Policy Implementation, Street-level Bureaucracy, and the Importance of Discretion

Abstract

Street-level bureaucrats implementing public policies have a certain degree of autonomy – or discretion – in their work. Following Lipsky, discretion has received wide attention in the policy implementation literature. However, scholars have not developed theoretical frameworks regarding the effects of discretion, which were then tested using large samples. This study therefore develops a theoretical framework regarding two main effects of discretion: client meaningfulness and willingness to implement. The relationships are tested using a survey among 1,300 health care professionals implementing a new policy. The results underscore the importance of discretion. Implications of the findings and a future research agenda is shown.

Key words:

• Discretion
• public policy
• policy implementation
• street-level bureaucracy
• quantitative analysis

Acknowledgement

The authors would like to thank the anonymous reviewers for their insightful comments on earlier versions of this article.

Notes

1. Bootstrap 5,000 times, maximum likelihood estimation is used as robust maximum likelihood is not available for bootstrapping.