User:Michaeljml2/sandbox

Street-Level Bureaucracy

Street-level bureaucracy refers to those subsets of organizations that implement public policies through direct interaction with citizens, and whose workers, called street-level bureaucrats, exercise discretion in carrying out their responsibilities.

Contents

1 Street-level bureaucrats 2 Significance of the concept 3 Street-Level Bureaucracy and the Policy Process 4 References

Street-Level bureaucrats

The concept of street-level bureaucracy was coined by Michael Lipsky in 1969 [1], and popularized in his book of that name published in 1980 [2]. In the book Lipsky argued that some public policies are not fully understood by studying the laws and regulations that enact them. Instead, in important ways the policies are shaped by the decisions street-level bureaucrats make in exercising discretion while carrying out their duties.

Examples of street-level bureaucrats are police officers, teachers, social workers, nurses, legal services lawyers, and intake workers in many social service agencies. Originally Lipsky restricted the conception of street-level bureaucrats to people working in public agencies. In an expanded edition of the book, however, he noted that the term could be applied to front-line service workers who implement public programs in nonprofit organizations under contract to governments[3].

In addition to discretion, another core aspect of the work of street-level bureaucrats is that they typically lack the resources to perform according to ideal conceptions of the job. As a result, they develop routines, coping mechanisms and mental simplifications in order to make their jobs manageable and meet their own definitions of acceptable performance. These mechanisms and simplifications, when enacted, significantly affect policies as they are ultimately delivered.

In general discourse the term "street-level bureaucracy" is often used to refer simply to public service workers who interact with citizens, such as motor vehicle license clerks, whether or not they exercise meaningful discretion in the course of their duties. Significance of the Concept

Street-level Bureaucracy influenced the field of public administration in several ways. The work encouraged studies of organizational behavior across service areas, such as police and welfare agencies, that had previously been treated as entirely separate from one another. Also, by focusing on the independent role of street-level bureaucrats in shaping public policies, the work helped move the field of implementation research toward greater appreciation of the influence of street-level bureaucrats on the ultimate policy results.

Street-Level Bureaucracy and the Policy Process

Commentators have often used references to street-level bureaucracy as a way of framing their views of public policy affecting front line workers. For example, Tony Evans and John Harris"[4] argue that "the proliferation of rules and regulations should not automatically be equated with greater control over professional discretion; paradoxically, more rules may create more discretion." They also argue that the exercise of professional discretion by street-level bureaucrats is not inherently "bad", but can be seen as an important professional attribute.

A 2003 American study, conducted by Steven Maynard Moody of the University of Kansas and Michael Musheno of the University of Arizona, reiterated the significance of street-level bureaucrats in the political process, asserting that street-level workers "actually make policy choices rather than simply implement the decisions of elected officials."[5] They also claim, based on a study of 48 street-level state employees in two states, that "workers' beliefs about the people they interact with continually rub against policies and rules" and that the prejudices of the street-level bureaucrats influence their treatment of citizens.[5] [6]

In 2007, Emil Mackey confirmed that even the Resident Assistants in campus housing exercise their discretion to change policy at the implementation level. Furthermore, these policy implementation changes reflected the individual values of each street-level bureaucrat rather than the will of policymakers. Therefore, this research not only confirmed previous street-level bureaucrat research and literature, but also expanded it to include the Higher Education policy environment. [7][8]

References

^ 1 "Toward a Theory of Street-Level Bureaucracy," paper prepared for the Annual Meeting of the American Political Science Association (1969), later revised and published in Willis Hawley and Michael Lipsky (eds.), Theoretical Perspectives on Urban Politics, Prentice-Hall, 1977, pp. 196-213. 2 Lipsky, M., Street-Level Bureaucracy: Dilemmas of the Individual in Public Services, Russell Sage, 1980. 3 Lipsky, M., Street-Level Bureaucracy, 30th Anniversary Expanded Edition, Russell Sage, 2010. ^ 4 Evans, T and Harris, J, Street-Level Bureaucracy, Social Work and the (Exaggerated) Death of Discretion, British Journal of Social Work, vol.34, no.6, September 2004, view abstract ^ 5 Maynard-Moody, S and Musheno, M, Cops, Teachers, Counselors: Stories from the Front Lines of Public Service, University of Michigan Press, 2003, view summary ^ 6 Also see Norma M. Riccucci, How Management Matters: Street-Level Bureaucrats and Welfare Reform. Washington, DC: Georgetown University Press, 2005. ^ 7 Mackey, Emil Robert (2008). “Street-level bureaucrats and the shaping of university housing policy.” Fayetteville, Arkansas: University of Arkansas Press. ^ 8 http://library.uark.edu/search~S0?/aMackey/amackey/1%2C53%2C81%2CB/frameset&FF=amackey+emil+robert+1970&1%2C1%2C/indexsort=-