In his PhD research in administrative sciences, Luiz Alonso de Andrade explores how social policy clerks at Brazil’s National Social Security Institute (INSS) influence the granting of cash-based social assistance benefits. Despite their limited formal decision-making power, these clerical bureaucrats shape policy outcomes in practice – particularly within a complex regulatory environment marked by frequent reforms.
“Clerks have often been overlooked in social policy discussions,” says Andrade. “Even in modern, digitalised bureaucracies, their influence is far more important than traditionally assumed. In the Brazilian case, where advanced government digitalisation contrasts with vast social disparities, their importance becomes paramount.”
According to Andrade, social policy reforms have shifted much of the decision-making power from more traditional professionals – such as social workers and medical experts – to a clerical bureaucracy. This can be seen, for example, in the Finnish reform that centralised basic social assistance granting in the Kela Social Insurance Institution.
The dissertation offers new insights into how public service clerks modulate social policy delivery even when their leeway for decision-making – their discretion – is narrow. The research combines registry and survey data which is analysed with quantitative, qualitative and mixed methods. Andrade’s findings show that even in highly proceduralised environments, INSS officials develop tactics to imprint their own perceptions of fairness into the implementation of social security benefits.
To deepen the understanding of how these decisions are made – and how clerks’ views vary across the organisation – Andrade introduces the concept of clerical heretics: bureaucracy clerks who navigate institutional ambiguity and push the boundaries of their formal roles through anticanonical tactics. These tactics, although subtle, demonstrate that discretion is not exclusive to professionals but can also emerge through routine administrative work.
In a context where public services are increasingly digitalised and reliant on non-professional staff, the study calls for a re-examination of the ways discretion is understood and where it operates. It highlights the growing importance of clerical bureaucracies in shaping welfare outcomes, especially amidst ongoing social policy reforms.
Originally a public sector manager in Brazil, Luiz Alonso de Andrade currently works on issues of public administration and social and higher education policy at Tampere University. His research contributes to broader debates on social policy design, inequality, public governance, digitalisation, and the sociology of professions.
Public defence on Friday 25 April
MPP, MSc (Adm.) Luiz Alonso de Andrade’s doctoral dissertation in the field of administrative sciences titled Clerical Bureaucracy: An inquiry into Brazilian street-level social policy implementation will be publicly examined at the Faculty of Management and Business at Tampere University at 13.00 on Friday 25 April 2025. The venue is auditorium B1100 in the Pinni B building on the city centre campus (address: Kanslerinrinne 1, Tampere). The Opponent will be Professor Mikko Niemelä, University of Turku, while Associate Professor Elias Pekkola from Tampere University acts as the Custos.