本书首先提出并界定了“软性调控”概念，然后，以浙江省诸暨市的调查为基础，深入细致地论述了地方政府软性调控私营企业劳资关系的主要做法、软性调控的运作机制和软性调控的四种综合性效果。本书弥补了对“浙江经验”以及劳资关系研究中对政府作用研究的不足。

本項獲得高度讚譽的研究，檢視了從事人群服務的基層官僚組織，其中包括了學校、法院以及社會福利機構等，因為所有的政策都是由這些基層官僚組織所加以執行的。直接面對社會大眾的教師、警察、提供法律服務的律師以及社工人員等，必須處理諸如龐大的工作量、模糊不清的機構目標，以及有限的資源等等問題。由於這些「基層官僚」擁有必要而廣泛的自由裁量權，因此，他們的工作模式以及傾向，將會大幅度地影響到實際執行的公共服務政策。
本書榮獲1980年的「社會問題研究學會」（Society for the Study of Social Problems）所頒贈的「萊特．米爾斯獎」（C. Wright Mills Award），並且也被美國政治學協會（American Political Science Association）提名為1981年的「葛雷迪斯．卡默勒獎」（Gladys M. Kammerer Award）的共同獲獎者。
本書作者麥可．李普斯基（Michael Lipsky）目前為美國麻省理工學院的政治學教授。
「一部豐富、成熟的學術作品……一本絕佳的好書！」－－葉茲（Douglas Yates），《美國政治學評論》（American Political Science Review）「發人深省、文字清晰流暢，而且書中充滿了對於人群服務組織裡的服務模式與實務運作的深刻洞見……本書對學術界是一大貢獻！」－－韓森費爾德（Yeheskel Hasenfeld），《社會服務評論》（Social Service Review）
「一項承先啟後的研究……在這個廣泛的主題上面，本書是目前為止觀察最為清楚、而且分析過程也最為引人入勝的作品。」──維爾達夫斯基（Aaron Wildavsky）「具有高度的啟發性……對於提供人群服務的基層官僚組織，以及其所服務的當事人之間的互動關係，本書提供了極為珍貴的資訊。」－－瑞斯曼（Frank Riessman），《社會政策》（Social Policy）編輯
「在都市事務與行政管理方面，本書是近年來最為重要的書籍之一。」－－《選擇》雜誌（Choice）

"Disciplining the Poor" lays out the underlying logic of contemporary poverty governance in the United States. The authors argue that poverty governance - how social welfare policy choices get made, how authority gets exercised, and how collective pursuits get organized - has been transformed in the United States by two significant developments. The rise of paternalism has promoted a more directive and supervisory approach to managing the poor. This has intersected with a second development: the rise of neoliberalism as an organizing principle of governance. Neoliberals have redesigned state operations around market principles; to impose market discipline, core state functions - from war to welfare - have been contracted out to private providers. The authors seek to clarify the origins, operations, and consequences of neoliberal paternalism as a mode of poverty governance, tracing its impact from the federal level, to the state and county level, down to the differences in ways frontline case workers take disciplinary actions in individual cases. The book also addresses the complex role race has come to play in contemporary poverty governance.

The punitive turn taken by penal policies in advanced societies over the past two decades does not pertain to the traditional duo of crime and punishment. Rather, it heralds the establishment of a new government of social insecurity aimed at molding the conduct of the men and women caught in the turbulence of economic deregulation and the conversion of welfare into a springboard toward precarious employment. Within this 'liberal-paternalist' apparatus, the prison has recovered its original mission: to tame the populations and the territories rebellious to the emerging economic and moral order, and to ritually reassert the fortitude of the rulers. It is in the United States that this new politics and policy of marginality wedding restrictive 'workfare' and expansive 'prisonfare' was invented, in the wake of the social and racial reaction of the 1970s that was the crucible of the neoliberal revolution. "Punishing the Poor" takes the reader inside America's prison to probe the entrails of the bulimic carceral state that has risen on the ruins of the charitable state and the black ghetto. It demonstrates how, in the era of fragmented labor, the regulation of the lower classes no longer involves solely the maternal arm of the social-welfare state, but crucially implicates the stern and virile arm of the penal state. And it explains why the battle against crime is both a reaction to, and a diversion from, the new social question: namely, the generalization of insecure work and its impact on the life spaces and strategies of the urban proletariat. By uncovering the material underpinnings and unhinging the symbolic springs of the law-and-order reason that is now sweeping through the countries of the First and Second worlds, this bold book linking social and penal policies makes an original contribution to the historical anthropology of the state in the age of triumphant neoliberalism.