The routinization process, i.e., how service practices in urban bureaucracies become part of "standard practice," is described by examining the life histories of six types of innovation: computer-assisted instruction, police computer systems, mobile intensive care units, closed circuit TV systems, breath testing for driver safety, and Jet-Axe (an explosive fire-fighting device). The life histories are analyzed in terms of the achievement of ten organizational events, conceptualized as "passages" (transitions to another organizational state) or "cycles" (survival over periodic events). The study emphasizes how these events are critical to the life history of an innovative practice. The stages in which routinization occurs and the conditions that lead to it are discussed, and several strategies that were found effective in promoting routinization are presented. The study suggests several steps that, if confirmed by further research, will allow policy officials to assess and influence routinization.
“Drawing inspiration from actor-network theory, science studies, and semiotics, this brilliant book makes us completely rethink the workings of bureaucracy as analyzed by Max Weber and James Scott. Matthew Hull demonstrates convincingly how the materiality of signs truly matters for understanding the projects of ‘the state.’” - Katherine Verdery, author of What was Socialism, and What Comes Next? “We are used to studies of roads and rails as central material infrastructure for the making of modern states. But what of records, the reams and reams of paper that inscribe the state-in-making? This brilliant book inquires into the materiality of information in colonial and postcolonial Pakistan. This is a work of signal importance for our understanding of the everyday graphic artifacts of authority.” - Bill Maurer, author of Mutual Life, Limited: Islamic Banking, Alternative Currencies, Lateral Reason "This is an excellent and truly exceptional ethnography. Hull presents a theoretically sophisticated and empirically rich reading that will be an invaluable resource to scholars in the field of Anthropology and South Asian studies. The author’s focus on bureaucracy, “corruption," writing systems and urban studies (Islamabad) in a post-colonial context makes for a unique ethnographic engagement with contemporary Pakistan. In addition, Hull’s study is a refreshing voice that breaks the mold of current representation of Pakistan through the security studies paradigm." - Kamran Asdar Ali, Director, South Asia Institute, University of Texas
′Anybody who thinks the study of urban politics is stagnating needs to pick up a copy of Theories of Urban Politics. Insightful analysis of scholarship on traditional topics is supplemented by chapters on nontraditional topics, including the new institutionalism, network governance, and urban leadership... If you want to keep up with cutting-edge debates in urban studies, the Davies and Imbroscio volume is essential′ - Todd Swanstrom, Saint Louis University ′Connects the best traditions of urban political theory with important new contributions on emerging themes. This completely revised second edition is an invaluable book for new students and established scholars. It is accessible, theoretically rich, and maps out an exciting and challenging research agenda. It will spend more time open and on the desk, than closed and on the bookshelf!′ - Professor Chris Skelcher, University of Birmingham ′Many colleagues have told us that our edition of Theories of Urban Politics provided great insights and grounding to students and seasoned researchers alike. We are delighted that so able a successor has emerged. Those that study urban politics need to be challenged and inspired by theory and this book delivers a powerful update for urban scholars′ - David Judge, Gerry Stoker and Harold Wolman, Editors of the First Edition ′This long-awaited sequel to the pioneering First Edition updates debates and developments through an excellent collection of entirely new essays contributed by some of the leading academics in the field. A special feature of the volume is that it links concerns in urban politics in North America and Europe. An excellent read′ - Professor David Wilson, De Montfort University Expanding and updating the successful first edition, Theories of Urban Politics, Second Edition provides a comprehensive introduction to and evaluation of the theoretical approaches to urban governance. Restructured into four new parts - Power, Governance, Citizens, and Challenges - the second edition reflects developments in the field over the last decade, with newly commissioned chapters updating and adding to the theoretical material included in the first edition. With contributions from many of the key figures in urban theory today, this text will be required reading on all urban politics, urban planning and public administration courses.
Street-Level Bureaucracy is an insightful study of how public service workers, in effect, function as policy decision makers, as they wield their considerable discretion in the day-to-day implementation of public programs.
This is a study of how a bureaucracy allocates a commodity or a service in this case, public housing. In the broadest sense, it seeks to understand how bureaucrats try to resolve two often conflicting goals of regulatory justice: equity (treating like cases alike on the basis of rules) and respon siveness (making exceptions for persons whose needs require that rules be stretched). It analyzes the extent to which such factors as bureaucratic norms, the task orientation of workers, third-party pressure, and outside intervention affect staff members' use of discretion. Many of the rules under consideration were intended by federal officials to achieve such programmatic objectives as racial desegregation and housing for the neediest; in this regard, the study is also an examination of federal-local relationships. Finally, the study examines how the use of discretion changes over time as an agency's mission shifts and reforms are attempted. This book is directed at the audience of administrators of programs who offer services to the public and struggle with how to allocate them. The book is also intended for those concerned with housing policy, partic ularly the difficult problems of whom to house. Finally, it is hoped that students of public management, social welfare, government, and urban planning, who are interested in how public policy is administered through a bureaucracy, will find the book insightful. The case chosen for study is the Boston Housing Authority.
