Workers gained political power at clients’ humanistic-service expense

Evidence

Street-level bureaucrats have enhanced their position in the political system to the neglect of aspects of service consistent with more humanistic models of client involvement, or at the expense of taking positions on clients’ behalf. These statements no doubt require qualification for particular service areas, but at a general level they suggest linkages between the quality of client services, the structure of street-level bureaucrats’ work, and the priorities of a society oriented toward cost effectiveness and the dispensary model of providing for human needs. — Michael Lipsky, Street-Level Bureaucracy, 601

Categorization

• XREF: The ‘dispensary model’ connects to the reader’s interest in how frontline discretion institutionalizes categories faster than cultural change — cost-effective dispensing replaces humanistic engagement. — connects to: Worker political gains came at the expense of client-oriented service; Public workers since 1960 traded client advocacy for higher pay and bargaining power — Michael Lipsky, Street-Level Bureaucracy: Dilemmas of…, 600

Broader Connections

• Worker political gains came at the expense of client-oriented service #corroborates (1.00)
• Public workers since 1960 traded client advocacy for higher pay and bargaining power #corroborates (0.95) — Michael Lipsky, Street-Level Bureaucracy, 600