Decentralized discretion naturally drifts back toward recentralized routine to shed responsibility.

Evidence

In reality, decentralized units given full responsibility for practice would have to resist the tendency to drift toward recentralization of routine functioning. The pull would be strong to let higher authorities make critical decisions, thereby absolving lower-level workers of responsibility. — Michael Lipsky, Street-Level Bureaucracy, 1497

Categorization

• QUESTION: If recentralization is the natural equilibrium, does the reader’s speed-differential claim about stereotype routinization need to specify which direction the drift runs?
• DEEPTHINKING: Counterintuitive inverting of the usual decentralization story: workers don’t hoard discretion, they shed it, because responsibility is the real burden.