Frontline agencies absorb public anger that would otherwise target the political distribution of resources.

Evidence

Through street-level bureaucracies the society organizes the control, restriction, and maintenance of relatively powerless groups. Antagonism is directed toward the agents of social services and control and away from the political forces that ultimately account for the distribution of social and material values. Thus the American system of service delivery and control is shaped by the aspirations of the population and by the requirements of the larger political and social system. In this sense the United States, no less than other political systems, lends public bureaucracy its particular character. — Michael Lipsky, Street-Level Bureaucracy, 1385

Categorization

• XREF: Directly parallels the trust work on despotic systems where political meaning corrupts information and blame is displaced downward; also connects to bureaucratic discretion research.
• SEED: Angle: ‘The shock absorber thesis’ — argue that the durability of the stereotype depends on the frontline worker being the visible target of resentments that properly belong to political elites.