Strategy and Accountability: Structural Reform Litigation and Public Management

Abstract

Structural reform litigation involves legal action against public bureaucracies alleging that an official has violated the legal rights of an agency's client. A pattern of rights infringements raises the specter of systemic dysfunction. If the court finds for the plaintiffs, or if the defendant agency agrees to settle, the remedy reconstitutes agency operations. What are the incentives faced by public managers whose agencies are involved in structural reform litigation? How might public managers retain public accountability while strategically using the institutional arrangements present in such cases? This article examines these questions through a spatial bargaining model and discusses its analytical implications in the context of a comprehensive suit against the child welfare agency in Kansas City, Missouri.

Accountability and service quality in public service in Israel

“…Nowadays, legal precedents, statutory decisions, regulations and procedures officially set external mechanisms to guarantee accountability of managers in public service (Bertelli, 2004). Accountability is the ability to respond the supervisors or their representatives and the responsibility of each public representative (Cooper, 1990).…”

Decision Making in Child Protective Services: A Risky Business?

“…There is a good deal of evidence that has accumulated, mostly in the form of detailed case studies, that singularly disturbing instances of child maltreatment exert strong and long-lasting impacts on CPS management and operations. (6)(7)(8)(9)57) These studies introduce what some have termed in the literature as the "routinization of outrage," i.e., the process by which social outrage over child fatalities and other horrific instances of child maltreatment penetrate deeply into CPS information, service delivery, and decision-making flows. (5,58) The routinization manifests itself in at least three ways that influence CPS decision making.…”

The Underexplored World of Remedial Law in Public Administration Scholarship

“…In either case, when questions arise concerning the operational legality of a school system or a prison, litigation is often the chosen course of action for those affected negatively. When public bureaucracies are alleged to have violated the rights of entire groups of people-minority schoolchildren, mental patients, or prisoners-a class action lawsuit is a common form of legal action (Bertelli, 2004;Cooper, 1988). Should the litigants opt for trial, 5 a federal judge hears the case and renders a decision as to whether the defendant bureaucracy is liable for the alleged constitutional or statutory violations.…”