Autonomy and street-level bureaucrats’ coping strategies

摘要

Frontline practitioners like teachers in public-sector education systems are not policy takers but policy makers, according to Michael Lipsky's seminal treatise Street-Level Bureaucracy , first published in 1980. They make policy by using their wide autonomy to adopt coping mechanisms , such as limiting client demand and creaming (cherry-picking). Winter and Nielsen have developed this into (1) reducing demand for output, (2) rationing output and (3) automating output. These distinctions are briefly clarified in the article. Do they have relevance for school systems and other Nordic public-sector frontline activities? The question is raised but left to upcoming research to clarify.