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Abstract

The Oahu branch of the Public Welfare Division in the Hawaii Department of Social Services and Housing is examined to extend and refine the theory on street-level bureaucracy, specifically in terms of the policy-relevant choices exercised by street-level bureaucrats. From analysis based upon interviews and observation, the author concludes that policy obscurity and situational ambiguities contributed to the construction of numerous and distinctive regimens of pragmatic choices. The author also concludes that these choices are of a scale of significance beyond what is conventionally called discretion. Three types of street-level policymaking, the intervener, the withdrawn, and the student, are analyzed, and the source and content of the policy of each is examined. Each policymaking regimen represents a distinctive response to the setting of official policy and the operational pressures of doing public assistance work. Implications are then drawn for the theory of street-level bureaucracy, street-level policymaking, and the appropriate locus of reform.

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Street-Level Policymaking: Characteristics of Decision and Policy in Public Welfare

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