Reform mandates urging responsiveness collide with bureaucratic structures that punish it.

Evidence

It is for this reason that we conclude that stated intentions of street-level bureaucracies to become more client-oriented, to receive more citizen input, and t~ encourage clients to speak out are often questionable, no matter how sincere the administrators who articulate these fine goals. It is dysfunctional to most street-level bureaucracies to become more responsive. — Michael Lipsky, Street-Level Bureaucracy, 745

Categorization

• XREF: Echoes the same organizational-logic-over-intent argument found in the reader’s colonial-archive material, where administrative inertia outruns stated policy. — connects to: Bureaucratic inertia and lax enforcement can quietly sabotage reform from within — Robert A. Caro, The Power Broker: Robert Moses and the…, 359; Each party in the service relationship pursues reform aims that structurally block the others. — Michael Lipsky, Street-Level Bureaucracy: Dilemmas of…, 1518

Broader Connections

• Bureaucratic inertia and lax enforcement can quietly sabotage reform from within #corroborates (0.85) — Robert A. Caro, The Power Broker, 359
• Each party in the service relationship pursues reform aims that structurally block the others. #expands (0.80) — Michael Lipsky, Street-Level Bureaucracy, 1518