Michael Lipsky

Former Professor of Political Science and Program Officer, MIT, Ford Foundation

Michael Lipsky is well known in the field of public administration for his award-winning book on Street Level Bureaucracy (1980, 2010).  In the book he shows that people who interact with the public in their work, such as police officers, social workers, teachers and health professionals, can be seen as part of a “policy-making community” and as exercisers of political power, argues that “policy implementation in the end comes down to the people who actually implement it.

He is also the author of Protest in City Politics (1970), and Nonprofits for Hire: the Welfare State in the Age of Contracting (with Steven Rathgeb Smith, 1993). His grant-making at the Ford Foundation focused on issues of government innovation and responsiveness, particularly in the United States. He is an elected Fellow of the National Academy of Public Administration.