Welfare reform, Mississippi Style : temporary assistance for Needy families and the search for accountability
- Malden, MA : Blackwell Publishers, jan./feb.2002
Through an examination of the implementation of the 1996 Personal Responsibility and Work Opportunity Act in the state of Mississippi, we explore the adequacy of traditional two-actor principal-agent theory. Using this as our lens, we suggest that the choises made by Mississippi in the area of welfare reform to privatize much of the work and to add several layers to the existing principal-agent relatioship substantially reduced accountability and the effectiveness of the monitoring systems. We conclude that not only is traditional principal-agent theory an insufficient tool for understanding the complex interrelationship between democratic actors in this particular case, the decisions of the state of Mississipi to complicate the princiapl-actors in this particular case, the decisions of the state of Mississippi to complicate the principal-actor relationship through privatization also undermined the reform effort itself in ways that may have general implications for other like-minded efforts in other policy areas. There are those who are undermining what we are trying to achieve
Through an examination of the implementation of the 1996 Personal Responsibility and Work Opportunity Act in the state of Mississippi, we explore the adequacy of traditional two-actor principal-agent theory. Using this as our lens, we suggest that the choises made by Mississippi in the area of welfare reform to privatize much of the work and to add several layers to the existing principal-agent relatioship substantially reduced accountability and the effectiveness of the monitoring systems. We conclude that not only is traditional principal-agent theory an insufficient tool for understanding the complex interrelationship between democratic actors in this particular case, the decisions of the state of Mississipi to complicate the princiapl-actors in this particular case, the decisions of the state of Mississippi to complicate the principal-actor relationship through privatization also undermined the reform effort itself in ways that may have general implications for other like-minded efforts in other policy areas. There are those who are undermining what we are trying to achieve
