Nissim Cohen

Verified

Nissim verified their affiliation via an institutional email.

Learn more

Verified

Nissim verified their affiliation via an institutional email.

Learn more

• Doctor of Philosophy
• Full Professor at University of Haifa

Cognitive biases are an integral part of human conduct. However, we know little about how such biases affect street‐level bureaucrats' decision‐making. Without such an understanding, we might not have a complete picture about how street‐level bureaucrats make decisions. This incomplete picture can lead to the faulty implementation of public policy....

When public administrators resolve disputes between citizens and other state officials, are they truly impartial? The question is imperative for evaluating resolutions made by street-level bureaucrats whom citizens often perceive as the face of public administration. This study examines the relationship between public accreditation and the tendency...

Street-level resolutions are reached when street-level bureaucrats resolve disputes between citizens and other state officials. However, little is known about the factors that influence the tendencies in such resolutions to accept the citizens' claims. Such knowledge is important for exposing street-level bureaucrats' state or citizen favouritism w...

How and why could the self-provision of public healthcare services pose a threat to democratic values? We define the informal self-provision of healthcare, identify the factors that promote its appearance, and discuss its destructive implications for society. In addition to substantiating the existence of these strategies around the world, we also...

Are bureaucrats' interactions with politicians, as well as with other government and non‐government players in the policy arena, linked with the bureaucrats' policy entrepreneurship tendencies? To investigate this question, we sought to identify the factors influencing bureaucrats' willingness to engage in policy entrepreneurship. We also explored...

An emerging literature argues that street‐level bureaucrats can develop and advocate for policy innovations that change policy in meaningful ways, calling this phenomenon “street‐level policy entrepreneurship.” This argument is at the heart of the present special issue, which features contributions to developing the theoretical underpinnings of str...

Can street-level workers from an ethnic minority in a divided society act as policy entrepreneurs and affect policy design? How their shared values with the homogeneous local government play a role in enabling policy entrepreneurship? Active representation refers to bureaucrats promoting the interests of the clients with whom they share the same ch...

What are the differences between policy entrepreneurship and street-level policy entrepreneurship? The research on street-level policy entrepreneurship is still in its infancy, yet in the past few years, it has received greater research attention. This article systematically reviews the current research published on this topic and compares it to pr...

Trust has proven to a predictor of organizational outcomes. In some cases, such as law enforcement, achieving organizational goals requires workers to be willing to risk their lives. Is there a link between street-level bureaucrats’ (SLBs) willingness to endanger their own lives for the public and their trust in their peers, managers, and the insti...

The literature has usually regarded street-level bureaucrats (SLBs) as relatively privileged bureaucrats, neglecting an important sub-group of these civil servants: low-status SLBs. Even though they may be members of a team with other SLBs who have more status, they may suffer from intraorganizational inequality, meaning unequal access to resources...

In: Encyclopedia of Public Policy. Editors: Minna van Gerven, Christine Rothmayr Allison & Klaus Schubert. Springer.

What factors influence street‐level bureaucrats' (SLBs) use of violence? To answer this question, we focus on police officers, a typical example of SLBs, who can lawfully use violence whenever they deem it necessary. Based on ethnographic work among Brazilian police officers dealing with protests, we analyze how violence erupts in the interaction b...

Administration of street-level bureaucrats requires prior knowledge of what affects their use of discretion. However, there is a lack of understanding as to what influences their decision-making when choosing between claims made by the state or by its citizens. Without such knowledge, public administration at the street-level can sustain the percep...

The literature emphasizes the importance of establishing institutional mechanisms for enabling policy capacity. Yet, room remains for understanding how these institutions – usually run by senior professional administrative staff – function in the face of political instability. To explore this issue, we focus on the role of Deputy Directors-General...

Unlabelled: This paper investigated citizens' reactions to global crises using the COVID-19 pandemic as a natural experiment. Theories in this field are controversial and thus knowledge on such reactions, their evolution, drivers, and consequences is limited. Building on several socio-psychological foundations such as trust building theories, the...

What role do the perceptions of clients about the procedural justice that street-level bureaucrats (SLBs) use when implementing policy play in prompting citizens to engage in vigilante actions? Using qualitative methods we examine the unintended effects of SLBs’ implementation of policy on citizens' vigilantism. We contribute to the literature by s...

How citizens’ dissatisfaction with street-level bureaucrats’ exercise of discretion leads to the alternative supply of public services: the case of Israeli marriage registrars Can street-level bureaucrats’ exercise of discretion lead to clients’ dissatisfaction with policy implementation? If so, under what conditions could such disaffection lead to...

Unbiased conduct is an essential part of the social contract between the state and its citizens. Yet, when tasked with settling disputes between citizens and other state officials, are public administrators truly impartial in their resolutions? Such a question is vital for street-level bureaucrats whom the public perceives as the face of governance...

Since 2011, a number of popular protests organized by citizens against their governments occurred in different countries around the world. Many scholars from different disciplines studied the new trends of social movements and collective action focusing on the group level but they generally neglect the relevance and the role of single individuals....

When and why do citizens comply with government policies and restrictions during emergencies? We investigate possible answers to this question. We propose a mediation model where trust in government and emergency organizations as well as perceived government effectiveness mediate the relationships between participation in decision making and the wi...

How does the marketization of social service provision impact the practices of street-level bureaucrats (SLBs) towards their clients? To explore this question, we compare the markets for ambulatory long-term care for the elderly in Germany and Israel, which differ in the latitude of choice offered to clients and the intensity of state regulation. B...

We present three studies that examine the relationship between perceptions about public personnel management and social resilience during a crisis among frontline public healthcare servants who battled the COVID-19 pandemic. Based on theories of public personnel management, crisis management, trust, and resilience, we suggest a model and hypotheses...

This study on the long-term care sectors for the elderly in Germany and Israel shows that in both countries, street-level workers mostly use their discretionary space to move towards clients. Based on 52 semi-structured interviews, we found that this tendency is to a considerable extent a product of organizational influences and orientations. These...

The literature on intergovernmental relationships discusses the tension between centralization and local autonomy. However, few studies question local authorities’ response when dissatisfied with central government policies. Using Hirschman's model of exit, voice and loyalty, we explore local government's response to such dissatisfaction. Specifica...

Institutional emergency management has become an integral part of public management practice and research. This paper investigates the factors related to people’s willingness to contribute to institutional emergency preparedness. We explore the relationships between this willingness and people’s perceptions about the likelihood of government handli...

The objective of this chapter is to provide a descriptive, developmental review of public administration in Israel, while focusing on both the formal and informal aspects of public administration politics. While the crucial need to reform the Israeli public administration was the focus of other committees, the state seems to have much difficulty im...

How do public administration reforms develop in cases of political instability? Administrative reform has always been on the agenda of governments. Ample literature discusses its necessity and the factors that are associated with both its successes and failures worldwide. Nevertheless, only a few studies discuss the impact of political instability...

Can street-level bureaucrats act as policy entrepreneurs and affect the design of the policies they are supposed to implement? Linking policy entrepreneurship with street-level bureaucracy is a developing area in the literature. The core idea behind this link is that street-level bureaucrats can promote or block policy change at the individual leve...

Which types of clients increase or decrease the trust of street-level bureaucrats (SLBs)? Using interviews and focus groups with two groups of Israeli social service providers--teachers and social workers- --and comparing them, -we develop a theoretical framework for determining the types of clients who evoke and reduce the trust of SLBs. Our findi...

This article presents the findings of an exploratory study examining the relationships between street-level bureaucrats’ trust in their peers, managers, and the institution they belong to, and their willingness to endanger their own lives for the public. We build on previous administrative and behavioral theory to present a model of these relations...

Does political rhetoric play a role in street-level bureaucrats policy implementation? If so, how? We examine this question through in-depth semi-structured interviews with 31 Israeli LGBTQ (lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, and queer) teachers. Our findings demonstrate that when politicians express anti-LGBTQ rhetoric that contradicts the ideol...

Studies of representative bureaucracy have shown how minority groups are often underrepresented in public agencies. They also indicate that the match between the backgrounds of the bureaucrats and their clients has a strong effect on minority groups. Less attention has been devoted to the question of what happens when street-level bureaucrats (SLBs...

Trust betrayal is a subjective feeling of a street-level bureaucrat (SLB) that a client acted contrary to expectations, diminishing the former’s belief in the latter’s good intentions. How do SLBs experience a betrayal of trust by clients? How do such betrayals shape the future ways in which SLBs cope with clients? We investigate these questions em...

We explore the conditions under which informal collaborations between street-level bureaucrats (SLBs) emerge and the motivations for them. From our analysis of 68 interviews with law enforcement officers from 26 law enforcement agencies in a large metropolitan area in Texas, we identified four themes, representing a mix of altruistic and self-inter...

The COVID-19 pandemic clearly highlighted the importance of effective emergency management (Boin et al., 2020), as well as its connection with the legitimacy that the public accords to the government and their willingness to cooperate with it in such turbulent times (Christensen and Laegreid, 2020). More importantly, it made clear that trust betwee...

How do different types of social service providers experience and respond to violent clients? The street-level social service environment is a fertile ground for manifestations of violence by dissatisfied clients. This study examines the violence, verbal and physical, to which street-level bureaucrats are exposed, and the different coping strategie...

Linking street-level bureaucracy with policy entrepreneurship is a new, ongoing trend in the literature. We claim that in various cases one must consider street-level policy entrepreneurship in order to fully understand policy processes. Therefore, we call on public policy and administration scholars to devote more resources to this important link....

The study explores whether elected officials' involvement in the way street-level bureaucrats implement policy affects social equity. This question is addressed empirically through interviews and focus groups with 84 Israeli educators and social workers. Findings indicate that elected officials involve themselves directly and indirectly in street-l...

This article takes the perspective of the street-level bureaucrat (SLB) as policy entrepreneur, asking when SLBs are more versus less likely to engage in actions aimed at policy change. Drawing on an interdisciplinary approach that connects the public management and policy implementation literatures, this article explores the street-level policy en...

Trust is the “glue” connecting state and society and particularly relevant to how front-line workers, who are the face of public administration vis-à-vis citizens, implement policy. Therefore, it is important to examine how front-line workers’ absence of trust in regulators influences the ways they cope with their clients. Our study investigates th...

The Covid‐19 pandemic clearly highlighted the importance of effective crisis management and its relationship with citizens’ willingness to cooperate with the government in such turbulent times. We develop a theory and hypotheses about the impact of citizens’ experiences on their perceptions of the government's effectiveness during times of crisis....

Can policy entrepreneurship training affect policy entrepreneurship behavior among street-level bureaucrats? The current research aims to expand our understanding of how and when street-level bureaucrats might use entrepreneurial strategies to directly influence policy design. We suggest that managers and decision makers can increase street-level b...

This volume aims to connect the literature of street-level bureaucrats with that of policy entrepreneurship in order to analyze why and how bureaucrats operating at the street level can promote policy change in public administration at the individual level. I demonstrate how street-level bureaucrats act as policy entrepreneurs in different contexts...

Can street-level bureaucrats’ exercise of discretion lead to clients’ dissatisfaction with policy implementation? If so, under what conditions could such disaffection lead to the alternative supply of public services? Building on Albert Hirschman’s model of exit, voice, and loyalty, this article contributes to the literature by pointing to street-l...

What are the implications of governmental response to crises for street-level implementation? The COVID-19 pandemic presents a unique opportunity to compare the formal role that decision-makers require of street-level bureaucrats (SLBs) during a crisis to normal conditions. Textual analysis of 36 legislative documents and emergency regulations in I...

According to public management literature, trust has a positive influence on behavior. Why, then, do street-level bureaucrats (SLBs) appear to favor clients whom they do not trust, and give less attention to those they do trust? Do organizational conditions play a role in this dynamic? We investigate these issues as they affect Israeli social servi...

This paper explains the antecedents of trust in the judiciary. We question both the contention that procedural justice is a main explanation of trust in the judiciary and outcome-based theories that emphasize the role of distributive justice and court decisions in explaining that trust. Using arguments from the public management literature regardin...

Alternative provision of public health care: the role of citizens’ satisfaction with public services and the social responsibility of government – ERRATUM - N. Cohen, S. Mizrahi, E. Vigoda-Gadot

This paper explores the factors that influence citizens’ attitudes toward the alternative provision of healthcare services, leading them to be willing to make extra, informal payments within the public healthcare system. We question whether these attitudes depend primarily on inherent normative preferences, such as beliefs about the government’s re...

Are street-level bureaucrats more willing to sacrifice their own self-interests to meet the needs of their clients when they are off duty or on duty? If the former is the case, what does that finding tell us about their work environment? Using the social value orientation paradigm in a mixed effects experimental design, we found that Israeli police...

This article investigates the complex relationships between citizens' perceptions about the government’s social responsibility, their satisfaction with public services and their trust in government institutions. It uses data from a national survey of citizens in Israel and focuses on satisfaction with health care. We build on previous bureaucratic...

What factors influence police officers’ willingness to risk themselves for others? Police officers are street-level bureaucrats, who are not only given the mandate to use deadly force in order to keep public order, but also risk their most important resource—their lives—to protect society. We suggest three factors that prompt police officers to ris...

Whilst there is widespread agreement among decision makers that fostering innovation should be a priority, there is far less consensus on how to achieve this objective. Given the fact that the effects of new technologies are often unknown, in the early stages of technological development, there might be insufficient information for conducting a cos...

We construct a simple general equilibrium model to demonstrate how eliminating cash can lead to a misallocation of resources in a naturally segmented economy with observed (official) and non-observed (shadow) sectors. The source of inefficiency mirrors the standard arguments explaining why money is essential. We also identify several additional uni...

This paper explores the factors that influence public trust in public organizations responsible for providing services before, during and after emergencies. We develop a research framework and test it using a survey distributed among a representative sample of the Israeli population. The analysis develops the concept of an emergency network and exp...

How do different policy environments influence the choice of policy entrepreneurship (PE) strategies? Using data collected from a systematic review of the PE literature, we identify subcomponents of the three streams of the policy process and empirically test the relationship between dominance of each stream and PE strategies. We find that when the...

Under what conditions will those who fight against racism shift their strategies from traditional political participation to entrepreneurial activity? What would the institutional characteristics of the new organizations be, and what strategies would their activists employ? Whereas previous studies on anti-racism activities focused on traditional c...

What one may learn from two decades of studies on policy entrepreneurship in developing countries? Policy entrepreneurship is a rapidly evolving analytical concept. A growing number of studies exploring public policy in developing countries use policy entrepreneurship as an explanatory theoretical concept. However, a substantial part of this resear...

This article proposes a new perspective for analyzing regulatory reform by emphasizing the important role of policy entrepreneurs. We provide a framework for understanding the interaction between appointed regulators and politicians, as well as other players in the policy arena, by emphasizing the strategies that entrepreneurial regulators use to p...

en What lessons can we learn from 40 years of policy entrepreneurship scholarship on policy entrepreneurs’ strategies and defining characteristics? While scholars have offered important insights, many questions remain open. This article systematically reviews 229 articles that were published between 1984 and 2017. Our findings provide (i) an analys...

Under what conditions will street-level bureaucrats act as policy entrepreneurs? Drawing on the case of social workers working with disadvantaged populations in the context of urban renewal in Israel, we suggest a framework for addressing this question. The research contributes to the literature of public administration and policy both by analyzing...

Is it possible for street-level bureaucrats to use entrepreneurial strategies not only to improve the implementation of existing policy but also to directly influence the design of public policy? And if so, what does this mean for street-level bureaucracy research? These questions are at the heart of this chapter. We acknowledge the fact that stree...

When Lispky has published his seminal book in 1980 most public services have been delivered through public and non-profit organizations steered by a bureaucratic public administration. Since then, however, the ways governments in Western countries deal with problems such as homelessness, child abuse, health and long-term care, drug addiction or sim...

The objective of this article is to provide a descriptive, developmental review of public administration in Israel, in its broad definition. The article briefly presents the birth and historical development of public administration in Israel and points to the main factors that led to its characteristics prior to the beginning of the current reform....

Abstract Background Under structural conditions of non-governability, most players in the policy arena in Israel turn to two main channels that have proven effective in promoting the policies they seek: the submission of petitions to the High Court of Justice and making legislative amendments through the Economic Arrangements Law initiated by the M...

How do power dynamics and power asymmetries in the interaction between street-level inspectors and inspectees influence the value of equality in society? To investigate this question, we analyze the interactions between self-employed individuals and tax officials. We point out the problems that arise when the street-level bureaucrats’ incentives cl...

Civil service reform is one of the most important challenges for governments, but in many cases it has largely failed. This article details the ongoing attempts at civil service reform in Israel and identifies several elements necessary for such efforts to be successful: ownership of the reform, coalition building, leadership evident in the willing...

Studies of the Israeli public sector point to the vast influence of the Ministry of Finance (MOF) across multiple policy domains. This chapter combines bureaucratic politics research and the notion of veto players to theorize a two-tiered power game between bureaucratic and political players. It argues that the policy influence of bureaucracies is...

Can professional low-level bureaucrats who implement policy act as policy entrepreneurs and affect policy design? Does the transition from traditional, hierarchical administrations to local governance systems play a role in enabling policy entrepreneurship amongst such low-level bureaucrats? We explore these questions using the case study of waste...

Previous literature demonstrates that when street-level bureaucrats believe that the policy as designed is not desirable, they utilize various strategies to change the situation. This study suggests that when street-level bureaucrats believe that fixing a policy through the manner in which it is implemented is not enough, they will try to influence...

Why do entrepreneurs who gained initial remarkable government support for sustainability policy lose it rapidly and what may be learned from such failure? In May 2013, a national attempt for transition of transportation industry from internal combustion engine to electric vehicle by building country-wide infrastructure in Israel, went bankrupt. Onl...

Scientific background: Can the entry of a policy entrepreneur challenge the equilibrium of a policy network and promote changes that might clash with the goals of powerful civil-servants and/or interest groups and, if so, why and how? Our goal is to examine two sides of the same coin: how does an in-depth analysis of Israel’s dental care reform enr...

How does the increased use of choice-based management strategies in social services influence the behavior of street-level workers? In this article, we provide an analytical framework for understanding street-level logic in choice-based environments. We then turn to the case of home nursing care in Israel to examine how choice plays out in street-l...

What is the role of culture in street-level bureaucrats' bending the rules and accepting informal payments for health care? The literature on street-level bureaucrats stresses the importance of both individual and organizational factors in understanding how they use their discretion, but usually neglects the importance of the culture in determining...

Are individual businesspeople who operate as policy entrepreneurs willing and able to influence peace processes in conflict areas? The literature on businesspeople as policy agents shifts when talking about peace processes, focusing on group level activities and ignoring the effect of individual agents. We argue that rather than regarding businessp...

Since the 1980s, New Public Management (NPM) and post-NPM reforms have dominated attempts to improve public administration. The literature suggests several reasons for the latter approach. However, these explanations seem to be less relevant to the ongoing civil service reforms in Israel. The Israeli experience is an example where NPM reforms did n...

Scholars maintain that higher wages for public servants would make the public sector more efficient and reduce the abuse of power. This article challenges this idea and suggests that higher wages may actually increase public corruption. We argue that increasing pecuniary incentives for public service might lead public employees to advance their own...

If it looks like a duck, swims like a duck, and quacks like a duck, it probably is a duck: black market medicine and privatization in Israel - Volume 11 Issue 2 - Dani Filc, Nissim Cohen

This study examines Hirschman's model of exit, voice and loyalty with regard to informal payments in the Israeli healthcare system. Based on a national survey, we investigate the extent of "black" payments, its characteristics and its correlated factors. We find that informal payments do exist in Israel-although it seems that there has been a decli...

Bargaining and informal interactions in the national budget : a game theory analysis of the Israeli case This article suggests a game theory analysis of the interaction between Israeli politicians and bureaucrats regarding the national budget process since the 1980s. During the 1970s and 1980s new structural conditions created new formal and inform...

The health promotion literature points out a significant gap between declared health promotion policy and practice. The common assumption is that one of the main obstacles to progress is "political will" and the intersectoral action necessary to create healthy environments. The concept of political will is most frequently invoked to explain a lack...

This article suggests a game theory analysis of the interaction between Israeli politicians and bureaucrats regarding the national budget process since the 1980s. During the 1970s and 1980s new structural conditions created new formal and informal rules that weakened Israeli politicians’ bargaining position vis-à-vis the Ministry of Finance (MOF)....

This article introduces and explores two interesting phenomena: the phenomenon of alternative politics and attitudes toward the welfare state. The concept of alternative politics refers to a "do-it-yourself" approach where citizens on their own adopt extra-legal, and often illegal, strategies to improve the services provided by the government. Thro...

Black medicine represents the most problematic configuration of informal payments for health care. According to the accepted economic explanations, we would not expect to find black medicine in a system with a developed private service. Using Israel as a case study, we suggest an alternative yet a complimentary explanation for the emergence of blac...