ABSTRACT
Some of the ways in which we can approach an inquiry about implementation involve a theory about democracy. Theodore Lowi, a primary proponent of the compliance view, argues that legislation in the decade of the 1960s derogated democracy because interest-group politics was applied to implementation. Liberal leaders did not wield the authority of democratic government with the resoluteness of men certain of the legitimacy of their positions. There is a striking relationship between each imperative and one of the interpretations of democratic theory. The legal imperative corresponds to the view of implementation, which stresses the importance of subordinate compliance to rules that derive from, and are presumed to be consistent with, legislative mandates. Bureaucratic rationality embraces a number of different perspectives, the first of which includes "consistency of principles". A second aspect of bureaucratic rationality is "workability". Because the legal and the bureaucratic imperatives conflicted, those responsible for implementing the legislation were confronted with a dilemma.
