Stretching the Limits of Authority: Why do Local Bureaucrats Provide for Refugees

• In Event: Poster Session: Public Administration; Public Policy; & State Politics and Policy
  In Poster Session: Poster Session: Public Administration

Abstract

According to the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR), over 60 per cent of the world's 19.5 million refugees live in urban environments. Although urban areas provide less safety and less assistance with social services, many refugees prefer them to camps due to the opportunities for upward economic mobility and the freedom of movement that cities provide. The majority of this population resides in developing countries and lacks access to adequate public services. Local governments and municipalities serve as the forefront of public service delivery, including, but not limited to, education, healthcare, and affordable housing. They are best placed to respond to the needs of newcomers due to their proximity to the population and knowledge of the context.

However, the extent of public and social services provided for migrants and refugees vary greatly. Many local governments and municipalities outstep their administrative boundaries to respond to the needs of refugees by expanding responsibilities and stretching their budgets and capabilities. They build community centers, provide language classes and vocational training opportunities, as well as take initiative in provision of public services. What explains the variation in allocation of services for refugees? Why do some municipalities cater for them, whereas others do not? These are questions of great relevance. The idea that national governments decide, and local governments implement is no longer credible. Moreover, it is now acknowledged that local responses to migration determine the success of international responses to migration flows (Crisp et al 2012).

Yet, there has been a very limited scholarly attention paid to the role of local political and bureaucratic actors in sustaining refugee livelihoods. The literature on bureaucratic autonomy and discretion discusses how mezzo and street level bureaucrats are a lot more than passive agents who are responsible of implementing policies developed by political actors (Carpenter 2001, Lipsky 2010). Rather, they take initiative, create and innovate policies as they implement them. Bureaucrats often stretch the limits of their authority by using discretion. Similarly, there is an array of literature that examines how state level environmental policies in the US crosses bipartisan lines (Rabe 2007a), and the ways in which local actors, including mezzo level bureaucrats at state governments emerge as the primary drivers or cities’ decision to commit to climate protection (Rabe 2004, Rabe 2007b, Krause 2016).

In this paper I examine a factor that has been virtually ignored in the vast scholarship on forced migration: the role of local bureaucratic actors in refugees’ wellbeing. I explore: under what conditions bureaucrats are more inclined to provide for refugees? What motivates them to use discretion for out-groups? From a long-term integration perspective, understanding public servants’ motives for catering for refugees is very significant in order to develop right types of incentives to tap into those motivations.

I explore this novel question by looking at Turkey, world’s largest refugee hosting country. Based on a sample of 250 municipal public servants, I use conjoint analysis in order to examine intrinsic and extrinsic motives and political incentives that impact municipal public servants’ decisions to provide for Syrian refugees. My approach marks a radical departure from the traditional emphasis on role of humanitarianism and humanitarian aid, as well as the dominant focus on policy making at the national and international levels in the scholarship on forced migration. Furthermore, by diverging the attention from citizens and constituents to a non-voter, non-citizen population such as refugees, this research also aims to contribute to the literature that studies cause and impacts of political distributive behavior towards out-groups.

Author

• Zeynep Balcioglu, Northeastern University