Uniformity in the plan and centralization through the federal government still allows for variation in implementation
Vladimir Kogan 17, Director of Undergraduate Studies, Professor, studies state and local government in the United States. His research focuses on the intersection of politics and public policy in areas including education and social policy. Kogan serves on the editorial board of Urban Affairs Review and is affiliated with OSU’s Institute for Democratic Engagement and Accountability, the Education Governance and Accountability Project, and the Translational Data Analytics Institute. "Administrative Centralization and Bureaucratic Responsiveness: Evidence from the Food Stamp Program" Journal of Public Administration Research and Theory: J-PART, Vol. 27, No. 4 (October 2017), pp. 629-646 //pipk
Delegation of administrative authority is commonly thought to involve a tradeoff between the discretion necessary for bureaucratic effectiveness and democratic responsiveness. In many con- texts, however, discretion and responsiveness go hand-in-hand: Street-level bureaucrats may adapt their behavior to accommodate local norms and values, even when implementing the identical statutory language. I argue that this type of bureaucratic adaptation can explain local variation in participation rates in the national food stamp program. By exploiting between-state differences in the level at which the program is administered, I further show that administrative centralization does not appear to moderate such responsiveness, which is high across institutional settings. Using data on application denial rates for a subset of these states, I offer additional evidence that some of the county-level variation in program participation is a product of decisions made by local caseworkers. Together, these findings offer important insights on the institutional preconditions for bureaucratic responsiveness and control.