An inspector. âThatâs the last thing we needâ a local notable exclaims in horror in Nikolai Gogolâs play The Government Inspector (Gogol 1999). The play published in 1836 tells the story of a passing-through low-level civil servant, Khlestakov, who is mistakenly held for an incognito government inspector tasked to expose and punish the corruption of the local notables. Khlestakov is subsequently feted and bribed as the locals try to get him on their side and to cover their deeds.
Traditionally, inspectors have instilled fear. Their visits are anxiously awaited. Organizations meticulously prepare for an inspection visit by training employees what to say, by summoning all to be present, and by scrubbing the floors. Unannounced visits put the organization in disarray and normal life grinds to a halt. What will the inspector do? What will he or she say? Will the inspector find a transgression? Citizens fear inspections: will my restaurant be closed down for hygienic reasons? Will my construction site be shut down because some of the workers failed to wear a helmet? Will my restaurant expenditures be rejected from my tax report?
Inspectors traditionally represented the hard hand of the state. They represent a powerful government that has the power to enforce rules and levy fines. Arguing with an inspector is done at oneâs own risk. A lot has changed. Inspection styles have changed. Still, the interaction between an inspector and an inspectee is one characterized by unequal power and large uncertainty. There is uncertainty not only for the inspectee (what will happen), but also for the inspector (what is really going on here, and how should I act).
At a time when many frontline public services are being outsourced, and when self-regulation has become a popular approach, inspection services have remained an important element of the stateâs presence in society. Inspectors are feared, loathed, respected, or ignored, and they are under pressure from inspectees, managers, politicians, and the public. Inspections are seen as burdensome and bureaucratic, and when things go wrong, failing inspection is blamed and more inspection is called for. Sometimes invisible, inspectors make up a large part of the stateâs bureaucratic apparatus, and come in a large variety: tax inspectors, schools inspectors, food safety inspectors, health and safety inspectors, environmental inspectors, social (security) inspectors, economic inspectors, veterinary/animal welfare inspectors, police inspectors, buildings and urban planning inspectors, anti-doping inspectors, etc.
We define inspection work as the activity of examining against specifications, and to check for compliance with rules or standards. This makes it different from regulation, because inspection focuses on the administrative agency in charge of monitoring and enforcing compliance, and inspection work refers to the street-level activity itself. This checking against standards can refer to legal standards, but increasingly also refer to checking against performance standards. Conceptually, inspection and inspection work has often been conflated with regulatory work. We prefer to use inspection to refer to the street-level activity, the regulatory enforcement work, and reserve regulatory work for activities focused on setting standards.
The role of inspectors has changed. Their task is no longer to merely inspect and enforce, but also to educate, to negotiate, and to make compromises (e.g., Raaphorst 2018). These functions interact and sometimes even conflict with their inspection work. What makes their task complex is that they do not just have to implement the law, by e.g., closing down building sites or issuing fines, but they also have to be effective in their enforcement through changing inspecteesâ future behavior, or through making a choice between helping and punishing inspectees. Moreover, they sometimes have to make such decisions jointly, which makes the decision-making process less straightforward (Raaphorst and Loyens 2018). As a consequence, inspectors are not only held accountable by their superiors, but also by their peers, and sometimes inspectees.
At the frontline of government, inspectors combine their role of enforcer with that of a social worker and an educator. They are street-level bureaucrats with a crucial role in enforcing rules and laws and in steering citizens, organizations and companies into a desired direction. In the interaction between inspectors and inspectees, one sees a vivid picture of all the difficulties of governing a society and of working as a bureaucrat. Hard-handed compliance conflicts with compassion for inspecteesâ hardship or with the countriesâ economic interests. Strict rule abidance and enforcement reveals the incompleteness and inconsistencies of the law. Ever-expanding databases and information systems still do not provide a clear and unambiguous picture of inspecteesâ situation. A deep motivation for serving the public good encounters vicious self-interested behavior, outright lies, and criminal intentions.
Inspectors as Street-Level Bureaucrats
Inspectors work in an environment where information deficits and asymmetry are high. Rules are complex, contradictory and not always entirely known by inspectors. Inspectors also need to have advanced technical knowledge, for instance to inspect chemical or nuclear plants. They furthermore work in an environment where deception, lies, and fraud are common, which makes it hard to establish what âreallyâ happened. Inspectors need to make many decisions. These decisions come about as a result of an interaction with inspectees: do I punish or do I let go? Do I negotiate or do I issue a fine? Do I believe what this inspectee is telling me? Do I seek for further information, or do I end my investigation and move on to a decision? Do I use my discretion to be more lenient, or do I strictly enforce the rules?
These decisions are thus made in situations of high uncertainty and ambiguity (Raaphorst 2018). In order to be successful in their task inspectors employ different strategies to deal with uncertainty and ambiguity in the process of decision making. Inspectors engage in truth seeking, punishing, negotiation, education, case building, disciplining, story building, protecting etc. Just like police officers and social workers, inspectors can be seen as street-level bureaucrats. During their interactions with citizens, organizations or companies, they are faced with inconsistencies in rules and legislation, with complex situations that do not fit regulatory frameworks, and they have to use some degree of discretion to function as an inspector.
Inspectorsâ discretion is not random but socially constrained by their organizationâs culture, their training, their colleagues at work, or their resources. Inspection work is a particularly interesting case of street-level interactions, because encounters with inspectees are typically characterized by high stakes and high levels of uncertainty.
Inspectors take a special position in the broader group of street-level bureaucrats. Even more than many other street-level bureaucrats, they are thought of as being genuine state agents (Maynard-Moody and Musheno 2000). In popular perception, they are thought to take a hard-handed approach to enforcing rule compliance. Their function is also relatively narrowly defined as one consisting of checking against standards. This makes them different from for instance social workers or police officers whose tasks are much broader, and checking against standards and rules is just one of their many functions. Calling certain types of police officers police inspectors adds to the confusion. Inspectors, as street-level bureaucrats also often have other government bodies and employees as their clients. School inspectors inspect schools and teaching, and health and safety inspectors may inspect companies just as well as government premises.
Attention for inspectors in the literature has been largely confined to specific sectors, where for instance environmental policy scholars have devoted attention to environmental inspectors and education scholars have focused their attention on schools inspectors (Grek and Lindgren 2014). More recently, there also is a branch of literature focusing on the offices of the Inspector General in the United States, such as Apazaâs book on the role of the Inspector General of Homeland Security in the United States (Apaza 2010), or Moore and Gates (1986) and Light (1993) on Inspectors General, or comparative works (Newcomer 1998; Newcomer and Grob 2004). These often have a focus on integrity and accountability-related inspection work.
Still, inspectors have also been studied from a more general perspective and have been at the center of attention in several classic works. Kagan and Bardach, in their 1982 classic Going by the Book paint a picture of a âgood inspectorâ as someone who looks beyond the rulebook and does not treat the inspected company as a monolithic entity, and as someone who would be âtough when toughness was requiredâ (Kagan and Bardach 1982: 124), but seek cooperation otherwise, and try to persuade inspectees. They have good knowledge about the inspecteesâ âconcerns, problems and motivationsâ (Kagan and Bardach 1982), combined with good technical knowledge about the field they are inspecting. This chimes...