Paperwork, digitalization and discretion in belgian street-level bureaucracies

State bureaucracies have become increasingly digitalized: information is stored and shared on databases, and administrations are communicating ever more in electronic ways with different actors. In this paper, we use ethnographic research in order to examine the effects of digitalization on administrative interactions with citizens and on communication within state bureaucracies. Building on the idea that states, institutions and the work of civil servants can be understood through paperwork, we look at the way information is gathered, shared and acted upon in a digital era. We explore how files travel within and across bureaucracies, what kind of evidence is transmitted, left out or lost. Through the case of irregular migrants’ access to welfare, and through the issue of language diversity within administrations, we show how digitalization brings a new dimension to administrative interactions, influences the way policies are implemented, and affects the de facto discretion of street-level bureaucrats.