Street-Level Bureaucracy Research Paper

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Understanding the Struggles of Street-Level Bureaucracy “It used to feel like we were doing something for clients... Now it [was doing] something to them.” As important but often invisible linchpins in the machinery of the state, street-level bureaucrats supposedly provide ordinary citizens attempting to navigate the frustrating and impersonal rigidity of the system with a humanising element. However, street-level bureaucrats are often criticised for inducing similar feelings of frustration and futility and exhibiting the same impassiveness of the system they represent. They are accused of lacking empathy and effectiveness in their decision making and outcomes. My essay will define the term “street-level bureaucrats” and then examine the problems …show more content…

Whether conscious or not, they may create archetypes of ‘deserving’ clients. Therefore, marginalized groups like the poor, who already occupy precarious positions and are unable to bargain effectively for their rights to public services, become more vulnerable to the vagaries and volitions of street-level bureaucrats. Additionally, street-level bureaucrats are usually the focus of to their clients’ reactions to their decisions, since “their discretion opens up the possibility that they will respond favorably” to either anger or other ingratiating strategies (Lipsky 2010: 9). However, Lipsky argues that they are usually unable to respond in favourable ways since they are expected to play a “regulating” role. They foster social control by conveying expectations of what they can provide—“Policemen convey expectations about public behaviour and authority. Social workers convey expectations about public benefits and the status of recipients” (Lipsky 2010: 12). Hence, the problems of discretion arise when street-level bureaucrats are caught between serving the needs of their clients and that of the state. Nevertheless, the struggle between the personal desire and organisational demands is not always problematic. Lipsky suggests that street-level bureaucrats occupy a “continuum of work experiences” in which some are lucky enough to have found “a reasonable balance between job requirements and successful practice” (Lipsky 2010;

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