The art of exerting professionalism and processes: Capacity building among street level bureaucrats

Street-level bureaucrats are often granted a crucial role in many of the new discourses of co-production and novel modes of mobilizing citizens in relation to collective welfare production. This is seen in recent studies of implementation research (Winter 2002) where the quality of interaction between front-line staff citizens influences the degree to which policies are implemented. Although, the scholarly literature is rich in describing new profiles and skills for public administrators such as boundary spanners (Williams), deliberative practitioners (Forester) and inside activists (Olson 2009) then little is known about the tensions and challenges that can occur when they have to navigate between competing institutional logics and citizens and stakeholders with opposing interests. While we welcome a more specific focus on generating capabilities to facilitate processes that aim to ensure inclusion and participation by needed and engaged actors (Smith, 2009; Skelcher and Torfing, 2010), we are also concerned that professional knowledge is downplayed in these participatory arenas, constructed, facilitated – and often dominated – by academic generalists. The aim of this article is therefore to discuss what kind of skills and capabilities are needed in these more inter-active encounters and what are the consequences for how universities educate these groups.