Street Level Bureaucrats Essay

Street-level bureaucrats are policy makers who primarily make policy through discretionary powers. Their roles are anchored on discretion, autonomy, on differences between street level bureaucrats and managers, on availability of resources for resistance and last, on their conditions of work. Bureaucrats in this category such as correctional officers, teachers or police officers have a wide latitude of discretionary powers. They determine the nature, amount and quality of benefits or punishment. For instance, police officers by nature of their jobs routinely decide who gets arrested or whose behavior is overlooked. They so within the constraints of the rules and regulations because benefits, eligibility and rules are made by managers and political elites. Street-level
These individuals share and cooperate with the organization so that it can achieve its goals. Given that such bureaucrats operate with some kind of autonomy, their roles are known to have a set of expected behaviors and interests which might not conform to the interests of other team members in the organization. That could lead to a conflict between the objectives and orientations of street-level bureaucrats and of those playing higher authoritative roles in an agency. They have a conflicted relationship but it is based on mutual dependence. There are differences between street-level bureaucrats and agency managers. For instance, managers are primarily concerned with effectiveness and productivity while street-level bureaucrats are concerned with maximizing income and personal gratification. Moreover, lower level workers might consider the manager’s directives as legitimate, but they might see manager’s policy objectives as illegitimate and may not enforce them. Teachers might refuse to take part in compensatory education programs that do not align with their goals or