The Organization of Discipline: From Performance Management to Perversity and Punishment

Joe Soss · Richard C. Fording · Sanford F. Schram

300 citations0/0 files storedJournal of Public Administration Research and Theory

No readable copy stored yet — this record is metadata only.

No open-access location is known for this record yet.

Literature note Cite in a project Citation map

Public Policy and Administration Research Social Policy and Reform Studies Management and Organizational Studies

Abstract

Drawing on participant observation, in-depth interviews, and statistical analysis of administrative data, this article explores the operation of performance management in the Florida Welfare Transition program and its effects on decisions to sanction welfare clients. Unlike most econometric research on welfare sanctions, we approach sanctioning as an organized practice that reflects, not just client characteristics and behaviors, but also organizational needs, routines, values, authority relations, environments, and systems of reward and punishment. Our analysis focuses on the organization of discipline and, in the process, suggests that scholars may misrepresent and misinterpret the incidence of discipline when they fail to account for the dynamic ways that organization and management shape sanctioning patterns.

Paper brief

Loading…

Cite this work

Citation unavailable for this work.

BibTeX RIS CSL-JSON

No public copy is stored for this record, so only the metadata is cited.

Citations in this library

Citation map →

Stored only when both papers are in the corpus — 300 citations exist upstream.

References

1996Discipline and Punish: The Birth of the Prison.1981Street-Level Bureaucracy: Dilemmas of the Individual in Public Services 1994Cultures in Organizations: Three Perspectives 1992The social production of indifference: exploring the symbolic roots of Western bureaucracy 2008The Dynamics of Performance Management: Constructing Information and Reform 2015Performance Management 2004Cops, teachers, counselors: stories from the front lines of public service 2006Challenging the Performance Movement: Accountability, Complexity, and Democratic Values

Cited by

2015Coping During Public Service Delivery: A Conceptualization and Systematic Review of the Literature 2011Setting the Table: How Transformational Leadership Fosters Performance Information Use 2010Performance Regimes Amidst Governance Complexity 2013COMMAND AND MOTIVATION: HOW THE PERCEPTION OF EXTERNAL INTERVENTIONS RELATES TO INTRINSIC MOTIVATION AND PUBLIC SERVICE MOTIVATION 2023Administrative Burden in Citizen–State Interactions: A Systematic Literature Review

Explore the map →

Papers that cite the same references — the relational fallback while embeddings are still backfilling.

Imported from OpenAlex (CC0) — nothing here is generated.