A Theory of Administrative Burdens

Any context in which the state regulates private behavior or structures how individuals seek public services is a venue where the state may impose burdens on its citizens. All policies that require citizens to engage with the... [ view full abstract ]

Any context in which the state regulates private behavior or structures how individuals seek public services is a venue where the state may impose burdens on its citizens. All policies that require citizens to engage with the state will, to varying degrees, create such frictions. In this paper we also build on past research to develop a causal framework for understanding and studying administrative burdens. The following claims arise from our framework. First, the administrative state constructs administrative burdens, via processes of both policy design and implementation. These include formal rules and requirements, but also bureaucratic action. We describe how inherent task conditions of a policy give rise to burdens, but also offer hypotheses about how political motivations and administrative factors (such as capacity or motivation) generate such burdens. Second, state-created burdens give rise to, but are distinct from, individual experience of burdens as compliance, psychological and learning costs. Third, individual experience of burdens affects citizen outcomes, such as access to social benefits and political efficacy. A key mediator in these relationships are non-governmental third parties. These may be service providers who can alter the costs that individuals face, or stakeholders who can alter political motivations that give rise to burdens. A second mediator is human capital, i.e. the stock of resources, cognitive and non-cognitive skills that individuals possess. Such resources can make the experience of burdens as more or less onerous.