Institutional conditions, not personal failure, convince frontline workers their efforts cannot succeed.

Evidence

Once attracted to these occupations, however, the dynamics of streetlevel bureaucracies combine to persuade workers that they are destined to be ineffective in their chosen fields, that clients may not substantially benefit from their efforts, or that conditions of successful intervention are not likely to be available. These conclusions are all the more persuasive because they appear to be substantially true, at least in the short run. — Michael Lipsky, Street-Level Bureaucracy, 1339

Categorization

• XREF: Directly parallels the reader’s thesis that routine administrative conditions, not shifting cultural narratives, do the stereotype-installing work.
• QUESTION: Does the persuasiveness depend on the short-run truth of the claim? If interventions genuinely worked, would the routinization stall?