Abstract
The difficulties of controlling the daily behavior of low level bureaucrats has been widely appreciated by both administrators and academic students of bureaucracy. This article provides a theoretically oriented explanation for this fact. Building on the concept of "boundary actor," it places the source of the low level bureaucrat's power in his/ her unique role as mediator between the bureaucracy and its "street-level" environment. The bureaucracy's dependence on its street-level bureaucrats for the efficacious transla tion of its environmental inputs (citizens) into processable units (clients) provides the bureaucrat with the leverage to interfere in the organization's "enforcement sequence." By manipulating the information available to the organization about its clients, the street-level bureaucrat can limit the agency's ability to influence his/ her own behavior. The mechanisms and the political environment of this manipulatory activity are discussed in detail.