Controlling Administrative Discretion Promotes Social Equity? Evidence from a Natural Experiment

Abstract

Practitioner Points• An inadequate conceptualization of social equity by street-level bureaucrats may compromise the fulfillment of organizational goals regarding social outcomes.• The implementation of cost-reducing policies should be constantly evaluated based on reliable measures of how these policies will affect "nervous areas" of government such as social equity.• Without appropriate checks and effective training for public officials, policies that allow administrative discretion without oversight may result in an efficient but unfair distribution of public goods.• Procedures such as randomization that reduce the effects of personal bias may result in a fair method of allocating resources, especially when policy makers lack reliable information to select beneficiaries and street-level bureaucrats lack proper training.

Social Accountability and Institutional Change: The Case of Citizen Oversight of Police

“…On the one hand, scholars have contended that the exercise of discretion not only is an unavoidable element of street-level decision-making (Lipsky 1980) but also enables bureaucrats to treat people as people, allowing them to tailor their decisions to clients' circumstances, motives, intent, and promises (Cordner and Scott 2014). However, several studies (including this one) have found that the greater the discretionary authority that street-level bureaucrats have, the greater the likelihood for bias to permeate their decisions (Cárdenas and Ramírez de la Cruz 2017;Lipsky 1980;Maynard-Moody and Musheno 2012). Does this finding suggest that discretionary authority ultimately undermines social equity and that public managers ought to design jobs to reduce discretion as much as possible?…”

Subnational Government Performance: Testing Multiple Dimensions of Governors' Experience

“…In Mexico, high school education usually consists of three years. Governors may increase high school enrollment by implementing double‐shift schooling (Cárdenas and Ramírez de la Cruz ), online teaching, and videoconference learning. In fact, in an author's personal interview with Antonio Hoy Manzanilla, deputy education minister of the State of Quintana Roo, he said the state's map shows that his governor selects locations to use videoconference learning programs.…”

Street-level bureaucrats and the governance of unaccompanied migrant children

“…Despite this relationship once being identified as the twentieth century problem (Finer, 1931), these public encounters have yet to be captured as a distinct phenomenon (Bartels, 2013). Furthermore, many have considered these interactions as problematic (Bartels, 2013; Cárdenas and Ramírez de la Cruz, 2017; Hasenfeld and Steinmetz, 1981; Hastings, 2009; Hoppe, 2011; Jung, 2010; Lipsky, 1971). This is especially the case with populations who are vulnerable to individuals of power and to being influenced by this governance (Hasenfeld and Steinmetz, 1981; Korteweg, 2003; Morgen, 2001; Watkins-Hayes, 2011).…”

“…Indeed, given their proximity to individuals on the frontlines of government, street-level bureaucrats who implement public policy are required ''to make decisions about other people'' (Hudson, 2014) which in effect amounts to making public policy (Lipsky, 1969). The flexibility of individual discretion is thought to be necessary in order to implement uniform policies and programs in unique situations and for diverse groups of people (Shumavon and Hibbeln, 1986;Tummers and Bekkers, 2014), but is also questioned for the potentially problematic ways this freedom grants street-level bureaucrats power, requires deference from the client (Dubois, 2010;Hasenfeld and Steinmetz, 1981), and yields results that undermine social equity (Ca´rdenas and Ramı´rez de la Cruz, 2017).…”