Street-Level Leadership: Discretion and Legitimacy in Front-Line Public Service - Softcover

Denhardt, Janet V.; Crothers, Austin Lane

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0878407057 ISBN 13: 9780878407057

Publisher: Georgetown University Press, 1998

Synopsis

Examining public service from the perspective of the worker, this book provides a new framework for understanding the roles and responsibilities of front-line public servants and assessing the appropriateness of their actions. Public employees who work at street level face some of the most intractable, pervasive, and complex problems in contemporary society. Drawing on more than 1,500 hours of observation of police officers and social service workers in four states, this book explores the types of situations they confront, the factors they consider, and the hard choices they make. Vinzant and Crothers propose the concept of leadership as a positive and realistic framework for understanding what these public servants do and how they can successfully meet the daily challenges of their very difficult and complex jobs. They show how changing the theory and language we use to describe street-level work can encourage decisions that are responsive both to the needs of the clients being served and to the broader community's need for accountability.

About this title

About the Author

Janet Coble Vinzant is a professor in the School of Public Affairs at Arizona State University. Lane Crothers is an associate professor of political science at Illinois State University.

Edition details

• Publisher: Georgetown University Press
• Publication date: 1998
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 0878407057
• ISBN 13: 9780878407057
• Binding: Paperback
• Number of pages: 240