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Understanding Street‐Level Bureaucrats' Decision Making: Determining Eligibility in the Social Security Disability Program
Author(s) -
Keiser Lael R.
Publication year - 2010
Publication title -
public administration review
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 2.721
H-Index - 139
eISSN - 1540-6210
pISSN - 0033-3352
DOI - 10.1111/j.1540-6210.2010.02131.x
Subject(s) - bureaucracy , social security , face (sociological concept) , agency (philosophy) , rationality , corporate governance , perception , bounded rationality , public relations , public administration , public economics , business , sociology , psychology , economics , political science , politics , law , microeconomics , finance , social science , neuroscience
Personal interactions between clients and street‐level bureaucrats are significant in explaining why street‐level bureaucrats behave as they do. Not all bureaucracies that apply program rules to individuals, however, engage face‐to‐face with their clientele. As more intake procedures are automated, such “one‐on‐one” encounters decrease. The author generates and tests hypotheses about frontline bureaucratic decision making in the Social Security Disability program, by applying bounded rationality theory. The findings show that eligibility decisions by street‐level bureaucrats are affected by their adherence to subsets of agency goals and perceptions of others in the governance system. How quickly they make decisions also has an impact. There is no evidence that the way in which bureaucrats evaluate clients explains their decisions when they lack face‐to‐face contact.