Street-level Bureaucrats and Policy Implementation in Kenya

Abstract

This study examines the relationship between discretion by traffic police officers and road safety public policy implementation in Kenya. It focuses on the implementation activities of traffic police officers in Nairobi's traffic command area. It is informed by the fact that every year 1.35 million deaths and 50 million injuries are recorded on the world's roads. Most of these fatalities and injuries occur in the developing world. In sub-Saharan Africa, Kenya is among the countries with a high rate of traffic injuries. To address this problem, over the years, several legislative efforts have been made to create stiff penalties for non-compliance. These efforts began in 1954 with the enactment of the Traffic Act. Since then the law has been amended 46 times to contextualize it to the changing road safety needs. Besides the foregoing, in 2012 the National Road Transport and Safety Authority was established to coordinate road safety policy reforms. Despite these, the number of accidents has continued to rise. To understand the nature of this problem, the study employed the Street Level Bureaucratic Theory for conceptualisation purposes. The theory postulates that workers in the street level bureaucracies, including social workers, teachers, police officers and other frontline officers in public service, exercise a lot of discretion in their jobs which may undermine the policy implementation process if not checked. From this, the study sought to determine if traffic police officers in Kenya exercise discretion as part of their jobs and the effect of these discretionary practices on road safety policy outcomes. It focused on three types of discretion: discretion over which road users to target for traffic law enforcement, discretion over which policy domains to focus on during the implementation process, and timing of implementation. The study was based on a cross-sectional design composed of a survey, structural observation and police records. The study respondents were recruited using random samples. The study hypothesis was tested using Spearman's ranks of correlations between indicators of implementation practice and road safety policy outcomes. All the tests conducted revealed a negative correlation figure. This implies that enforcement officials frequently conduct safety checks during hours of the day and days of the week when violations are not prevalent. Similarly, they target road users and traffic offences that are not associated with the highest number of violations for enforcement. The study concludes that street-level bureaucratic discretion undermines road safety policy implementation. The study hopes to inform policymakers about which kind of road safety policy is more implementable. It will contribute to improved implementation practices by outlining ways of directing police discretion. Finally, the study provides empirical variety to street level bureaucratic studies that focus on welfare programs in advanced liberal democracies of Western Europe and North America.