The Power of Compassion-Seeking: How Enforcement Officers’ Discursive Strategies Foster Citizens’Cooperative Responses Under Policy Ambiguity

Street-level bureaucrats (SLBs) often employ compassion-seeking strategies when interacting with citizens under ambiguous policy conditions. However, citizens’ responses to these strategies remain largely unexplored. This study thus examines whether SLBs’ compassion-seeking strategies promote inspectees’ cooperative responses under policy ambiguity. We conducted survey experiments using four real-world enforcement scenarios across emergency and routine regulatory contexts in China. The results show that SLBs’ compassion-seeking strategies significantly increase inspectees’ willingness to comply, acceptance of enforcement, emotional compassion towards SLBs, and supportive intentions. Furthermore, the effectiveness of compassion-seeking is stronger in emergency contexts than in routine regulatory contexts. The findings indicate that compassion-seeking is a context-sensitive and underappreciated mechanism through which SLBs can reduce antagonism, establish constructive relationships, and enhance both the efficacy and perceived legitimacy of frontline enforcement.