Policy implementation analysis must start from frontline working conditions, not top-down authority flows

Evidence

When relationships between policy deliverers and managers are conflictual and reciprocal, policy implementation analysis must question assumptions that influence flows with authority from higher to lower levels, and that there is an intrinsic shared interest in achieving agency objectives. This situation requires analysis that starts from an understanding of the working conditions and priorities of those who deliver policy and the limits on circumscribing those jobs by recombining conventional sanctions and incentives. — Michael Lipsky, Street-Level Bureaucracy, 231

Categorization

• XREF: connects to: Frontline workers’ discretionary acts, not stated policy, constitute government action — Michael Lipsky, Street-Level Bureaucracy: Dilemmas of…, 69; Power analysis must begin from techniques of domination, not sovereignty — Michel Foucault, Society Must Be Defended, 52; Governance by incentives and benchmarks replaces top-down law and rule — Wendy Brown, Undoing the Demos: Neoliberalism’s…, 56 (+2 more)

Broader Connections

• Power analysis must begin from techniques of domination, not sovereignty #corroborates (0.85) — Michel Foucault, Society Must Be Defended, 52
• Governance by incentives and benchmarks replaces top-down law and rule #expands (0.78) — Wendy Brown, Undoing the Demos, 56
• Frontline resource shortfalls are structurally unresolvable, not just underfunded #complicates (0.75) — Michael Lipsky, Street-Level Bureaucracy, 311
• Policy-innovation experience without implementation skill hampered successors in democratic competition #exemplifies (0.72)