Ich versuch hier auch immer so dieses Amtliche irgendwie noch ’n bisschen zu überspielen Emotions- und Gefühlsarbeit in der öffentlichen Verwaltung als Ausdruck von Staatlichkeit im Wandel

In an increasingly pluralized society the public administration and its traditional inherent values like rationality, objectivity and impersonality have lost part of their legitimacy. Most citizens no longer accept an authoritarian manner or an approach in which they are subjected to bureaucratic rules and regulations. The new emphasis on customer and service orientation, which emerged in the public administration with the New Public Management reform of the last three decades, reflects the rising importance of new sources of legitimacy like proximity to citizens and procedural justice. However, empirically based research rarely addresses the issue of how this shift of sources of legitimacy affects the daily work of civil servants. This article describes, drawing on qualitative data, how emotional labor is becoming an important resource for the interaction of state and citizens. Moreover, we will show how the forms of emotional labor vary according to the interpretations of statehood and the professional identities of the civil servants.