Bureaucratic Competence and Success in Dealing with Public Bureaucracies

Abstract

Clients of public service bureaucracies differ in their degree of bureaucratic competence–all those abilities related to bureaucratic interactions (e.g., ability to complete forms). Literature on service bureaucracies is reviewed, focussing on clients' bureaucratic competence, and on the use of normal cases (worker sterotypes)–a mechanism which may ease the bureaucrat's day. The possible value of bureaucratic competence for the client who is negatively typed is suggested. Data collected in a welfare office in New York support the hypothesis that clients' bureaucratic competence has some influence on their success. It is provocative to find in this instance that welfare, rather than aiding victims of particularism, somewhat favors those high in bureaucratic competence. These data also revealed a large degree of discretion in eligibility determinations. Widespread lower-level discretion and the importance of bureaucratic competence may be understood in terms of “interest-group liberalism” or the Piven and Cloward explanation of the elasticity of the welfare rolls.