Street‐Level Policymaking: From Local Political Preferences to Welfare Policy Delivery

ABSTRACT Street‐level bureaucracy research argues that the local community shapes policy implementation. Yet, little is known about the impact of local political preferences on welfare policy application. This study extends this line of research examining how local political preferences in East Germany are linked to job centres' delivery of active labour market programmes—sanctions, workfare programmes, wage subsidies, and training programmes. Additionally, we assess whether local political preferences are related to welfare recipients' chances of labour market re‐integration. We apply a fixed‐effects approach to local elections data linked with job‐centre‐level registry data on welfare recipients. Our results suggest that left‐wing and right‐wing parties generally adhere to distinct welfare policy approaches, with higher far‐left party vote shares being associated with fewer restrictive policies and higher vote shares for the Right with more employment uptake. Overall, the results suggest an important role of local political preferences in shaping welfare policy implementation through political and organisational steering.