Client compliance stems from worker power over benefits rather than command or coercion

Evidence

Street-level bureaucrats are not required to command. Clients control themselves in response to the superior power of the workers. This is not to suggest that clients are docile because swift retaliation would result from noncompliant behavior. Rather, compliance in most street-level bureaucracies may be said to result from the superior position of the workers, their control over desired benefits, and their potential capacity to deny benefits or make their pursuit more costly. — Michael Lipsky, Street-Level Bureaucracy, 442

Categorization

• XREF: Resource-dependence mechanism parallels the reputation/boycott enforcement logic from the Milgrom law-merchant material — power over a valued resource substitutes for active enforcement in both settings. — connects to: Workers elicit client compliance by invoking their subordinate position within the bureaucracy — Michael Lipsky, Street-Level Bureaucracy: Dilemmas of…, 492

Broader Connections

• Workers elicit client compliance by invoking their subordinate position within the bureaucracy #contradicts (0.85) — Michael Lipsky, Street-Level Bureaucracy, 492