Winner of the 1980 C. Wright Mills Award from the Society for the Study of Social Problems

Winner of the 1981 Gladys M. Kammerer Award from the American Political Science Association

Winner of the 1999 Aaron Wildavsky Enduring Contribution Award from the Policy Studies Organization

First published in 1980, Street-Level Bureaucracy received critical acclaim for its insightful study of how public service workers, in effect, function as policy decision makers, as they wield their considerable discretion in the day-to-day implementation of public programs. Three decades later, the need to bolster the availability and effectiveness of healthcare, social services, education, and law enforcement is as urgent as ever. In this thirtieth anniversary expanded edition, Michael Lipsky revisits the territory he mapped out in the first edition to reflect on significant policy developments over the last several decades. Despite the difficulties of managing these front-line workers, he shows how street-level bureaucracies can be and regularly are brought into line with public purposes.

Street-level bureaucrats—from teachers and police officers to social workers and legal-aid lawyers—interact directly with the public and so represent the frontlines of government policy. In Street-Level Bureaucracy, Lipsky argues that these relatively low-level public service employees labor under huge caseloads, ambiguous agency goals, and inadequate resources. When combined with substantial discretionary authority and the requirement to interpret policy on a case-by-case basis, the difference between government policy in theory and policy in practice can be substantial and troubling.

The core dilemma of street-level bureaucrats is that they are supposed to help people or make decisions about them on the basis of individual cases, yet the structure of their jobs makes this impossible. Instead, they are forced to adopt practices such as rationing resources, screening applicants for qualities their organizations favor, “rubberstamping” applications, and routinizing client interactions by imposing the uniformities of mass processing on situations requiring human responsiveness. Occasionally, such strategies work out in favor of the client. But the cumulative effect of street-level decisions made on the basis of routines and simplifications about clients can reroute the intended direction of policy, undermining citizens’ expectations of evenhanded treatment.

This seminal, award-winning study tells a cautionary tale of how decisions made by overburdened workers translate into ad-hoc policy adaptations that impact peoples’ lives and life opportunities. Lipsky maintains, however, that these problems are not insurmountable. Over the years, public managers have developed ways to bring street-level performance more in line with agency goals. This expanded edition of Street-Level Bureaucracy underscores that, despite its challenging nature, street-level work can be made to conform to higher expectations of public service.

MICHAEL LIPSKY is senior program director of Demos, a non-partisan public policy research and advocacy organization, and an affiliate professor at Georgetown University.

Reaffirms the importance of the larger kinship network through analysis of extensive data on the clients of one social agency. The authors show that the less kinship-oriented caseworkers often attempt to change clients' kin relationships in the direction of less involvement, raising questions about value differences in therapeutic practice. The book also points to the importance of concepts, such as those dealing with family kinship, that will enable the caseworker to appraise the client's social relationships more fully. The authors emphasize the benefits to be derived from a closer liaison between social work and social science.

HOPE JENSEN LEICHTER is associate professor at Columbia University's Teacher's College.

WILLIAM E. MITCHELL is research associate in anthropology in the Department of Psychiatry at the Vermont College of Medicine.

Winner of the 2010 Best Book Award from the Rationality and Society Section of the American Sociological Association

As individuals’ ties to community organizations and the companies they work for weaken, many analysts worry that the fabric of our society is deteriorating. But others counter that new social networks, especially those forming online, create important and possibly even stronger social bonds than those of the past. In Social Commitments in a Depersonalized World, Edward Lawler, Shane Thye, and Jeongkoo Yoon examine interpersonal and group ties and propose a new theory of social commitments, showing that multiple interactions, group activities and, particularly, emotional attachment, are essential for creating and sustaining alignments between individuals and groups.

Lawler, Thye, and Yoon acknowledge that long-term social attachments have proven fragile in a volatile economy where people increasingly form transactional associations—based not on collective interest but on what will yield the most personal advantage in a society shaped by market logic. Although person-to-group bonds may have become harder to sustain, they continue to play a vital role in maintaining healthy interactions in larger social groups from companies to communities. Drawing on classical and contemporary sociology, organizational psychology, and behavioral economics, Social Commitments in a Depersonalized World shows how affiliations—particularly those that involve a profound emotional component—can transcend merely instrumental or transactional ties and can even transform these impersonal bonds into deeply personal ones.

The authors study the structures of small groups, corporations, economic transactions, and modern nation-states to determine how hierarchies, task allocation, and social identities help or hinder a group’s vitality. They find that such conditions as equal status, interdependence, and overlapping affiliations figure significantly in creating and sustaining strong person-to-group bonds. Recurring collaboration with others to achieve common goals—along with shared responsibilities and equally valued importance within an organization—promote positive and enduring feelings that enlarge a person’s experience of a group and the significance of their place within it. Employees in organizations with strong person-to-group ties experience a more unified, collective identity. They tend to work more cost effectively, meet company expectations, and better regulate their own productivity and behavior.

The authors make clear that the principles of their theory have implications beyond business. With cultures pulling apart and crashing together like tectonic plates, much depends on our ability to work collectively across racial, cultural, and political divides. The new theory in Social Commitments in a Depersonalized World provides a way of thinking about how groups form and what it takes to sustain them in the modern world.

EDWARD J. LAWLER is Martin P. Catherwood Professor of Industrial and Labor Relations and professor of sociology at Cornell Univeristy.

SHANE R. THYE is professor of sociology at the University of South Carolina.

JEONGKOO YOON is professor of business administration at the Ewha University, South Korea.

A scholarly gulf has tended to divide historians, political scientists, and social movement theorists on how people develop and act on their preferences. Rational choice scholars assumed that people—regardless of the time and place in which they live—try to achieve certain goals, like maximizing their personal wealth or power. In contrast, comparative historical scholars have emphasized historical context in explaining people’s behavior. Recently, a common emphasis on how institutions—such as unions or governments—influence people’s preferences in particular situations has emerged, promising to narrow the divide between the two intellectual camps. In Preferences and Situations, editors Ira Katnelson and Barry Weingast seek to expand that common ground by bringing together an esteemed group of contributors to address the ways in which institutions, in their wider historical setting, induce people to behave in certain ways and steer the course of history.

The contributors examine a diverse group of topics to assess the role that institutions play in shaping people’s preferences and decision-making. For example, Margaret Levi studies two labor unions to determine how organizational preferences are established. She discusses how the individual preferences of leaders crystallize and become cemented into an institutional culture through formal rules and informal communication. To explore how preferences alter with time, David Brady, John Ferejohn, and Jeremy Pope examine why civil rights legislation that failed to garner sufficient support in previous decades came to pass Congress in 1964. Ira Katznelson reaches back to the 13th century to discuss how the institutional development of Parliament after the signing of the Magna Carta led King Edward I to reframe the view of the British crown toward Jews and expel them in 1290.

The essays in this book focus on preference formation and change, revealing a great deal of overlap between two schools of thought that were previously considered mutually exclusive. Though the scholarly debate over the merits of historical versus rational choice institutionalism will surely rage on, Preferences and Situations reveals how each field can be enriched by the other.

IRA KATZNELSON is Ruggles Professor of Political Science and History at Columbia University.

BARRY R. WEINGAST is a senior fellow at the Hoover Institution and the Ward C. Krebs Family Professor in the Department of Political Science at Stanford University.

CONTRIBUTORS: Richard Bensel,  David W. Brady,  Charles M. Cameron, Jon Elster, John A. Ferejohn, Peter A. Hall,  James Johnson, Margaret Levi, James Mahoney,  Jeremy C. Pope.

People do not choose to suffer from catastrophic illnesses, but considerable human choice is involved in the ways in which the participants in the process treat and conduct research on these diseases.

Catastrophic Diseases draws a powerful and humane portrait of the patients who suffer from these illnesses as well as of the physician-investigators who treat them, and describes the major pressures, conflicts, and decisions which confront all of them. By integrating a discussion of "facts" and "values," the authors highlight the forces which affect new developments in medicine—such as kidney and heart transplants—and the controversial issues they generate.

Katz and Capron explore these issues through the use of dual conceptual perspectives. Their study first examines and evaluates the authority which should be vested in each of the chief participants in the catastrophic disease process—the physician-investigator, the patient-subject and his relatives, the professionals, and the state. Challenging questions are raised concerning medical education, informed consent, and professional responsibility. The authors next explore how the roles and capacities of the participants vary not only according to the basic issues they face but also according to the point in decision-making at which these issues arise. The process of investigating and treating catastrophic diseases, the authors believe, can thus usefully be divided into three decision-making stages—the formulation of policy, the administration of research and therapy, and the review of the decisions and their consequences.

In conclusion, Katz and Capron demonstrate the need for a variety of individuals and groups with diverse values to be involved in decision-making in a manner which will not unnecessarily impede the scientific investigation of these diseases.

JAY KATZ is professor (adjunct) of law and psychiatry at Yale Law School.

ALEXANDER MORGAN CAPRON is associate professor of law at the University of Pennsylvania Law School.

The nature of well-being is one of the most enduring and elusive subjects of human inquiry. Well-Being draws upon the latest scientific research to transform our understanding of this ancient question. With contributions from leading authorities in psychology, social psychology, and neuroscience, this volume presents the definitive account of current scientific efforts to understand human pleasure and pain, contentment and despair.

The distinguished contributors to this volume combine a rigorous analysis of human sensations, emotions, and moods with a broad assessment of the many factors, from heredity to nationality, that bear on our well-being. Using the tools of experimental science, the contributors confront the puzzles of human likes and dislikes. Why do we grow accustomed and desensitized to changes in our lives, both good and bad? Does our happiness reflect the circumstances of our lives or is it determined by our temperament and personality? Why do humans acquire tastes for sensations that are initially painful or unpleasant? By examining the roots of our everyday likes and dislikes, the book also sheds light on some of the more extreme examples of attraction and aversion, such as addiction and depression.

Among its wide ranging inquiries, Well-Being examines systematic differences in moods and behaviors between genders, explaining why women suffer higher rates of depression and anxiety than men, but are also more inclined to express positive emotions. The book also makes international comparisons, finding that some countries' populations report higher levels of happiness than others. The contributors deploy an array of methods, from the surveys and questionnaires of social science to psychological and physiological experiments, to develop a comprehensive new approach to the study of well-being. They show how the sensory pleasures of the body can tells us something about the higher pleasures of the mind and even how the effectiveness of our immune system can depend upon the health of our social relationships.

DANIEL KAHNEMAN is Eugene Higgins Professor of Psychology and professor of public affairs at Princeton University.

ED DIENER is professor of psychology at the University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign.

NORBERT SCHWARZ is professor of psychology at the University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, and senior research scientist at the Survey Research Center and the Research Center for Group Dynamics of Michigan’s Institute for Social Research.

CONTRIBUTORS:  Michael Argyle, Jorge Armony, Howard Berenbaum, Kent Berridge, Ian A. Brodkin,  John T. Cacioppo, Nancy Cantor.  Anuradha F. Chawla, Martin W. DeVries, Aric Eich,  Shane Frederick, Barabara L. Fredrickson,  Nico H. Frijda,  PPaul Frijters,  Jose Gomez, Heidi Grant,  E. Tory Higgins,  Bartley G. Hoebel,  Tiffany A. Ito, Micheal Kubovy,  Randy J. Larsen,  Huynh-Nhu Le,  Joseph LeDoux,  George Loewenstein,  Richard E. Lucas,  Gregory P. Mark,  William N. Morris,  David G. Myers,  Susan Nolen-Hoeksema,  Christopher Peterson,  Emmanuel N. Pothos,  Pedro V. Rada,  Chitra Raghavan,  John L. Reeves,  Paul Rozin,  Cheryl L. Rustig,  Catherine A. Sanderson,  Robert M. Sapolsky, David Schkade,  James Shah,  Saul Shiffman, Peter Shizgal,  Arthur A. Stone,  Fritz Strack,  Eunkook Mark Suh,  Bernard M. S. van Praag,  Laura Vernon,  Peter Warr.   

A volume in the Social Science Frontiers series, which are occasional publications reviewing new fields for social science development.

These occasional publications seek to summarize recent work being done in particular areas of social research, to review new developments in the field, and to indicate issues needing further investigation. The publications are intended to help orient those concerned with developing current research programs and broadening the use of social science in the policy-making process.

A Volume in the the Russell Sage Foundation's Social Science Frontiers Series

MICHAEL INBAR was lecturer, Hebrew University, Jerusalem.

This splendid introduction to social research describes an area of scientific investigation that profoundly influences our daily lives and thoughts, but about which most of us know very little. We can picture a research chemist at work, white-coated and surrounded by beakers and test tubes—but what is the nature of social research? For interested general readers and particularly for students entering the various social science fields, Morton Hunt paints an immensely informative and accessible portrait.

He begins with a lucid overview of the important varieties of social research, describing their advantages and limitations. Against this background, Hunt then details five remarkable case histories, eyewitness accounts of significant recent episodes in social research. Woven skillfully through each narrative are explorations of the basic methodological, practical, moral and political issues raised by social research. The story of a noteworthy series of sociopsychological experiments on teamwork, for example, enables Hunt to weigh the merits of using a laboratory setting to study social behavior and the ethics of deceiving human subjects. In similar fashion, Hunt depicts a historic cross-sectional survey on segregated schooling; a complex attempt to measure the impact of welfare programs; a real-world experiment with guaranteed annual incomes; and a path-breaking study of human aging that followed its subjects for a generation.

This engaging and intelligent book will give readers a new understanding of the breadth and richness of social research as well as an informed appreciation of its significance for their lives.

MORTON HUNT is the author of many books and articles about the social and behavioral sciences, most recently The Universe Within: A New Science Explores the Human Mind (1982).

Policymakers, medical practitioners, and the public alike face an increasingly bewildering flood of new and often contradictory scientific studies on almost every topic. Whether the issue is the the best treatment for breast cancer, the need for prenatal food programs to improve the health of poor infants and mothers, or the ability of women to succeed in scientific professions, the healthy growth of modern science has at times done more to stir up controversy than to establish reliable knowledge. But now scientists in several fields have developed a sophisticated new methodology called meta-analysis to address this problem. By numerically combining diverse research findings on a single question, meta-analysis can be used to identify their central tendency and reach conclusions far more reliable than those of any single investigation.

How Science Takes Stock vividly tells the story of meta-analysis through the eyes of its architects and champions, and chronicles its history, techniques, achievements, and controversies. Noted science author Morton Hunt visits key practitioners and recounts their use of meta-analysis to resolve important scientific puzzles and longstanding debates. Does psychotherapy work, and if so what form works best? Does spending federal money on education really improve student performance? Can a single enzyme significantly decrease the risk of heart attack? Do boot camps reduce juvenile delinquency? With each account, Hunt illustrates the major components of the meta-analytic method, reveals strategies for resolving practical and theoretical problems, and discusses the impact of meta-analysis on the science and policy communities. In many cases, he demonstrates how meta-analysts have gone a step further to determine the causes of earlier discrepancies. In this way they not only identify successful approaches to the question at hand, but also clarify the conditions under which they will work best. Hunt also portrays the important but frequently controversial business of doing meta-analysis for legislators and government agencies, particularly in sensitive areas of social policy.

How Science Takes Stock demonstrates how the statistical techniques of meta-analysis produce more accurate data than the standard literature review or the old-fashioned process of tallying up the results of each scientific study as if they were votes in an election to decide the truth. Hunt also addresses issues of quality control in each phase of the meta-analytic process, and answers skeptics who claim that the dissimilarities between studies are often too significant for meta-analysis to be any more than an apples and oranges approach. This volume conveys the power of meta-analysis to help social policymakers and health professionals resolve their most pressing problems. How Science Takes Stock concludes with a discussion of the future of meta-analysis that examines its potential for further refinements, its growth in the scientific literature, and exciting new possibilities for its future use. An appendix by meta-analysis expert Harris Cooper offers some finer points on the mechanics of conducting a meta-analytic investigation.

MORTON HUNT writes about the social and behavioral sciences. He attended Temple University and the University of Pennsylvania, worked briefly on the staffs of two magazines, and since 1949 has been a freelance writer. He has written eighteen books and some 450 articles. He has won a number of prestigious science-writing awards.