The difficulties of controlling the daily behavior of low level bureaucrats has been widely appreciated by both administrators and academic students of bureaucracy. This article provides a theoretically oriented explanation for this fact. Building on the concept of "boundary actor," it places the source of the low level bureaucrat's power in his/ her unique role as mediator between the bureaucracy and its "street-level" environment. The bureaucracy's dependence on its street-level bureaucrats for the efficacious transla tion of its environmental inputs (citizens) into processable units (clients) provides the bureaucrat with the leverage to interfere in the organization's "enforcement sequence." By manipulating the information available to the organization about its clients, the street-level bureaucrat can limit the agency's ability to influence his/ her own behavior. The mechanisms and the political environment of this manipulatory activity are discussed in detail.
Get full access to this article
View all access options for this article.
References
1.
Becker, H. (1974) "The teacher in the authority system of the public school," pp. 378-391 in Y. Hansenfeld and R. English (eds.) Human Service Organizations. Ann Arbor: Univ. of Michigan Press.
2.
——— (1952) "The career of the Chicago public school teacher ." Amer. J. of Sociology57 (March): 128-141.
3.
Bing, S. and S. Rosenfeld (1970) The Quality of Justice in the Lower Courts of Metropolitan Boston. Boston: Lawyers Committee for Civil Rights Under Law.
4.
Bittner, E. (1973) "Police discretion in emergency apprehension of mentally ill persons," pp. 161-181 in W. Filstead (ed.) Introduction to Deviance. Chicago: Markham Books.
5.
Blau, P. (1955) The Dynamics of Bureaucracy: a Study of Interpersonal Relationships in Two Government Agencies. Chicago: Univ. of Chicago Press.
6.
Brintnall, M. (1971) "Administrative control of teachers." (unpublished)
7.
Derthick, M. (1975) Uncontrollable Spending for Social Services. Washington, D.C.: Brookings Institution.
8.
——— (1970) The Influence of Federal Grants. Cambridge: Harvard Univ. Press.
9.
Downs, A. (1966) Inside Bureaucracy. Boston: Little, Brown.
10.
Goffman, E. (1976) Asylums. Garden City, New York : Anchor Books.
11.
——— (1973) "The moral career of the mental patient," pp. 79-109 in W. Filstead (ed.) An Introduction to Deviance. Chicago: Markham.
12.
Gouldner, A. (1964) Patterns of Industrial Bureaucracy. New York: Free Press.
13.
Greer, B. (1971) "Teaching," pp. 9-16 in B. R. Cosin (ed.) School of Society. Cambridge: MIT Press.
14.
Handler, J. and J. Hollingsworth (1971) The "Deserving Poor."Chicago: Markham.
15.
Harris, R. (1975) "Annals of law: in the criminal court." The New Yorker (April 14, April 21).
16.
Hill, D. (1974) "The art of 'muddling through': policy-making and implementation in the field of welfare." Madison: Univ. of Wisconsin Press.
17.
Holt, J. (1964) How Children Fail. New York : Dell.
18.
Hosticka, C. (1975) "Street-level bureaucrats' encounters with clients: cases from the justice system." Presented to the American Society of Public Administrators, National Conference on Public Administration , Chicago (April).
19.
Jacobs, G. (1970) "Life in the colonies: welfare workers and clients ," pp. 240-260 in G. Jacobs (ed.) The Participant Observer: Encounters with Social Reality. New York: George Braziller.
20.
Kohl, H. (1968) 36 Children. New York: New American Library.
21.
Kozol, J. (1967) Death At An Early Age. New York : Bantam.
22.
Lipsky, M. (1969) "Toward a theory of street-level bureaucracy." Madison: Univ. of Wisconsin Press.
23.
Mechanic, D. (1968) Medical Sociology. New York : Free Press.
24.
Nordlinger, E. (1972) Decentralizing the City: a Study of Boston's Little City Halls. Cambridge: MIT Press .
25.
Piven, F. (1972) "Militant civil servants in New York City," pp. 408-419 in F. Rourke (ed.) Bureaucratic Power in National Politics. Boston: Little, Brown.
26.
——— and R. Cloward (1971) Regulating the Poor. New York : Vintage.
27.
Pressman, J. and A. Wildavsky (1973) Implementation. Berkeley: Univ. of California Press.
28.
Prottas, J. (1976) "People processing and power: the street-level bureaucrat in public service bureaucracies." Ph.D. dissertation, Massachusetts Institute of Technology.
29.
——— and M. Lipsky (1974) "The administrative intake process in Veterans Administration hospitals." Submitted to the committee on Health Care Resources in the Veterans Administration, National Academy of Sciences , Washington, D.C.
30.
Pynoos, J. (1974) "Breaking the rules: the failure to select and assign public housing tenants equitably." Ph.D. dissertation, Harvard University.
31.
Reiss, A., Jr. (1972) The Public and the Police. New Haven: Yale Univ. Press.
32.
Roth, J. (1974) "Some contingencies of the moral evaluation and control of clientele: the case of the hospital emergency service," pp. 499-517 in Y. Hasenfield and R. English (eds.) Human Service Organizations. Ann Arbor: Univ. of Michigan Press.
33.
Rubinstein, J. (1973) City Police. New York: Farrar, Straus & Giroux.
34.
Skolnick, J. (1960) Justice Without Trial. New York : John Wiley.
35.
Smith, D. (1974) "Front-line organization of a state mental hospital ," in Y. Hasenfeld and R. English (eds.) Human Service Organizations . Ann Arbor. Univ. of Michigan Press .
36.
Sudnow, D. (1965) "Normal crimes: sociological features of the penal code in a public defender's office. Social Problems12 (November): 255-276.
37.
Thompson, J. (1967) Organizations in Action. New York: McGraw-Hill.
38.
U.S. Department of Commerce (1973) Public Employment in 1972. Washington, D.C.: Government Printing Office.
39.
Westley, W. (1970) Violence and the Police. Cambridge : MIT Press.
40.
Zimmerman, D. (1969) "The practical basis of work activities in a public assistance organization," pp. 236-267 in D. Hasen (ed.) Explorations in Sociology and Counseling. New York: Houghton Mifflin.
