The purpose of this article is to highlight meta-ethnography – the interpretive synthesis of ethnographic studies on a given theme – as a useful tool in the study of social policy and public administration. We claim this approach can maximise the impact of rich idiographic research to enable theory-refining and evidence-building efforts in the field. We illustrate these benefits through reference to a worked example focused on public encounters with social security in advanced liberal democracies. We show how we drew together 49 ethnographic studies from a variety of disciplines to identify repertoires of response that citizens exercise in their encounters with the contemporary welfare state. Through this analysis, we demonstrate how meta-ethnography can shed new light on topical contemporary debates about administrative burden. We conclude by reflecting on the prospects and limits of this technique for broader use in the field.

中文翻译：

---

元民族志在公共行政研究中的潜力：先进自由民主国家社会保障遭遇的工作示例

本文的目的是强调元民族志——对特定主题的民族志研究的解释性综合——作为社会政策和公共管理研究的有用工具。我们声称这种方法可以最大限度地发挥丰富的具体研究的影响，从而使该领域的理论完善和证据建立工作成为可能。我们通过参考一个工作示例来说明这些好处，该示例专注于在先进的自由民主国家中公众与社会保障的接触。我们展示了我们如何汇集来自不同学科的 49 项民族志研究，以确定公民在遇到当代福利国家时所采取的应对措施。通过这一分析，我们展示了元民族志如何为当代关于行政负担的热门辩论提供新的视角。