Discretion and Power

In this chapter, we return to one of the foundational canon of essays on discretion, written by Michael Adler and Stewart Asquith in their important edited collection, Discretion and Welfare. We argue for the continuing salience of the core ideas in their chapter, written at a particular political and social scientific moment in the late 1970s and based on a series of seminars funded by the then Social Science Research Council. Framing their analysis around power and ideology, we argue that their analysis now forms part of our taken-for-granted understandings in socio-legal studies. Addressing it on its own terms, however, we illustrate its continuing salience to the project of understanding discretionary decision-making through two case study illustrations—regulating landlords and disqualifying directors. Like Adler and Asquith, our illustrations enable us to reflect on the ongoing significance of the micro-physics of power; how discretion apparently written into legislation comes to be used against the interests of the poor; and how professional and lay knowledges combine with unequal outcomes.