Practice question · Multiple choice
Lipsky argues that the decisions of street-level bureaucrats are the public policy. Why is that stronger than saying they influence it?
Hints
- Ask what a citizen encounters when they claim a benefit.
- The policy as experienced is the routine, not the text.
Show the answer
A. What the public actually experiences is the routine applied at the counter, whatever the statute says
Why
Because the claim is about what policy is, not about who influences it. A citizen never meets the statute; they meet a member of staff applying a routine developed to ration scarce resources. If that routine differs from the statute, the routine is what the policy amounts to in practice.
Practise Politics and Bureaucracy
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