How Effective are Street Level Bureaucrats in the Implementation of Migration Policy : A Case Study in Tripoli

This study aimed to examine the role of street-level bureaucrats in the implementation of immigration policies regarding Syrian refugees in Tripoli, the second largest city and the centre of North Governorate in Lebanon, with a particular focus on the work of the municipality, in the context of Michael Lipsky’s concepts of ‘street-level bureaucracy’ and ‘discretion’ as well as Paul Sabatier and Daniel Mazmanian’s ‘implementation theory’. The study was executed according to the qualitative method, in which semi-structured interviews were conducted with 31 Syrian refugees along with representatives of local government, central government and non-governmental organisations in Tripoli. The interviews were analysed in line with Miles and Huberman’s ‘flow model’. The main argument of the study was that immigration policies in Tripoli were shaped from top-down and that street-level bureaucrats exercised limited discretionary power. In order to achieve an empirical contribution to the field, the study aimed to manifest the correlational connection between the top-down approach in migration policies and the discretion of street-level bureaucrats in practice. To that end, the roles of street-level bureaucrats in the implementation phase were addressed through the concepts of basic service areas, integration, co-operation and civil society organizations.