Discretionary Benchmarks and Street-Level Bureaucrats' Enforcement Style

• In Event: Citizens and Street Level Bureaucrats in Rule Making

Abstract

The introduction of discretionary benchmarks would have what impact on the legalistic enforcement style of street-level bureaucrats? Legalism is a typical enforcement style employed by street-level bureaucrats in the regulatory department, characterized by a strict adherence to rules and standards in their operational conduct. Discretionary benchmarks are criteria refined by administrative departments based on various behaviors, facts, and circumstances within the defined discretionary scope of legal regulations, incorporating relatively fixed judgment standards. Since 2009, the Chinese central government has advocated to establish administrative discretionary benchmarks system in the field of environmental penalty, through which policymakers attempt to enhance the certainty and predictability of penalty actions. Notwithstanding the extensive deployment of discretionary benchmarks, challenges related to regulatory capture persist within China's environmental regulatory framework. Consequently, a question awaiting examination is: Has the implementation of discretionary benchmarks effectively promoted legalistic environmental penalty style among street-level bureaucrats?
Discretionary benchmarks represent rule formalization and clarification. Existing literature suggests that they have the potential, on the one hand, to promote legalistic enforcement style among street-level bureaucrats by mitigating rule ambiguity and conflicts, furnishing a foundation for enforcement legitimacy, and augmenting oversight of discretionary powers. Environmental penalty involves highly complex tasks and challenging implementation within the context of competing public values. Discretionary benchmarks offer street-level bureaucrats clearer justifications for regulatory enforcement, providing a more distinct basis for evaluating the use of discretionary powers, with the expectation of reducing arbitrariness in enforcement decisions. On the other hand, discretionary benchmarks may contribute to increased enforcement uncertainty and broaden the discretionary powers of street-level bureaucrats, failing to enhance the legalistic enforcement style. Street-level bureaucrats in environmental regulatory departments possess strong professional expertise. While discretionary benchmarks refine rules for assessing legal violations, they concurrently amplify the authority of street-level bureaucrats in determining facts and interpreting uncertain rule concepts, thus mitigating the constraining impact of discretionary benchmarks. Street-level bureaucrats' enforcement style may ostensibly become more "legalistic", yet, in practice, it may not necessarily promote the legalistic evaluation by businesses and society. Existing literature has made limited progress in bridging the conflict between these two explanatory mechanisms, leaving room for further exploration of the paradox between rule constraints and discretionary powers.
This study will employ a mixed-methods approach to investigate the relationship between discretionary benchmarks and the regulatory enforcement style of street-level bureaucrats. Firstly, we will collect publicly available environmental penalty discretionary benchmark documents and penalty decision records from various provinces and cities in China. Natural language processing and regression models will be applied to analyze the effect of discretionary benchmark on legalistic enforcement style. Secondly, leveraging CGSS data for a more in-depth causal examination, we will match provincial and city samples and probe into whether public assessments of the legalistic level of environmental regulation are impacted by discretionary benchmarks. Thirdly, we will interview environmental enforcement officials in Beijing and Guangzhou to gain insights into street-level bureaucrats' perceptions and responses to elaborated discretionary provisions, clarifying the logic and causal mechanisms through which discretionary benchmarks influence legalistic regulatory enforcement style. Finally, utilizing survey experiment methods, we will reevaluate the impact of discretionary benchmarks on environmental penalty decisions and explore the moderating conditions.
The study aims to elucidate the effect of China's administrative discretionary benchmark system on frontline officials. Theoretically, it seeks to shed light on how the formalization and clarification of national administrative rules influence the legalistic enforcement style of street-level bureaucrats. On a practical level, the research endeavors to offer policy recommendations for designing discretionary benchmarks and refining other legal provisions. Ultimately, it aspires to contribute thoughtful considerations to enhance the legalistic level of government environmental regulation.

Author

• Ruixing Cai, Tsinghua University