Administrative Centralization and Bureaucratic Responsiveness: Evidence from the Food Stamp Program

• 成果类型: Article
• 署名作者: Kogan, Vladimir
• 署名单位: University System of Ohio; Ohio State University
• 刊物名称: JOURNAL OF PUBLIC ADMINISTRATION RESEARCH AND THEORY
• ISSN/ISSBN: 1053-1858
• DOI: 10.1093/jopart/mux022
• 发表日期: 2017
• 页码: 629-646
• 关键词: 2nd-order devolution; welfare-reform; public-opinion; Take-up; DISCRETION; POLICY; FEDERALISM; RACE; implementation; discipline

摘要

Delegation of administrative authority is commonly thought to involve a tradeoff between the discretion necessary for bureaucratic effectiveness and democratic responsiveness. In many contexts, however, discretion and responsiveness go hand-in-hand: Street-level bureaucrats may adapt their behavior to accommodate local norms and values, even when implementing the identical statutory language. I argue that this type of bureaucratic adaptation can explain local variation in participation rates in the national food stamp program. By exploiting between-state differences in the level at which the program is administered, I further show that administrative centralization does not appear to moderate such responsiveness, which is high across institutional settings. Using data on application denial rates for a subset of these states, I offer additional evidence that some of the county-level variation in program participation is a product of decisions made by local caseworkers. Together, these findings offer important insights on the institutional preconditions for bureaucratic responsiveness and control.