Conditional Bureaucratic Discretion and State Welfare Diffusion Under AFDC

Abstract

In this paper, I evaluate whether a state’s level of bureaucratic discretionary authority with respect to welfare policy makes that state more or less likely to participate in policy diffusion with other states that share similar levels of bureaucratic discretionary authority. Using data on levels of access to welfare services in the late-AFDC era (1976-1990), I find that states with high bureaucratic discretionary authority participate in a particular form of high bureaucratic discretion-driven policy diffusion with one another while states with no bureaucratic discretionary authority are actually resistant to influence by other states that do not give bureaucrats any discretion. Moreover, these distinct channels of bureaucrat-led diffusion and legislature-led resistance to diffusion operate concurrently with a “neighbors” driven channel of diffusion that has been well documented in the policy diffusion literature. Results demonstrate that a state’s choice of how much discretion to give bureaucrats can open or close channels of diffusion that are available to policymakers in that state.