Are Bureaucracies Out of Control? 29
their political supporters. Th e bureaucratic decision rules hypothesis . . . holds
that government services are allocated according to rules formulated in the bu-
reaucracy. (1991, 156)Most of the research on urban service delivery tends to reject the underclass
hypothesis and the elections hypothesis and to support the bureaucratic decision
rules hypothesis, and the Lipsky and Gruber fi ndings just described would be
typical of that research. Meier, Stewart, and England, however, found that school
bureaucracies tend to be more politically responsive than previous research
would indicate and that bureaucratic decision rules are less infl uential than was
previously thought; in other words, school bureaucracies tend to be politically
responsive.
Th e direction of the political control of bureaucracy was tested in a National
Science Foundation–funded study done by Steven Maynard-Moody, Michael
Musheno, and Marisa Kelly (1995). Th ey were particularly interested in the
decision norms (similar to decision rules) of street-level bureaucrats in ques-
tions of justice and fairness. Using a form of story analysis, they tested these
hypotheses:
- Street-level bureaucrats are more likely to use justice norms to resolve
dilemmas when three organizational conditions are present:
a. Th e street-level bureaucrat feels he or she has the control to re-
solve a dilemma,
b. he or she operates in a work culture that encourages the exercise
of discretion by street-level bureaucrats, and
c. the local work culture promotes a vision of clients compatible
with the way street-level bureaucrats identify with their clients.- Street-level bureaucrats operating within a local work culture that en-
courages the use of discretion will use various coping strategies to ap-
proximate just outcomes when their identifi cation with clients is strong
but confl icts with those evident in the local work culture or is incom-
patible with available resources. - Street-level bureaucrats operating within an environment that discour-
ages discretion and that places constraints on their abilities to control a
situation may use coping strategies to meet the demands of their jobs,
but not to orchestrate outcomes compatible with their norms of justice.
Th ey will cope with injustice by ignoring its presence. - Street-level bureaucrats working in diff erent organizations within the
same policy area will demonstrate diff erent patterns of resolving justice
dilemmas because of diff erences in local work and identity cultures.