| The institutions of the modern welfare state must mediate between contradictory ideals--(1) uniform, unbiased, politically accountable decision making, and (2) responsiveness to the special circumstances of particular individuals. Students of "street-level bureaucrats" in some agencies have found them resistent to hierarchical control, leading to unequal and fiscally unaccountable decisions. In contrast, this study, which draws on intensive participant observation of decision making in the United States Social Security Administration, describes the methods and circumstances under which agencies can achieve a high level of uniformity. It also explores how the chief vulnerability of the system--legalistic and unresponsive decision making--can be moderated.;Social Security interacts with millions of individuals each year but achieves a high level of uniformity by making the relationship between its decision makers and the individuals they serve a formally legal one. The Social Security decision makers are taught--and more importantly, they come to believe--that they are making legal decisions, which requires the careful application of a complex body of legal rules. Social Security advances this practice by generating what might be called a culture of law, administered by a professional corps of decision makers so totally imbued with the esprit of adjudication that they not only can, but also want to follow the rules. Further, they come to believe, through daily experience, that the rules, if properly applied, yield decisions that are not only legally correct, but also meet at least some minimal standard of fairness. And this attitude is supported by the character of the Social Security law, which awards benefits based on formal, legal, categorical criteria, rather than on assessment of individual need.;Social Security's legalistic culture raises the danger of legalism, however. This study describes several cases in which decisions that are legally correct respond neither to individual needs nor to social policy goals. While such cases are relatively rare, this study discusses ways to increase flexibility sufficiently to deal with nonresponsiveness while retaining the culture of rules that is so effective in producing legal equality in the vast preponderance of decisions. |
