Lipsky Revisited: the Case of the Structural Programme for Risk Areas (Programa Estrutural em Áreas de Risco - PEAR) of the Municipality of Belo Horizonte (Brazil)

Abstract

The practices of street-level bureaucracy (SLB) constitute a central issue to efforts made to understand the implementation of public policies. Lipsky?s seminal work established the theoretical bases for a methodical analysis of this type of practice. Nevertheless, the appropriation of Lipsky, at least in the Latin American context, is limited to partial references and lacks a rigorous empirical examination of the theory. Our analysis of the Structural Programme for Risk Areas, based on both primary data (ethnographic participation, interviews, focus groups) and secondary data (offi cial texts), identifi ed practices and contexts not foreseen by the theory. Contrary to the theoretical postulates, it was found that the behavioural hypotheses of rationalisation of service and cognitive simplification are not good predictors of the relationships of street-level bureaucrats (SLBs) with their clients.