Expanded, Thirtieth anniversary edition of Street- Level Bureaucracy: Dilemmas of the Individual in Public Services

Other External Scholars:
Michael Lipsky, DEMOS
Project Date:
Jun 2009
Award Amount:
$10,000
Project Programs:
Non-Program Activities

In 1980, political scientist Michael Lipsky wrote one of the most successful Russell Sage books ever published, Street-Level Bureaucracy: Dilemmas of the Individual in Public Service. The book describes public service workers who interact directly with citizens and who have substantial discretion in the execution of their work. Lipsky called them “street-level bureaucrats” and deployed the term to include teachers, police officers, social workers, judges, public-interest lawyers, unemployment counselors, and some health workers. He argued that these relatively low-level employees ought to be viewed as policymakers, rather than just implementers of policy.

 

Having studied how street-level bureaucrats behave, Lipsky focused his attention on reform. He explained why reforms that bring new performance measurement/control devices to street-level bureaucracies are highly subject to failure. Lipsky demonstrated how street-level bureaucrats change their behaviors in order to satisfy new performance criteria but not necessarily to the benefit of policy objectives – an argument based mainly on Peter Blau’s 1955 analysis. Instead, Lipsky explained, the structure and context of the work must be changed or reformed in order to produce expected results. He also argued for the need to re-conceptualize the people who receive the services of street-level bureaucracies and view them as citizens with rights not just clients to be processed.

 

Published almost thirty years ago, Street-Level Bureaucracy continues to receive a great deal of attention. Russell Sage Foundation has provided an award that will allow Lipsky to update the book by adding a new preface and a chapter reflecting on important policy developments in the field. The new preface will address two false conclusions that some readers have previously drawn from the book. The first is that street-level bureaucracies cannot be managed at all. The second is that public service is rarely rewarding because the problems are so substantial. Although the original Street-Level Bureaucracy tells a cautionary tale, street-level bureaucracies can be managed and improved, and street-level work can be rewarding despite its challenging and complex nature. The new chapter will review significant developments in efforts to re-conceptualize the management of street-level bureaucracies. Lipsky will examine some occupational roles (and “on-the-job” comparisons) that were excluded from his earlier work—such as police officers, teachers, social workers, and nurses. He hopes to show that as long as society depends upon the judgment of frontline workers, administrative design cannot eliminate their zone of discretion.

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