Understanding Street-Level Bureaucracy - by Peter Hupe & Michael Hill & Aurélien Buffat (Paperback)

About the Book

Understanding street-level bureaucracy gathers internationally acclaimed scholars to provide a state of the art account of theory and research on modern street-level bureaucracy, filling an important gap in the literature on public policy delivery.

Book Synopsis

This wide-ranging edited volume provides a state of the art account of theory and research on modern street-level bureaucracy, gathering internationally acclaimed scholars to address the varying roles of public officials who fulfill their tasks while interacting with the public. These roles include the delivery of benefits and services, the regulation of social and economic behavior, and the expression and maintenance of public values.

Questions about the extent of discretionary autonomy and the feasibility of hierarchical control are discussed in depth, with suggestions made for the further development of research in this field. Hence the book fills an important gap in the literature on public policy delivery, making it a valuable text for students and researchers of public policy, public administration and public management.

Review Quotes

"Much of the work of government is done at the street level, where public administrators meet clients and make crucial decisions for and about those clients. This book helps us greatly in understanding that level of government and its importance"
--Guy Peters, University of Pittsburgh

"This book provides a collection of state of the art contributions in the field of professionalism. It is indispensable for anyone interested in the functioning of front line workers, case workers and 'street level bureacrats' in recent times."--René Torenvlied, University of Twente, the Netherlands

About the Author

Peter Hupe teaches Public Administration at Erasmus University Rotterdam. In 2012-2013 having been a Visiting Fellow at All Souls College, Oxford, his research focuses on the theoretical-empirical study of the policy process, particularly implementation and street-level bureaucracy. In a longstanding collaboration he and Michael Hill have published articles in Public Administration, Public Management Review and Policy and Politics. With Aurélien Buffat he developed the 'public service gap' as a heuristic tool for comparative research (2014).

Michael Hill is Emeritus Professor of Social Policy of the University of Newcastle and a Visiting Professor at the University of Brighton. Having written on many aspects of the policy process and social policy, he is author of The Public Policy Process, Implementing Public Policy (with Peter Hupe), Understanding Social Policy (with Zoë Irving) and editor of Studying Public Policy (2014). In 2009 he was given the Social Policy Association's lifetime award.

Aurélien Buffat is Junior Lecturer at the Department of Political Science, University of Lausanne, where he teaches policy analysis. Focused on policy implementation and street-level bureaucracy, he has published articles in Public Management Review and the International Review of Administrative Sciences. With Peter Hupe he has been co-chairing several panels and workshops, thus building up an international network of scholars dedicated to the study of contemporary street-level bureaucracy.