Bureaucracies chronically underfund worker advocacy for clients, then punish contesting clients

Evidence

First, advocacy can only be done on behalf of single units, whether they be individuals or collectivities such as a tenants’ union. Moreover, the advocate must have enough free attention to devote to the client. This does not mean that only one client can be dealt with at a time. But it does mean that advocacy may be compromised by large case loads and mass processing of clients. For the advocate, large case loads mean that every minute devoted to one client means less time for others. Clearly organizations have to choose what resources to provide, and a suboptimal amount is likely to be available for any client. Street-level bureaucracies chronically tend to allocate relatively low amounts of resources to facilitate workers taking clients’ perspectives. Clients are asked to understand this and even to incorporate this understanding into their concept of being a client. Those who fail to do so are punished by bureaucracies, which can impose severe costs on clients who contest the allocation of resources devoted to them. — Michael Lipsky, Street-Level Bureaucracy, 547

Categorization

• XREF: Connects to Milgrom on reputation systems and to the reader’s core thesis about discretion routinizing before culture catches up — resources encode the routinized choice. — connects to: Bureaucrats concentrate scarce resources on clients deemed salvageable — Michael Lipsky, Street-Level Bureaucracy: Dilemmas of…, 780; Worker alienation cumulatively severed workers from championing client rights — Michael Lipsky, Street-Level Bureaucracy: Dilemmas of…, 597; Frontline workers penalize clients who disrupt their preferred procedures. — Michael Lipsky, Street-Level Bureaucracy: Dilemmas of…, 1103
• CANDY: The inversion that clients are blamed for contesting resource cuts, not workers for accepting them, is a sharp quotable point.

Broader Connections

• Frontline workers penalize clients who disrupt their preferred procedures. #exemplifies (0.95) — Michael Lipsky, Street-Level Bureaucracy, 1103
• Worker alienation cumulatively severed workers from championing client rights #corroborates (0.90) — Michael Lipsky, Street-Level Bureaucracy, 597
• Bureaucrats concentrate scarce resources on clients deemed salvageable #expands (0.85) — Michael Lipsky, Street-Level Bureaucracy, 780