This article will present the argument that frontline bureaucrats fulfilling their duties within an infrastructure bureaucracy can be understood as negotiating bureaucrats, policymakers, and cousins to street‐level bureaucrats. Empirically, the argument is based on data from an exploratory case study of a major road construction project in Sweden collected through passive participatory observation, interviews, and documents; the main source of theoretical inspiration is implementation theory and the theory of street‐level bureaucracy. Working conditions, both similar to and different from street‐level bureaucrats, are discussed, and patterns of negotiating practices are identified and analyzed. The analysis indicates that a fragmented implementation structure has effects on when and how negotiating practices are applied, and on policy outcomes, bureaucratic legitimacy, and political efficacy.

Th is paper puts forward the argument that Performance Measurement Systems (PMSs) foster rational, self-interested behaviour and vested values at all levels within organisations, which weakens moral barriers preventing fraud, fabrication of data and bribery. It argues that the longer a PMS is in operation, the greater the probability that rational self-interested behaviour in confl ict with fundamental values and goals will be consolidated, aggravated and disseminated within organisations that operate within public welfare policy. If implemented, common incentives aimed at counteracting undesirable behaviour aggravate and speed up this process rather than reversing it. In a worst-case scenario, PMSs are the fi rst step toward corruption, even though PMSs have been implemented with the good intention of improving public policy and strengthening accountability.

An axiomatic assumption in contemporary democratic theory is that accountability mechanisms generate trust and legitimacy in and for democratic systems: in relation to decision-makers (elected officials), facilitators (the public bureaucracy) and outcomes of public policy (scope and quality). However, how wise is it to take this assumption for granted? What if accountability mechanisms applied in democracies with high levels of trust promote distrust rather than trust? This article will elaborate on and analyse the inherent theoretical logic of performance scrutiny as a basis for performance accountability in political-administrative systems inspired by new public management reforms. Performance scrutiny practices derived from Sweden, a high-trust society, are used as empirical illustrations and as a basis to generate hypotheses on how and why practices to analysis performance accountability have the potential to counteract trust.

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