Equal-treatment norms structurally generate unequal treatment in street-level bureaucracies.

Evidence

Street-level bureaucrats are expected to treat all people in common circumstances alike. Paradoxically, many factors operate to make favoritism and unequal treatment characteristic of modem bureaucracies. These factors include the inherent subjectivity of required judgments, the difficulty of assessing street-level bureaucrats’ work, the inadequacy of feedback as an influence on behavior, and ideological considerations that justify client differentiation. — Michael Lipsky, Street-Level Bureaucracy, 1114

Categorization

• DEEPTHINKING: The structural paradox that impartiality mandates manufacture partiality is the mechanism the reader’s hypothesis needs — and it resists a one-line summary.
• XREF: connects to: Rigid equal treatment suppresses clients’ willingness to assert need. — Michael Lipsky, Street-Level Bureaucracy: Dilemmas of…, 739; Sincere belief in equal treatment coexists with and masks biased allocation. — Michael Lipsky, Street-Level Bureaucracy: Dilemmas of…, 820; Institutional routines produce starkly unequal outcomes across racial groups — David Theo Goldberg, John Solomos, A Companion to Racial and Ethnic Studies, 1832 (+1 more)

Broader Connections

• Formal equal right applied to unequal individuals necessarily produces inequality. #corroborates (0.95) — Jessica Whyte, The Morals of the Market, 416
• Institutional routines produce starkly unequal outcomes across racial groups #corroborates (0.90) — David Theo Goldberg, John Solomos, A Companion to Racial and Ethnic Studies, 1832
• Sincere belief in equal treatment coexists with and masks biased allocation. #expands (0.85) — Michael Lipsky, Street-Level Bureaucracy, 820