Convenors
Vincent Dubois, University of Strasbourg
vincent.dubois@misha.fr (corresponding scholar)
Paola Bonizzoni, University of Milano
paola.bonizzoni@gmail.com
Neoliberal reforms have substantially transformed how individuals interact with bureaucracy and the state. These include the physical disappearance of public services in impoverished or rural areas, digitalization, outsourcing, individualization, and contractualization. Such changes particularly affect economically disadvantaged groups, who face mounting obstacles in exercising their rights. For example, in migration governance, processes of securitization have reinforced legal-status verification, documentation requirements and repeated administrative checks, making access to rights and services increasingly dependent on bureaucratic scrutiny. Such experiences can engender feelings of abandonment and distrust in government, sometimes fostering support for radical right-wing political movements. Bureaucratic experiences have therefore become a significant social and political issue across diverse contexts, yet they remain comparatively underexplored from the perspective of service users.
Literature on street-level bureaucracy and the daily life of public services has predominantly centred on bureaucratic work or organization, with limited attention to the public of public services. Much research in public administration and political science employs quantitative methodologies and conceptual frameworks such as “administrative burdens” and “policy feedbacks”, which often pay limited attention to consider lived experiences, tangible social environments, routine practices, and the material and symbolic consequences of bureaucratic interactions. This session therefore aligns with studies offering a qualitative and experience-centred perspective on these institutional relationships, such as Auyero’s (2012) Patients of the State.
The papers presented in this session will therefore:
- Focus on ordinary citizens rather than on civil servants.
- Examine various institutional settings rather than focus on a single institution or policy sector (e.g., the police or social welfare).
- Present the results of in-depth qualitative fieldwork, using in particular data from ethnographic interviews and direct observation.
- Pay attention to both practices and representations.
- Examine the role of intermediaries (including formal and informal, for-profit and non-profit actors such as lawyers, consultants, civil society organizations, volunteers, and community brokers) who mediate encounters with institutions.
- Examine the relationships between bureaucratic experiences and social backgrounds, statuses, and trajectories.
These inquiries span political sociology, social anthropology, socio-legal studies and migration studies. The session’s multi-institutional scope enables dialogue between specialists of usually separate fields (e.g., migration and school, or public housing and health). The Lower Classes and Public Institutions network has already demonstrated the value of this multidisciplinary and cross-sectoral approach and can support the recruitment of presenters.
Open questions
- What are the impacts of bureaucracy on living conditions and life trajectories?
- To what extent do public service retrenchment and digitalization change bureaucratic relationships?
- How do bureaucratic experiences shape social representations and visions of the social world?
- What types of intermediaries, resources and forms of capital do people draw on when navigating bureaucracy?
- How do people learn to cope with bureaucracy and adjust their practices?
- How do people envision and judge public institutions?
- Do bureaucratic experiences affect trust in government, political preferences and participation?
- How do these patterns vary according to class, gender, race, age and place of residence?
Keywords
Bureaucracy; Social class; Interactions; Power relationship; Institutional habitus; Experience; Trajectories
Sub-disciplines / cross-disciplinary areas
Public administration; Anthropology of the State; Public policy; Critical sociology; Institutions; Migration studies
References
Auyero, J. (2012). Patients of the State: The Politics of Waiting in Argentina. Duke University Press.
Bonizzoni, P., & Odasso, L. (2024). Legal-administrative intermediation in the migration field. An introduction. Etnografia e ricerca qualitativa, 17(2), 195-212. https://doi.org/10.3240/114399
Bonizzoni, P., De Blasis, F., & Lampredi, G. (2025). Migration intermediation and ethical boundary work: The case of Italy’s legal-administrative field: Paola Bonizzoni et al. Journal of International Migration and Integration, 26(3), 1619-1641.
Dubois, V., (2010). The Bureaucrat and the Poor. Encounters in French Welfare Offices, Aldershot, Ashgate, (trad. italiana Il burocrate e il povero. Mimesis, 2018).
Dubois, V. (2020). “Lower Classes and Public Institutions: A research program”, https://www.researchgate.net/publication/342277128_Lower_Classes_and_Public_Institutions_A_research_program
Convenors’ bio
Vincent Dubois is professor of sociology and political science at the University of Strasbourg, Sciences Po (France), member of SAGE (UMR 7363) and of the Institut universitaire de France. He proposes a sociological approach to public policy, which is characterized in particular by the use of qualitative and ethnographic methods (see in English or Italian: Critical Policy Studies, 3 (2), 2009; ERQ, 2, 2009; “Critical Policy Ethnography”, 2015, “Policy Ethnography as a Combat Sport”, 2017, Il burocrate e il povero (2018), Rivista di antropologia contemporanea 2023, 2 ; Cartografie sociali, 18, 2024). He is currently working on surveillance policies in contemporary social state and on the relationship between the lower classes and public institutions.
Paola Bonizzoni is professor of Sociology at the Department of Social and Political Sciences, University of Milan. Her research focuses on migration policies, with particular attention to the bureaucratic processes shaping migrants’ access to rights and statuses (see “Trapped in administrative limbo”, ERQ, 1, 2025), as well as on the role of intermediary actors in supporting migrants’ bureaucratic encounters (see “Migration Intermediation and Ethical Boundary Work”, Journal of International Migration and Integration, 26(3), 2025; “Legal-administrative intermediation in the migration field”, ERQ, 17(2), 2024). Her current research examines volunteering in support of migrants and refugees and, more broadly, the role of civil society actors in facilitating access to rights, primarily through qualitative and ethnographic methods.