Samenvatting

Recent developments shed a new light on the role of Lipsky's classic analysis of the street-level bureaucrat. A growing number of social services is provided as a product of cooperation between different actors: government agencies, societal organizations, private businesses, citizens. As a result of this development, the street-level bureaucrat now increasingly operates in an interorganizational network, rather than within one single organization. This (partly) changes the dilemmas he has to deal with. The authors demonstrate this by analyzing the so-called ‘Achter de Voordeur’ projects, whereby house-calls of street-level bureaucrats are linked with full cooperation between local authorities.