Nonincremental change in an urban environment : the case of new york city's human resources administration
By: MAIN, Thomas J
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ArticlePublisher: Thousand Oaks : SAGE, September 2005Subject(s): Recursos Humanos | Política | Política Ambiental | Meio Ambiente | Bem Estar Social | Nova IorqueAdministration & Society 37, 4, p. 483-503Abstract: Must change in urban politics be incremental, as structuralist analysts have claimed? Welfare policy in New York City under Giuliani suggests not. The city's welfare policy has undergone the following major changes: a sharp reduction in the PA caseloads; creation of the country's largest work experience program; striking organizational restructuring; and the introduction of a new information management system. The key factors that made these dramatic changes possible were New York City's highly competitive political environment in the early 1990s; the development of a popular set of public ideas related to reciprocal obligations; a policy feedback effect of welfare policy of the Dinkins years; and the emergence of Giuliani as a skillful policy entrepreneur. Another crucial factor was the unforeseen effect of the 1989 city charter revision that eliminated the only institution that had historically been a counterbalance to the mayor's power. The result suggests that a nonincrementalist theory of political change can be usefully applied at the local level of American politics
Must change in urban politics be incremental, as structuralist analysts have claimed? Welfare policy in New York City under Giuliani suggests not. The city's welfare policy has undergone the following major changes: a sharp reduction in the PA caseloads; creation of the country's largest work experience program; striking organizational restructuring; and the introduction of a new information management system. The key factors that made these dramatic changes possible were New York City's highly competitive political environment in the early 1990s; the development of a popular set of public ideas related to reciprocal obligations; a policy feedback effect of welfare policy of the Dinkins years; and the emergence of Giuliani as a skillful policy entrepreneur. Another crucial factor was the unforeseen effect of the 1989 city charter revision that eliminated the only institution that had historically been a counterbalance to the mayor's power. The result suggests that a nonincrementalist theory of political change can be usefully applied at the local level of American politics
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