Administering Success: The Legitimacy Imperative and the Implementation of Welfare Reform

Based on a case study of Florida's Family Transition Program (FTP), the first time-limited welfare program implemented in the United States, we argue that extra-legal “rules” and popular definitions of success can constrain bureaucratic action and shape policy outcomes. On paper, the FTP permitted considerable discretion in the administration of post-time-limit benefits and included a job guarantee for compliant participants; yet, as the program was implemented both the job guarantee and the benefit extensions were virtually eliminated through administrative procedures. In contrast to what we would expect from current theories of bureaucracy, the unwillingness of administrators to make use of their formal capacity could not be accounted for by the actions of interest groups or street-level bureaucrats, nor could it be explained solely by a lack of resources. Using a combination of insights from historical institutionalism in political sociology and neo-institutionalism in organizational analysis and bringing a new emphasis on the power of the media to define programmatic success, we argue that the legitimacy of the FTP would have been threatened if administrators made use of some of the policy options permitted by law. We conclude by offering three hypotheses on the relationship between media attention and bureaucratic action.