Policy Implementation and the People Processing Organization

In the United States, ‘war on poverty’ has generated many public policies, good on paper but of uneven quality and result in implementation. The emergence of nonprofit organization (NGO) in the 1990s introduced the bottom-up approach involving the ‘new street level bureaucrats’ as opposed to the extant top-down approach adopted by official bodies with salaried public functionaries. We have heard much of the latter but less of the former in terms of performance in policy implementation. This book presents the results of an empirical study of two NGOs in Massachusetts, namely Tri-CAP and CEOC, that have been involved in the implementation of policies relating to ‘war on poverty.’ The results reveal that frontline workers in these bodies provide different work solutions from what scholars have predicted, based on their studies of bodies using top-down approach, in overcoming rigid work environments. Indeed, these bodies were able to deliver services to needy populations by expanding areas of interest, minimizing administrative hurdles and reducing unnecessary bureaucratic requirements in grant application. This book provides a fresh and refreshing look at policy implementation.