Social Sciences 2023; 12(3): 82-87 http://www.sciencepublishinggroup.com/j/ss doi: 10.11648/j.ss.20231203.12 ISSN: 2326-9863 (Print); ISSN: 2326-988X (Online) Street Level Bureaucrats Between Frustrations, Powerlessness, Bottom-up and Resilience Processes Vittorio Lannutti Department of Economics Society Politics, University of Urbino, Urbino, Italy Email address: To cite this article: Vittorio Lannutti. Street Level Bureaucrats Between Frustrations, Powerlessness, Bottom-up and Resilience Processes. Social Sciences. Vol. 12, No. 3, 2023, pp. 82-87. doi: 10.11648/j.ss.20231203.12 Received: February 10, 2023; Accepted: February 28, 2023; Published: May 18, 2023 Abstract: In this paper the main outcomes of four researches carried out from 2014 to 2021 in three Italian regions (Abruzzo, Marche and Tuscany) will be shown, focused on the migrant's integration processes. In these researches social workers, educators, schools and L2 teachers, Intercultural mediators who work in the field of migration were interviewed about their difficulties in their daily work. The reading key use to understand their difficulties was the street level bureaucrats theory of Lipsky. Thanks to their statements, it was possible to better understand the importance of the role of the context that affects their work in providing services and how the changes of migration and welfare policies are very important in the influencing of relationship with migrant people. Their strengths and weaknesses will be highlighted. In all the researches those professionals showed about their frustration because of the politicians' decisions to cut or to limit migration and welfare services in a framework characterized by a lack of inclusive paths' programming. However, these professionals can play an important role of change in migration's local policies, if they are supported by researchers and Institutions. Indeed, in one of the researches their points of view about the bad consequences funding cuts to migration policies were used to propose to a Regional Councillor of Abruzzo to finance migration policies again, previously deleted from her predecessor and she have done it. So in this case a bottom-up process was effective. Another important factor that emerged concerns the attitude of these professionals to understand the complexity of the mix of international and local migration policies and their skill to propose virtual improvements in order to provide a better service to their users. Keywords: Street-Level Bureaucracy, Migration Policies, Bottom-up Processes 1. Introduction The theoretical framework of the Street-Level Bureaucracy (SLB), introduced by Michael Lipsky [1], focuses on the role of workers in the frontline in providing public services. It is important to reflect on the potential and challenges of this approach in order to understand the delivery of public services in contexts where welfare systems are fragmented and leave ample room for maneuver and action for frontline workers. According to bibliographic research on the Scopus dataset, scholars have only recently begun to highlight the potential of the Slb theory to study the impacts of neoliberalism, the economic crisis, the impoverishment of the population, the processes of immigration and emigration, development and the COVID-19 pandemic on the working practices of frontline workers in unexplored contexts. Specifically, with the term street-level bureaucrats, Lipsky intended to describe and analyze the discretion of employees of public bodies (Slb) and their way of translating and applying laws, rules, regulations and guidelines of their public officials or of what is foreseen by the institution for which they work. The street-level bureaucracies, in fact, are all the public agencies that provide a service directly to citizens in carrying out their activities such as education, social services (therefore also services for immigrants), education, municipal services (public relations office, registry office, etc.), law enforcement, justice, and healthcare. In these agencies, by interacting directly with the citizens, Slb influences the distribution of public welfare goods and services. In other words, Slb has to find a balance in discretion, which can be of three types: "intra legem is when the formal regulatory tools attribute to the workers the responsibility for translating general objectives into specific actions; extra legem when the decision-making responsibility