How vertical and horizontal visibility shape street-level bureaucrats’ enforcement styles: experimental evidence from China

This study investigates how camera visibility influences the enforcement styles of street-level bureaucrats (SLBs) in China. Drawing on the concepts of vertical visibility (via body-worn cameras, BWCs) and horizontal visibility (via citizen smartphone recordings), we examine how these two forms of technologically mediated visibility shape the legal, facilitative, and accommodative dimensions of SLBs’ enforcement style. Through a vignette-based experiment with 432 frontline urban law enforcement officers, we find that both vertical and horizontal visibility independently enhance legal and accommodative dimensions, while only horizontal visibility significantly promotes facilitation dimension. Moreover, horizontal visibility moderates the effect of vertical visibility: it dampens the legal and accommodative dimensions induced by vertical visibility, while exerting no moderating effect on facilitation dimension. This research contributes to public administration theory by deepening our understanding of how new forms of visibility reshape frontline discretion and enforcement in non-Western governance contexts.