno construction is supplemented with similar dichotomies. For example, Djuve and Kavli (2015), distinguish between “carers” and “clerks”; the clerk relies on rules and regulations and is loyal to “the system,” while carers clearly are oriented toward helping their clients (Djuve & Kavli, 2015, p. 240). Bell and Smith (2022) discuss analogous observations in their compliance versus support officers dichotomy.

The common theme of these three approaches is a focus on rules, with the “state agent”, the “clerk,” and the “compliance officer” as rule-oriented SLBs versus a normative focus on supporting clients in the “citizen agent”, the “support officer”, and the care oriented SLB. We will employ these reconstructions of SLBs’ motives to sensitize the analysis of our interview data toward the motivational basis driving SLBs’ behavior.

We next complements this perspective by looking at how scholars suggest that SLBs themselves construct their welfare clients. This will allow us to conceptualize the relationship between SLBs and welfare clients and to better understand SLBs’ discretionary action.

Reconstructing SLB’s Construction of Welfare Clients

To understand the normative basis of SLBs’ discretionary action more fully, we need to look at the ways SLBs construct their clients. Schneider and Ingram (1993, p. 335; see also Ingram & Schneider, 2015) in their seminal paper describe this construction as the recognition of shared characteristics of a target population as well as the attribution of values, symbols, and images, allowing for a positive or negative interpretation of such a group. Although Schneider and Ingram understand the characterizations of welfare clients as socially constructed, at the same time they view these constructions as empirically observable (Blum & Kuhlmann, 2025, p. 339). What they observe is, among other things, that how SLBs treat their clients depends on how they constructed them in the first place (Schneider & Ingram, 1993, p. 343) and who they see, for instance, as being deserving or underserving (Schneider & Ingram, 1993, p. 335).

This perspective is taken up by Maynard-Moody and Musheno (2003) in the aptly named chapter “Who are the worthy.” Their preliminary answer is based on interviews with various types of SLBs in the USA, namely police officers, teachers, and social workers. According to the authors, SLBs regard their citizen-clients as worthy of help when they “have genuine needs, are of good character, and are motivated to respond to treatment” (Maynard-Moody & Musheno, 2003, p. 106). These are categories Ingram and Schneider (1993) had used. Maynard-Moody and Musheno also assert that “street-level workers are making normative judgments about who gets what from government” (Maynard-Moody & Musheno, 2003, p. 106).

In the literature more generally, one finds two sources of norms guiding SLB’s judgments: (a) socio-cultural norms generally held by members of a given society and (b) norms specific to public service. We will briefly review both sources to sensitize our empirical work (Blumer, 1954).

Drawing on an historical overview of perceptions of the welfare state as well as population survey data, van Oorschot (2000) describes five deservingness criteria that influence whether a (poor) person is considered worthy of help by society. He refers to them as CARIN criteria: Control, Attitude, Reciprocity, Identity, and Need (van Oorschot, 2000, p. 36). Deservingness understood this way has been shown to explain support for and opposition to social benefits among citizens and politicians alike (Reeskens & van der Meer, 2019; Reeskens & van Oorschot, 2013; van Oorschot, 2000; van Oorschot & Roosma, 2017).

The CARIN criteria have been defined based on observations of general population attitudes toward welfare state recipients (van Oorschot, 2000). Directly geared toward analyzing SLBs’ decision-making behavior and more grounded in normative thought is a set of three criteria that Jilke and Tummers (2018) suggest: need-deservingness, earned-deservingness, and resource-deservingness (Jilke & Tummers, 2018, p. 231). Need-deservingness means that clients are worthy of help because of a social shock beyond their control (Jilke & Tummers, 2018, p. 231). Earned-deservingness refers to situations where “clients are seen as worthy [of help] because they have shown high effort” (Jilke & Tummers, 2018, p. 231). Resource-deservingness, finally, views clients as worth helping because they are likely to “be successful in terms of bureaucratic success criteria” (Jilke & Tummers, 2018, p. 231).

The two perspectives strongly overlap in three respects. The perception of a person in need as deserving (worthy of being helped) is based on their responsibility for/control over their situation, the perceived reciprocity of their behavior, and their objective (or objectifiable) level of need. In addition, Jilke and Tummers (2018) look at administrative efficiency as a deservingness criterion, and, based on empirical observation, van Oorschot (2000) adds identity. We use these concepts to sensitize our analysis of SLBs’ normative dispositions when they answer the question “Who is worthy of help” in their everyday welfare decision-making.

Social Justice, Need, and Deservingness

The concept of deservingness has been a core part of discussion in the public policy and public administration literature about the relationship between SLBs and clients at least since Schneider and Ingram (1993). Yet, as Blum and Kuhlmann (2025, p. 339) observe, the “public policy literature has been vague in specifying deservingness.” The same is true for the concept of need. Although some scholarship explores whether and why clients are perceived as deserving, there is only little mention of what exactly clients are deserving of. We turn next to sketching our understanding of need based on a more philosophically inclined discussion going back to Rawls’s concept of justice. We thus provide the missing conceptual element needed for analysis of our interview data and for a better understanding of SLBs’ conceptions of need.

Theories of justice answer the question “who should receive how much of what?” (Siebel & Schramme, 2020, p. 23), where “what” can be “specific resources, such as Rawls’s social primary goods, including liberties, opportunities and income” (Siebel & Schramme, 2020, p. 23). Rawls (1971) in his famous “Theory of Justice” was primarily interested in questions of the proper institutionalization of social justice. Other theorists were more focused on what resources people need and what they can do with such resources (Siebel & Schramme, 2020, p. 23). It was Martha Nussbaum who introduced the idea of capabilities to express the idea that resources are needed to enable participation in society as well as the freedom to choose one’s actions to achieve social justice (Nussbaum, 2011, p. 5, also see Sen, 1988, pp. 272–274, 276–279).

To better understand different ideas of social justice, in accordance with Miller (1976) we distinguish three principles of social justice: equality, equity, and need. Equality as a principle of fairness is often understood as fairness as such. With respect to democratic government under the rule of law, it is expected that everyone needs to be treated equally. If understood as (strict) economic equality, however, the equality principle is potentially illiberal and implies a tendency toward heavy state interventions in vested individual material rights (Frankfurt, 2015, p. 9). The equality principle may also lead to some need not being adequately tackled if, for some reason, say a severe disability or a very serious illness, a person needs a lot more than their equal share to fulfill their basic need (Frankfurt, 2015, p. 34).

Equity posits recognizing each person’s actions and qualities so that those who contribute more to society should receive more. ² The problem with equity becomes apparent with the following thought: Strictly applying the equity principle implies that those who cannot contribute to society for some reason and cannot provide for themselves will not be able to participate at a minimum level in society, and they will be even less able to live a dignified life (Gosepath, 2003, p. 288), an outcome in line neither with the values nor with the constitutions of many societies (Daly, 2021).

Finally, the e need-principle states that every citizen should be able to participate at some minimum level in everyday social, political, and economic life (Mac Cárthaigh, 2014). Unlike equity and equality, the need-principle does not look at distribution from the perspective of resources but rather places the individual and their need at the center of considerations. Its focus is on the question of what a person needs in order to have the freedom, choices, and liberties enabling them to live a dignified life and to be an active member of society. It remains an open question, however, what exactly need is, since it is a “notoriously elusive concept” (Dean, 2013, p. 33). Unsurprisingly, we find different answers to this question in the literature.

Gosepath (2015), for example, claims that all people in a society should be able to live under equally dignified conditions. Need, then, is the amount of resources required to live this dignified life. Nussbaum and Sen follow a similar path with their capabilities approach (Nussbaum, 2011; Nussbaum & Sen, 1993; Sen, 1988). Here, need is the set of resources that enables a person to determine their own actions and to make their own decisions (Nussbaum, 2011, p. 24). Similarly, Rawls and Kelly (2003) argue that needs are the things that people require to make use of their basic liberties. Other authors concretely list basic needs that must be fulfilled for freedom of choice or minimal participation in society and politics to be possible (Nussbaum, 2011; Rawls & Kelly, 2003), with Maslow’s (1943) hierarchy of needs being probably the most famous. Finally, Frankfurt (2015) approaches the question of need from a different angle. He does not positively define need with respect to some goal, for example, freedom or capabilities. Instead, he asks why or when economic inequality is unethical and answers that it is unethical when it leads to poverty and suffering. Hence, the challenge for distributive justice is to make sure that everyone has enough in order to be content with the resources at their disposal (Frankfurt, 2015, p. 48).

In the introduction we claimed that SLBs’ normative dispositions guide their discretionary behavior. This section has provided conceptual views on a general state or client-orientation of SLBs as well as on ways to understand deservingness and need to sensitize our empirical analysis. The kinds of rule/norm orientation and the concepts of justiceactually guide SLBs’ actions are empirical question. We now turn to our interview data to show which conceptions of deservingness as well as understandings of fairness and need are present among SLBs in the German welfare administration and whether there are any interactions between the two concepts. Before delving into the analysis, however, we first will provide a brief overview of the research design and method.

Research Design and Method

To reconstruct the SLBs’ conceptions of deservingness and need and thus their constructions of their clients, we conducted 37 semi-structured qualitative expert interviews with employees from German job agencies (Jobcenter) between March and July 2021. Why did we select SLBs in job agencies as the target group for our research? Job agencies take on the responsibility for implementing welfare state regulations on job placement, training, and basic income support of the vast majority of welfare recipients in Germany. In 2021, job agencies served around 3.8 million individuals (Statista Research Department, 2025), making them the primary institutions in Germany for delivering social welfare. ³ Job agencies are local entities under the umbrella of the Federal Employment Agency (Bundesagentur für Arbeit), with each center serving recipients in its designated locality.

SLBs at job agencies can be divided into three groups: (1) SLBs in the payment department check on and approve applications for welfare payments and determine the exact level of payments; (2) SLBs for labor market integration support regular clients in their job search, help to remove barriers to job placement, and provide qualification measures; (3) case management staff cater to the needs of clients with multiple impediments to employment. This last group of SLBs serves a smaller number of clients and are therefore able to maintain closer and more intensive contacts with them. Labor market integration staff and case managers are responsible for managing all aspects of support for their assigned clients, ranging from employment assistance to ensuring basic security. They have significant discretion in tailoring support to individual needs, ensuring personalized and effective assistance. They can also impose sanctions and cut benefits if recipients fail to meet their obligations. With their close and direct contact with welfare recipients and their discretionary power in decision-making in the context of basic security, SLBs in job agencies are the main street-level actors in the provision of social welfare in Germany. They are exactly the group of SLBs we are looking for.

To recruit interviewees, in early 2021 we contacted 10 job agencies in major German cities that had more than 500,000 residents. Job agencies in such cities have the advantage of servicing a large number of clients with high levels of heterogeneity including young adults, elderly unemployed people, migrants, refugees, and disabled people. SLBs at urban job agencies confront a wide variety of individual situations that shape their understanding of need and deservingness. Furthermore, job agencies in major cities exhibit a high degree of internal division of labor due to their size, with specialization of SLBs. They usually have departments and, in some cases, even autonomous offices focusing on specific groups of clients. This made it easier for us to directly recruit a heterogeneous field of respondents, giving us a better chance to appropriately map the empirical landscape we are interested in.

Three out of the ten job agencies contacted authorized us to conduct our research. Upon our request, job agency management forwarded an information letter to their team managers or directly to SLBs inviting them to participate voluntarily. Subsequently, we contacted SLBs from lists of volunteers sent to us and scheduled appointments. Due to Covid-19 protocols, the 37 interviews were conducted either by telephone or via Zoom and were digitally recorded. The average interview duration was 78 minutes (ranging from 48 to 130 minutes).

Our final sample includes 20 female and 17 male respondents. The average age of the interviewees at the time of the survey was 46.6 years, including participants from 30 to 62 years. SLBs had been in their jobs for an average of 8.6 years. Twenty-six interviewees worked in labor market integration, with 12 active in specific domains (young adults, refugees, self-employed, EU citizens, disabled people). Three employees worked in the payment department, and eight as case managers. Five people were (deputy) team leaders. ⁴

For our interviews, we draw on our theoretical discussion to formulate sensitizing concepts (Blumer, 1954) about the work of job agency SLBs and their conceptions of deservingness and need. ⁵ We then derived concrete questions based on these concepts. The “individual need-conception,” for example, translates to: Some people feel that there are things that should be available to everyone in our society, no matter what they do. How do you feel about this statement? In total, the interview guide consists of 11 main questions, each with matching follow-up questions (Helfferich, 2011; Kruse, 2015). We started the interview with questions on the daily work routine and the professional career of the SLBs. Next, we asked for the description of characteristic job situations and some personal valuation of general statements on need and deservingness. The interviews ended with standardized questions on several socio-demographic characteristics. External experts checked the interview guide for plausibility, viability, and consistency, and we slightly adjusted after the first five interviews. ⁶

After the fieldwork, the interviews were transcribed by an external transcription agency, followed by the research team checking for transcription errors and anonymization. In the first step of analyzing these, we composed case summaries for each interview. We then hand-coded the data using MAXQDA Analytics Pro 2022. The codes were based on concepts derived from our sensitizing concepts and supplemented with codes that we inductively developed in an iterative process from the data (Mayring, 2022). Next, we compared cases across six main categories based on the coding to identify clusters of similarities and differences. The criteria used for the case-contrastive analysis included: (a) attitude toward equity, (b) expectations about clients’ behavior, (c) justifications for deservingness, (d) scope of the need concept and its justification, (e) evaluation of current social benefits, and (f) attitudes toward and use of cuts in benefits as sanctions. The aim of our analysis was to ensure that the each of the derived groups exhibited high internal homogeneity while maintaining a significant degree of heterogeneity between groups. As is common in qualitative research, not all interviewees could be clearly assigned to a specific type. Some individuals uttered different attitudes during the interviews, made contradictory statements, or fit into more than one type in certain categories. Consequently, the types of SLBs we elaborate in the next section need to be understood as ideal, not real types. The substantial number of interviews and the complexity of the analysis suggest that the results generally tapped the actual attitudes of SLBs in German job agenciesand thus in the German welfare service system.

Results

As discussed earlier, based on existing scholarship literature we had sensitized our analysis to the difference between compliance/state oriented SLBs (state agent, clerk, compliance officer) and value oriented SLBs (citizen agent, support officer, care oriented SLB). In addition, we introduced the difference between need and equity as principles for distributive justice. Figure 1 illustrates these dichotomies, with columns reflecting the differences between compliance and value oriented SLBs is represented and rows differences between need and equity.

Figure 1.

Types of street level bureaucrats in German job agencies.

This two-dimensional perspective led us to expect four rather than two possible types of SLBs (see Figure 1). We will introduce these four types briefly in the next paragraph to foster a better understanding of the detailed descriptions of the four types that following. We first re-emphasize, however, that these types are meant to be ideal types in the Weberian sense. That is, one is unlikely to empirically find either type in their pure form in the real world. Actual SLBs typically will reflect more than one of the types in Figure 1, although often an individual SLB will have a primarytype. Additionally, these types mostly emerge independently of the three empirical groups of professional roles described earlier, and they are not associated with socio-demographic characteristics or professional background.

The first type of SLB we construct is the administrator. Such individuals are rule- and rather equity-oriented, located in the upper left corner of Figure 1. We then constructed two subtypes of the client oriented SLB. One is the social worker; the other is the altruist. The latter is normatively oriented toward need and helping clients unconditionally. This type is located on the lower right corner of the figure. The social worker is moderately need oriented with elements of reciprocity expectation (equity) and rule orientation. This subtype is located toward the middle of the figure. Finally, we constructed a hardline type of SLB. This type was not foreseen by our sensitizing concepts, but emerged while interpreting the data. It is a normatively, but neither citizen nor state oriented SLB. Located in the upper right corner of the figure, the hardline type instead has a strong equity-orientation, in effect making it a watchperson for the taxpayer’s money.

Based on this preview, we will turn now to our interview data to detail, the kinds of client orientation we found in SLBs in the German welfare administration, and how conceptions of deservingness as well as need and equity are present among those SLBs in the German job and social administration.

The Hardliner

The ideal typical hardliner is characterized by the high expectations they have for their clients. Hardliners strongly support the idea that people are responsible for their own well-being. As a consequence, this type expects a clear quid pro quo for the support the state provides. Based on their value judgments, hardliners interpret clients as deserving only under restrictive conditions, and these SLBs have a very narrow conception of need.

Most important for the hardliner is that people do not receive support unconditionally, but are expected to contribute to society themselves:

If I am capable of contributing, but I just don’t want to because I would rather sit lazily on the couch at home and [. . .] even though I am actually young, fit, healthy [. . .], then I think that there has to be a limit [to financial support]. (interview 1, pos. 55)

Those who can, should [. . .] contribute to society. I see this as a kind of moral-ethic [. . .], but also as a kind of economic obligation. (interview 18, pos. 31)

The hardliner argues based on equity as a fairness principle, or, in the words of one respondent: “the balance of give and take” that “must remain intact in society” (interview 8, pos. 65). “Accepted” client contributions are first efforts to take on additional training without complaint and regardless of quality and personal suitability, or to at least take on community work:

Those who simply don’t feel like turning up, who just don’t want to, don’t deserve to get paid here. [. . .] Those people should just do any of these auxiliary tasks that have a social value and otherwise, there is nothing. (interview 18, pos. 43)

Additionally, hardliners expect clients to accept virtually any jobs offered. If they do not, the hardliner is very willing to sanction them by cutting welfare payments for a period of time:

So, then you send them jobs and they write, “No, I’m not up for it.” [. . .] For such customers I found it an important instrument to say, “Okay, then you won’t get anything from us for a few months”. (Interview 18, pos. 69)

Finally, accepted contributions of a different kind are single parenting or caring for relatives, which hardliners also interpreted as services to the community:

If I now have a 21-year-old with three children aged between zero and three, then I think she’s doing her bit. But I also expect her to enroll her children in kindergarten so that they can learn German. That’s my expectation, where I say, OK, that’s what you’re contributing now. (Interview 30, pos. 50–54)

The hardliner also emphasizes the “right attitude” clients should have. If clients take help for granted and do not extend any effort themselves, this type explicitly sees them as less deserving. Thus, reciprocation and showing a positive, grateful attitude are central normative expectations for the hardliner. This also implies that the amount of control (van Oorschot, 2000) a clients has over their situation is an important criterion for the hardliner’s evaluation of a client’s deservingness. If people are seen as responsible for a situation of hardship, the hardliner is much less willing to offer encompassing support than if such control is lacking. Being in control but not using it properly is apparently interpreted as not reciprocating properly or as not contributing one’s fair share to the overall well-being of society. All of this demonstrates a very strong normative orientation in the hardliner by saying: “These are my values, live up to them.”

The need concept of the hardliner covers goods and services that primarily ensure the physical survival of a client (food, clothing, shelter, medical care):

Yes, of course, homelessness should be avoided. [. . .] That’s the most important thing, not going hungry and not being homeless. (Interview 23, pos. 46–47)

Their main concern is to provide the clients with the basic necessities of life for the betterment of their lot. Socio-cultural participation beyond that can be had without resources, according to the hardliner, but children possibly constitute an exception, as the last part of the following quote suggests.

[. . .] I myself hardly ever go to the movies. I can go for walks outside in nature, do sports there. [. . .] There are also groups where you can meet people. So you can also establish social contacts without having to join five clubs that cost money. For children [. . .] it’s perhaps important that if someone wants to join the soccer club, they can actually do so. So maybe it’s a little different for children. (Interview 24, pos. 34–35

In sum, a hardliner argues in line with personal value-based judgments that are strongly influenced by equity as a principle of justice. This type considers the present level of welfare state payments to be sufficient or even too high and sees a risk that extensive transfer payments promote deliberate unemployment. As a result, the hardliner is also willing to cut benefits through sanctions if clients do not reciprocate sufficiently. In comparison to the types of SLBs already described in the literature, we understand the hardliner as a new type.

The Administrator

The administrator identifies very strongly with the state, and this type’s actions are closely driven by the letter of the law. The administrator’s main concern is to ensure that the law is correctly applied. In an administrator’s understanding, there is little room for individual value judgments when making decisions. Rather, the relationship between client and SLB is a contractual relationship clearly defined by law:

We have to conclude a legal integration agreement with the clients, it’s like a contract. [. . .] We, the state, give basic benefits for rent and food. On the other hand, we have demands and also expect the person, if he is capable, to integrate into the labor market. (Interview 23, pos. 57)

Reciprocity is as important for the administrator as it is for the hardliner. However, their justifications differ. While the hardliner refers to the understanding of a situation and a related normative judgment, the administrator views the law as guiding all actions. Thus, administrators regularly refer to the principle of “rights and obligations” (Fördern und Fordern), which is set out in the German Social Code. This principle explicitly links support payments to specific reciprocal efforts by welfare clients:

In Book II of the Social Code (Sozialgesetzbuch II), there are always “rights and obligations.” This means that in order to be entitled to a benefit, a client has to provide specific things in return. (Interview 1, Pos 55)

The legalistic perspective also appears in the quote below. This interviewee is most concerned with finding the right part of the social code under which help should be granted and the correct department to do the job, not with supporting the client’s need as such:

If there are health problems, then of course [. . .] that has to be sorted out first, and we check: Do they stay with us or do we transfer them to Book XI of the Social Code? Because that is where people who are not fit for work belong. (Interview 23, pos. 61)

In addition, while SLBs of other types regularly and deliberately exercise discretion, administrators interpret the law as literally prescribing their administrative actions, leaving extremely little if any room for individual value judgments and discretion in the case-wise decision-making:

Question: And what discretion do you have when applying sanctions?

Answer: None whatsoever [. . .]. I hear this time and again from [. . .] colleagues, that there is room for discretion, but that’s not true. The law clearly states that if the conditions are met, a sanction must be imposed, no ifs or buts. [. . .] The law is very, very clear on this point. (Interview 18, pos. 70–73)

The administrator’s conception of need is also shaped almost exclusively by the law, not by individual value judgments. Needs are the things “where you simply have a legal right to it” (interview 2, pos. 33). Concerning need levels, the following quote exemplifies the administrator’s legalistic thinking.

This is the defined standard of need, nowadays, 446 Euros per month for one person [. . .]. This is what the state and the legislature decided at some point that a person could live on [. . .]. That’s what I see as what everyone is entitled to. (Interview 27, pos. 55)

The administrator considers the current welfare state payments as small but adequate. In their understanding, these payments are a means to the end of getting people back into the job market. And it is the statutory obligation of the client to actively pursue this goal. If administrators reply more concretely to the question of what people need, they answer similarly to the hardliners, mentioning access to education and public transport as legal rights as well as basic needs like shelter, food, clothing, and medical care:

You need food, drink, clothing, and a roof over your head. [. . .] And here in Germany, we also need electricity and heating. [. . .] A telephone? You can live without one [. . .]. And without a computer, and vacations [. . .]. Of course, certain furnishings such as a bed and a chair and a table and so on. (Interview 24, pos. 33)

In summary, the administrator has a very high regard for the letter of the law, and wants to ensure that it is followed as closely as possible. The client as a person seems to be less important. To our understanding the administrator closely resembles the “state agent” and “clerk” described in the literature and seems closest to the “compliance officer.” With respect to need, administrators do not express much of a personal opinion, but again refer to the written law as the relevant standard.

The Pragmatic Social Worker

The pragmatic social worker is generally supportive and understanding of clients but also expects them to do their part. This type believes that working in this way and being active is of value because it integrates people into society and wants to foster that. At the same time, the pragmatic social worker shows empathy for all kinds of individual conditions and hardships. If such conditions are given, this type is willing to loosen expectations. This SLB’s understanding of what people need is more encompassing than that of the hardliner and the administrator, since it includes broader conceptions of social and political participation.

The pragmatic social worker cherishes an active and cooperative attitude from their clients, expecting clients to demonstrate agency when dealing with their situation, to take action for their own benefit, and to give purpose to their everyday actions and their life:

A very positive effect of reciprocation is that a task gives structure to the day. [. . .] It strengthens the self-confidence and self-esteem of the clients [. . .]. They experience acknowledgment, appreciation when they, for example, accompany elderly people to the vaccination center or run errands, simply have social contacts. (Interview 25, pos. 45)

If someone is young and healthy and has a school education, [. . .] I think I would want to recognize a certain form of: “I am working on my life plan.” (Interview 12, pos. 69)

Small contributions by the clients like keeping in touch, showing up for appointments, and simply having exchanges with the SLB about the current status and developments are also valued:

It’s important to me that someone has an exchange with me. For example, if something was not done, if something did not work out, that he at least learns: I cancel my appointment. I give feedback. I get in touch with my case worker before I break something off. (Interview 5, pos. 55)

Reciprocity and compliance are as important for the social worker as they are for the administrator. But the reasons are different. The administrator follows the rules, because they are rules. The social worker believes that following the rules helps clients, because it makes clients more self-reliant and potentially activates their agency. The social worker is thus considerably more client oriented.

While trying to activate clients and working on the re-establishment of their independence from the support system, the social worker also shows ample understanding of and patience with their clients. If, for example, a client obviously is in a situation of need, this person is considered deserving without a quid pro quo:

Clients who are ill, who look after children or relatives, or what have you, [. . .] they get their service without reciprocation. Because they are in need of support. (Interview 12, pos. 69)

People who fall through the cracks of the system are unconditionally considered deserving. In one interview, an SLB commented on clients who, for health reasons, are effectively no longer able to work, but do not meet all the legal conditions for other support services. In such cases, the social worker decides pragmatically to just keep them in the system:

If other assistance agencies do not take effect because the legal criteria are not fulfilled, (. . .) we say: “Okay, then the person stays here. We maintain a certain contact. The client keeps in touch with us. And yes, up to the age limit if necessary.” (Interview 7, pos. 79)

We interpret this as evidence that the control dimension (van Oorschot, 2000) is important for the pragmatic social workers as well. When clients are responsible for their precarious situation but are able to change it, the social worker expects active client cooperation. If this is not the case, this SLB type is forthcoming with various kinds of support.

The social worker’s need conception is rather broad. It includes means to ensure a basic level of individual autonomy as well as social and political participation. That means that in addition to the basic provision of shelter, clothing, food, health care services, and education, need includes for example, media access to enable people to communicate and inform themselves. Furthermore, people should have a chance to be socially integrated by having access to some social and cultural activities, “whether it is a choir or a sports club, whatever” (Interview 3, pos. 37) so they can feel part of society. This also includes the freedom to dispose of some money for not strictly necessary expenditures, so that a client can say:

Okay, today I’m going to meet a friend in a café or restaurant and I can afford coffee there, even if it costs me five euros. (Interview 5, pos. 41)

Conceding a bit of money for leisure activities from doing sports to having a cup of coffee is the point, where the social worker’s understanding of need clearly goes beyond that of the hardliner and the administrator. Yet, it is important to the social worker that need provision by the state does not go too far and that there is still a “little difference to people who work” (Interview 37, Pos 41). Going on holidays or more expensive leisure activities thus are not understood as need. Still, for SLBs in the social worker category, the current level of welfare benefits appears to be too low for social and political participation to be considered adequate.

Summing up, the pragmatic social worker is supportive, and they place high value on activating clients. The social worker is guided by a set of values that combines a moderate commitment to equity with a belief in the importance of giving life purpose. Explicit reference to the law is not very common with them. For people who do not fit in the system, this type finds pragmatic ways to still help them. In being true to rules, while pushing clients for their own sake, the social worker most resembles the support officer, but also to a significant extent the citizen agent. This type’s understanding of need is more encompassing than that of the hardliner or the administrator. The social worker usually believes that the current level of financial support is not sufficient. Such SLBs use sanctions first and foremost if there is a chance to activate people this way, but not otherwise.

The Altruist

The altruist is quite empathetic with clients and believes that all people are equally deserving of basic support from society, regardless of their behavior, attitudes, or contributions. This view is accompanied by a comprehensive understanding of need, which in addition to physical well-being includes social and cultural need as well as autonomy and self-determination. For the altruist meeting these needs is a fundamental right. This right cannot be legitimately restricted. Hence, deservingness does not have a meaningful place in this type’s thinking, for if all are deserving, this concept cannot produce any meaningful difference to guide social support systems. The altruist also has little use for “compliance” as a concept. Finally, altruists challenge the idea that people can be made universally responsible for their own well-being and see a duty for society to care for its members.

The altruist argues that life’s conditions and circumstances are too random for distribution based on merit or equity to be fair:

Opportunities are not equal, to begin with. The children of our clients, children who grow up in [poor] families, do not have the same opportunities and so on. (Interview 34, pos. 67)

Our lives have so much to do with chance. So, so much. I think there is much more chance in life than planning. And that’s why I think that a lot of people who don’t have a job or who are in bad shape, something happened that they couldn’t control at all. Not at all. That is just the way life is. (Interview 20, point 39)

The altruist believes that many people cannot work or contribute to society “by nature” (Interview 6, pos. 65) because of health problems or other issues. Others who want to work, do often no longer find jobs in the labor market because they are too old or unqualified or have professional skills that are no longer in demand. The altruist often holds that not all people are able to function within the capitalist society we live in or meet its demands. This type also accepts that some people simply don’t want to function “properly,” and thus is generally accepting of alternative ways of life:

We actually also have clients [. . .] who don’t want anything, who have settled into their situation and are relatively satisfied. And those are actually my favorite clients, who say: “No, no, I can manage with the money, it’s all enough. (laughs) And I definitely don’t want to work.” But they are somehow, they are well integrated into the neighborhood [. . .]. And then I always think, “Yes, why should I bother them now?” [. . .]. Whether that’s good or bad. I’m happy for them. (Interview 34, pos. 59)

Thus, altruistic SLBs have no expectations about the behavior or attitudes of their clients. Consequently, as previously mentioned, they have no use for concepts such as “compliance.” They instead point to the fact that Germany is a very rich country and that its society can afford to “drag along” (Interview 34, pos. 62) some people who, for various reasons, do not contribute. In other words, in the eyes of the altruist, society has an unconditional duty to help and to accept that some people openly rely on this help, as the following two quotes exemplify:

I would actually say that it [the societal provision for basic need] is actually guaranteed. [. . .] I think the standard should be to give basic support without expecting anything in return. (Interview 13, pos. 53)

Maybe one of us doesn’t want to work and the other wants to work more, and both of us want that, then I think that is okay. (Interview 20, pos. 41)

The altruist’s understanding of need is encompassing and extends far beyond shelter, food, and clothing. It clearly resembles Nussbaum’s (2011) view on the matter, namely that clients should receive the resources they need to live a “normal, moderate life” (Interview 20, pos. 31) and make their own, autonomous decisions. Accordingly, the altruist’s understanding of need includes access to public services and infrastructure like health care, education, public transport, communication, or media, but it also has a strong social and cultural component. People should be able to participate in normal community life and not feel excluded. This means that people should, for example, have the opportunity to do sports or take part in cultural activities and visit museums, zoos, or public swimming pools. The underlying normative goal that emerges here is that clients are enabled to feel and behave as full members of society and have the means to decide about their lives freely. Even though this understanding of need includes even an occasional holiday, there is a clear limit:

I don’t think you have to fly to Mallorca every year, that’s my opinion. But I think you have to have a holiday, you have to have recreation, [. . .] access to nature, you have to be able to get out of your environment somehow. But I don’t think it has to be a holiday trip somewhere by plane. I consider something like that a luxury. (Interview 6, pos. 55)

In accordance with their encompassing understanding of need, altruists believe that the welfare benefits currently paid are too low and that they only cover the absolutely basic need:

I would say they cover basic housing and food, but in principle, I don’t think it’s enough. No. (Interview 28, pos. 61

Because altruists do not want to force their clients into any kind of action or behavior, sanctioning clients is completely outside the altruist’s toolbox:

I think it’s always better for people when they are treated well or when they are praised. [. . .] [W]orking with fear and anxiety is, I think, never good. (Interview 20, pos. 37)

All things considered, the altruist has a strong normatively grounded belief in the equal deservingness of all clients and the responsibility of the state to help them meet their need. This is the prototypical citizen agent, who has an encompassing understanding of need, even including the possibility of a short vacation. This is justified by the altruist with the goal to include welfare clients as comprehensively as possible in all essential processes and institutions of society. Hence concepts like “compliance,” or actions like sanctions logically have no place in the altruist’s thinking.

Discussion and Conclusion

In this study, we explored how SLBs in the German welfare administration think about need and deservingness. We argued that the general answer to the who-gets-what-question with respect to social welfare is usually defined by national law, but that the individual level of welfare provisions is decided locally by bureaucrats at the street level. Since national law cannot regulate every detail of every client’s case (Lipsky, 1980), SLBs need room to adapt general provisions to individual cases and circumstances. Hence, at the street-level, discretion is a necessary part of decision-making. When SLBs exercise discretion, their decisions are inevitably made against the background of their own norms and values that influence their decisions (Maynard-Moody & Musheno, 2003; Zacka, 2017).

How SLBs “meet” their clients’ need in these interactions very much depends on how SLBs construct those clients (Schneider & Ingram, 1993, p. 343), and whom they see as deserving or underserving (Schneider & Ingram, 1993, p. 335). According to the literature (Jilke & Tummers, 2018; van Oorschot, 2000), SLBs’ general attitudes toward social justice, their perceptions of the “objective” neediness of their clients, and their perceptions of their clients’ behavior influence how deserving they perceive a client to be. We therefore asked: Which clients do German SLBs consider as deserving and why? How do they understand and conceptualize need? And which goods and services should be available to all people in the society as a minimum?

Regarding the question of deservingness, our findings suggest that most SLBs indeed have firm positions on these matters and differ in the values that guide their day-to-day work. For hardliners, administrators, and pragmatic social workers, equitable action by clients is important: they expect clients are expected to act according to a societal quid-pro-quo. If the these types of SLBs perceive someone as in control of their situation, they expect a minimum amount of cooperation or reciprocation in order to treat them as fully deserving. However, there are differences in the standards applied. Hardliners and administrators have very high expectations of clients who are in control of their situations and demand that these people do everything possible to end their indigence. For the hardliner, this position is grounded in an uncompromising equity orientation as a principle of justice. The hardliner wants to guard society against the abuse of social systems based on normative convictions; hence clients have to contribute their share. The administrator is very much focused on the letter of the law and its orthodox implementation. For them, value judgment based on fairness is not centrally relevant. Pragmatic social workers also expect reciprocation, but they do not exclusively argue on equity-based grounds when they try to activate clients. They interpret activation as also being in the best interest of their clients, as they see an actively involved life as the better life. They therefore try to push clients to cooperate. To our understanding, this mix of equity- and client-orientation is the central difference between pragmatic social workers on the one hand and hardliners and administrators on the other. Yetall three agree, that clients who are not in control of their need situation, such as children or people with disabilities, are unconditionally deserving of help.

The altruist, in contrast, displays an unconditional willingness to accept all kinds of clients as needy, leaving equity-oriented considerations to the side completely. The altruist instead is equality-orientedin a specific way, believing that being provided for by society is a fundamental, inalienable, and thus equal right of every member of society. This understanding explicitly includes clients who deliberately do not want to contribute their perceived fair share to society.

So, when SLBs decide on welfare provision, for many an understanding of deservingness is important, one based in equity-oriented thinking. When such SLBs use discretion, clients, and the facts about clients are judged against this backdrop. For all of our interviewees, however, there are groups of clientswho do not need to contribute themselves, because they cannot. These are first and foremost children, and to different degrees people with disabilities, people who have long-term illnesses, and those care for other people. For all types of SLBs, treatment of these groups of clients is not equity based, but purely need based. The altruist is distinctive insofar as this type unconditionally treats everyone as needy. Equitability of client actions is not something the altruist expects.

This leaves us with the question of how SLBs understand need itself. We stated above that many authors agree that people need certain goods and services to give them basic freedom of choice in their lives and to provide for a minimum of participation in society and politics (Doyal & Gough, 1991; Maslow, 1943; Nussbaum, 2011; Rawls & Kelly, 2003). Although most SLBs in our interviews share this position, they usually do not argue abstractly with respect to normative reasons and justifications. Instead, they list the specific goods and services they deem necessary. With respect to these “lists,” it is apparent that Boulding is right when he says that “it is one thing to establish the principle of social minimum, but it is quite another thing to determine where this minimum shall be set” (Boulding, 1962, p. 83). Our interviewees definitely do not agree with one another on the exact definition of this minimum, but differ quite widely. Yet, when aggregating the varying positions we observed in our interviews, a hierarchy of need emerges that is illustrated in Table 1. This hierarchy is not something the interviewees explicitly see and express themselves. It is our interpretation of what we see as emerging from the sum of our interviews. The spectrum of need understandings ranges from very basic physical need to very broadly understood need that, if fulfilled, enables welfare recipients to socially and politically participate in the “normal” undertakings of their society, up to a basic level of leisure activities.

Table 1.

Need-Levels as Extracted From Our Interviews.

Need level	Example	Type
Full participation/self-determination	Autonomy and freedom of action, minor vacations	Altruist
Social participation	Social participation, access to sports and cultural activities, a limited degree of autonomy	Social worker
Basic infrastructure	Education, media, mobility (public transport), communication (internet, telephone)	Administrator
Basic need	Food, shelter, clothing, medical care	Hardliner

SLBs with a need concept at the bottom of the hierarchy (basic need) define need as the resources necessary to ensure the physical survival of clients. Need here includes food, clothing, and a (warm) shelter as well as access to medical care. This understanding is typical for the hardliner. At the second level of the hierarchy (basic infrastructure), SLBs add broad access to adult education, free access to information services, especially through the internet (which implies support for devices as well as monthly fees), and broad access to public transport. This understanding is typical for the administrator, as it also reflects the legal standard. Social participation, as the third level in our hierarchy incorporates resources for the social and cultural needs of clients. According to this understanding of need, clients should not feel excluded from society and be able to participate, at least in a limited way, in everyday community activities, which means for example, access to sports clubs or cultural activities like museums, zoos, or movie theaters. It is perceived as important at this level that clients deserve a certain degree of autonomous decision-making. The majority of pragmatic social workers share this understanding. At the highest level in our hierarchy of need (full participation/self-determination), SLBs take a position on need similar to the one formulated by Nussbaum (2011) and others. Clients should receive the resources they need to live a “normal, moderate life” and make their own, autonomous choices. SLBs who argue for this level of need satisfaction also include a minimum number of recreational activities in their understanding of need. The focus here is on self-determination and being able to behave as a “normal” member of society. Altruists usually share this understanding, and so do some pragmatic social workers.

How the different types of SLBs perceive need correlates with their perception of deservingness and their understanding of equity and equality as normative principles of fairness. Yet, it is not obvious how an emphasis on equity on the one hand and a basic level of equality on the other translates into consistent differences in defining basic need. At the core, there appears to be a distinction between a demanding, rule-oriented stance that restricts the state’s role in supporting the needy and a more understanding, accommodating, and inclusive position that advocates for a generous level of state provision for basic need. These different perspectives on need and deservingness among the SLBs evidently reflect an ongoing societal debate on equity, equality, and the role of the state in providing for the basic need of its citizens.

In this article, we examined how German street-level bureaucrats exercise administrative discretion in welfare provision, with a focus on their perceptions of deservingness and need. Our findings reveal the values on which street-level decisions are based and that shape the implementation of welfare policies. We identified four types of SLB based on different sets of core normative dispositions: the hardliner, the administrator, the pragmatic social worker, and the altruist. These dispositions influence decision-making, likely impacting client outcomes and policy implementation.

Our research contributes to the field of behavioral public administration in several ways. First, this study provides a deeper insight into the normative convictions of German administrative actors about different concepts of social justice. This helps us, secondly, to uncover the normative drivers of SLBs’ use of discretion as an important part of the conditions that define the success of the implementation of welfare state policies (May & Winter, 2009). Our study thus also contributes to the vast scholarship on the use of discretion in public bureaucracies (Jilke & Tummers, 2018; Lipsky, 1980; Maynard-Moody & Musheno, 2003; Zacka, 2017).

Given the considerable heterogeneity of attitudes we uncovered in this study, decision-makers and administrative managerial staff should take care that there is more (i.e., enough) room in welfare state institutions to reflect on the differences among SLBs in their normative convictions, discuss their likely consequences, and ideally develop a shared normative understanding of need and deservingness.

Limitations of the Study and Further Research

This study, as any, is subject to limitations. Given the sampling strategy we chose, we cannot claim representattiveness for our data. The sample contains a self-selection bias at two levels. At the level of the job agencies, it is plausible to expect that institutions actively engaging in quality management, regularly reflecting on their administrative practice and its preconditions, are more likely to have agreed to participate in our research than others. There were hints to this effect in the recruitment talks we had with the heads of job agencies. At the level of the participating individual SLBs, it is similarly plausible to assume that more highly motivated employees are more likely to participate than others. Yet a high motivation can cut both ways, as the hardliner and the altruist demonstrate. In terms of types to detect, that may hence not be a big problem. It is reassuring in this respect that with field time passing, ever fewer new types appeared in the material, making us confident that we were able to mostly uncover relevant attitudes and develop a meaningful and mostly exhaustive typology. However, generalizations about, for example, proportions are not possible with our data.

An important substantive limitation of our study is that we cannot directly observe the effects of norms and values on SLBs’ actual decision-making. Our material indicates that there are such effects, but future research should prioritize investigating this topic to enhance our understanding of whether and how normative convictions actually influence the decisions taken daily by SLBs in their interactions with their clientele.

Additionally, we did not directly ask respondents to define or categorize target groups. Thus, how our interviewees construct their clientele appears only implicitly in their reflections on need and deservingness, but we cannot say anything directly about this construction process.

Finally, research should also address the question of where values and norms we discussed originate. Such findings would help inform us on the stages of the educational or career process of an SLB a debate on normative principles guiding one’s professional behavior is most likely to affect an SLB’s thinking.

Supplemental Material

sj-docx-1-aas-10.1177_00953997261465621 – Supplemental material for Who is Deserving of What? A Qualitative Analysis on German Street-Level Bureaucrats’ Attitudes Toward Deservingness and Need

Supplemental material, sj-docx-1-aas-10.1177_00953997261465621 for Who is Deserving of What? A Qualitative Analysis on German Street-Level Bureaucrats’ Attitudes Toward Deservingness and Need by Brian Dietrich and Kai-Uwe Schnapp in Administration & Society