European welfare reforms often involve the decentralization of social care services. This potentially creates central-local tensions for professionals implementing and delivering policies on the ground. Using the capability approach (CA) as a conceptual frame, this article compares local professionals' experiences in the decentralization of social work and care services in an urban and a rural mid-sized municipality in the Netherlands. It offers a missing insiders' perspective on central-local tensions, focusing on front-line workers' capabilities to effectively implement policy on the ground. It finds that perfect policy implementation is hardly achievable locally and that policies are translated through implementation and on-the-ground delivery. This leads to central-local tensions and the absence of reflective space for professionals to deal with normative dilemmas. We conclude that the CA is both useful for identifying these tensions as well as providing a normative framework to guide professionals in reflecting on and negotiating street-level issues.

中文翻译：

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社会政策分权中的中央-地方紧张局势：荷兰的街头官僚和社会实践

欧洲福利改革通常涉及社会关怀服务的权力下放。这可能会给在当地实施和交付政策的专业人员造成中央与地方之间的紧张关系。本文使用能力方法 (CA) 作为概念框架，比较了荷兰一个城市和农村中等城市当地专业人士在社会工作和护理服务分散化方面的经验。它提供了一个缺失的内部人士对中央与地方紧张局势的看法，重点关注一线工人在实地有效实施政策的能力。它发现在当地很难实现完美的政策实施，政策通过实施和实地交付得以转化。这导致了中央与地方之间的紧张关系，并且缺乏专业人士处理规范困境的反思空间。我们得出的结论是，CA 既有助于识别这些紧张局势，也有助于提供规范框架来指导专业人士反思和谈判街道层面的问题。