Surrogate performance measures entrench incumbents and block reform through the reward structure
Evidence
We may hypotheSize that the willingness of street-level bureaucrats to develop, and the public to accept, these surrogate measures of performance reinforces conservative tendencies. When these reified qualities are accepted as good or significant, or even if they simply determine the reward structure of the agency, the people who display these characteristics remain entrenched. Significantly, it is highly upsetting to the status quo when these surrogate measures are challenged. This is why reform in police departments may be enhanced by insisting that a college degree be a condition of employment. Those who prospered under the old system are disadvantaged by this innovation. — Michael Lipsky, Street-Level Bureaucracy, 1638
Categorization
- XREF: Links directly to the book’s ch65 points on unmeasurable work + felt specialization shielding frontline judgments, and echoes the reader’s broader interest in how structures institutionalize bias faster than cultural change. — connects to: Agencies evaluate what is measurable rather than what clients get. — Michael Lipsky, Street-Level Bureaucracy: Dilemmas of…, 409; Even crude productivity measures beat none and seed better ones — Michael Lipsky, Street-Level Bureaucracy: Dilemmas of…, 1809; Governance by incentives and benchmarks replaces top-down law and rule — Wendy Brown, Undoing the Demos: Neoliberalism’s…, 56 (+3 more)
Broader Connections
- Cost-plus contracts structurally reward contractor overspending
#exemplifies(0.82) — David Vine, Base Nation_ How U.S. Military Bases…, 696 - Governance by incentives and benchmarks replaces top-down law and rule
#expands(0.78) — Wendy Brown, Undoing the Demos, 56 - Behavioral monitoring replaces reasons with algorithmic performance thresholds in urban governance
#exemplifies(0.75) — Shoshana Zuboff, The Age of Surveillance Capitalism, 716 - Learning and adaptive preference shifts under a policy can themselves function as entrenchment
#expands(0.72) — Daryl Levinson and Benjamin I. Sachs, Political Entrenchment and Public Law, 56