The In-Between Space of Administrative Justice: Reconciling Norms at the Front-Lines of Social Assistance Agencies
The Frontiers of Public Law, edited by Jason Varuhas and Shona Wilson Stark (Hart Publishing, 2019)
28 Pages Posted: 15 Aug 2019
Date Written: August 12, 2019
Abstract
This chapter demonstrates how front-line workers balance between competing norms as they make complex discretionary decisions about clients' access to social assistance benefits. Drawing on qualitative socio-legal research into the Ontario Works program, it shows that, at the "street level," caseworkers accommodate seemingly incompatible notions of justice. This finding offers new insights into how the administrative justice models first proposed by Jerry Mashaw interrelate. Rather than one justice model necessarily dominating over others, I argue that administrative justice models are accommodated between when we examine the practices of front-line workers.
Keywords: administrative justice, street-level bureaucrats, administrative law, social assistance, welfare state
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