Street-Level Bureaucracy, Public Administration, and Federalism

Street-Level Bureaucrats and Policy-Making

The term street-level bureaucrat, coined by Michael Lipsky and widely accepted by a number of other scholars, addresses the dilemmas that typically confront front-line providers of urban public services to nonvoluntary clients. According to Goodsell (1994), "Public school teachers, law enforcement officers, welfare workers, building inspectors, and similar personnel are portrayed as encountering particular stresses in the poorer parts of the city" (p. 55). These stresses facing ordinary citizens at the street level include issues such as actual physical fear for personal safety, a consistent scarcity of resources, a wide range of psychological pressures, and mutually conflicting expectations on the part of others concerning what constitutes acceptable behavior (Goodsell, 1994).

Taken together, these forces compel the street-level bureaucrat to "respond by creating client stereotypes based on racial and class biases. Specific defense mechanisms are adopted, such as treating citizens differently in accord with these preconceived stereotypes" (Goodsell, p. 188). Analogous to racial profiling, these preconceived stereotypes serve to reinforce perceptions of others by confirming their accuracy when behaviors are witnessed that satisfy the preconceptions and by ignoring behaviors that do not. In reality, everyone engages in some degree of stereotyping, but when these approaches to public administration are used by those in positions of authority, the consequences can be severe. In this regard, Goodsell notes that "an example is when the police watch young black males more closely than other citizens and hence find more opportunities to arrest them. This in turn leads to perceptions that such individuals have inherent criminal tendencies" (p. 188).

Reference: Goodsell, C. T. (1994). The case for bureaucracy: A public administration polemic. Chatham, NJ: Chatham House Publishers.

Defining Public Administration

Although no universally accepted definition of public administration is available, useful insights can be gleaned from various authorities who have addressed the subject. McKinney and Howard (1998) advise that "traditional definitions of public administration emphasize the work of upper-level elected executives and high-level appointed administrators. They reflect primarily the practices of the national government. Yet the greatest activity in public administration takes place in state and local government and in federal field operations" (p. 59). These authors emphasize that most traditional definitions of public administration are far too general and fail to account for the ethical dilemmas faced by public administrators on a daily basis, as well as their constant struggle to stretch inherently scarce resources as far as possible (McKinney & Howard, 1998).

A succinct definition provided by Shafritz (1998) suggests that "administration is inseparable from the total process of government. Public administration is nothing more (but also nothing less) than a way of looking at government" (p. 1806). An earlier definition offered by Simon, Smithburg, and Thompson (1950) describes public administration simply as "the management of men and materials in the accomplishment of the purposes of the state" (p. 495).

References: McKinney, J. B. & Howard, L. C. (1998). Public administration: Balancing power and accountability. Westport, CT: Praeger Publishers. Shafritz, J. M. (1998). International encyclopedia of public policy and administration. Boulder, CO: Westview Press. Simon, H. A., Smithburg, D. W. & Thompson, V. A. (1950). Public administration. New York: Alfred A. Knopf.