Research on administrative burden has covered a variety of topics, including its antecedents, experiences by citizens, and consequences (Baekgaard and Tankink 2022). Yet, only few studies have explored its impact on public support for specific policy programmes (Keiser and Miller 2020; Nicholson-Crotty, Miller, and Keiser 2021), let alone the support or opposition to particular administrative burdens. Using a survey involving 2,500 participants from the UK, we investigate public support for administrative burdens focusing on two actual welfare programs: Universal Credit, designed to give citizens an integrated system of benefit support to encourage a return to the workforce, and Legal Aid, a system which traditionally supports citizens to meet the costs of legal advice, family mediation, and representation in a court or tribunal.

We manipulate information about various types of errors that could result from an increase (in the case of Universal Credit) or a reduction (Legal Aid) in administrative burden, particularly regarding the exclusion of eligible subjects and the inclusion of non-eligible subjects into the program. Additionally, drawing from grid-group cultural theory, we investigate the relationship between citizens’ attitudes towards administrative burden and their worldviews. Preliminary findings indicate that changes in administrative burden receive less support when an increase in any type of error – either wrongful exclusion or wrongful inclusion – is anticipated. Moreover, on average, hierarchists and individualists are more (less) willing to support the increase (decrease) in administrative burden on the Universal Credit (Legal Aid) program, while egalitarianists are less (more) willing to support it.

REFERENCES

Baekgaard, M., & Tankink, T. (2022). Administrative burden: Untangling a bowl of conceptual spaghetti. Perspectives on Public Management and Governance, 5(1), 16-21.

Keiser, L. R., & Miller, S. M. (2020). Does administrative burden influence public support for government programs? Evidence from a survey experiment. Public Administration Review, 80(1), 137-150.

Nicholson-Crotty, J., Miller, S. M., & Keiser, L. R. (2021). Administrative burden, social construction, and public support for government programs. Journal of Behavioral Public Administration, 4(1).

Research on administrative burdens has received considerable attention over the past decade (Halling & Baekgaard, 2023; Herd & Moynihan, 2022) because it provides a relevant conceptual framework in the area of citizen-state interactions. Despite the broad application of the conceptual framework of administrative burden, research has had difficulties in measuring its central aspects, primarily individuals’ perceptions of burdens (Halling & Baekgaard, 2023). This is mainly due to the lack of consistent measurement applications.

To facilitate further theory building and assist empirical research, we present a validated survey measure of perceived administrative burden. Using cross-national, representative survey data from the US and South Korea (n = 3,000), we subjected an initial pool of items of perceived administrative burden to psychometric scrutiny. The survey was contextualized in four comparable government institutions with broad clientele in both the US and South Korea, respectively, to ensure broad contextual applicability (Jilke et al., 2016). Exploratory and confirmatory factor analyses confirmed the scale’s construct validity. Additional analytical steps confirmed the scales’ convergent and discriminant validity.

Capitalizing on our measurement scales, scholars can explore perceived administrative burdens as predictors of mass orientations toward government. Additionally, perceived administrative burden can also be investigated as an outcome variable in experiment-based research. We discuss the scales’ potential use for both public administration research broadly and administrative burden studies more specifically.

References:

Halling, A., & Baekgaard, M. (2023). Administrative Burden in Citizen–State Interactions: A Systematic Literature Review. Journal of Public Administration Research and Theory. https://doi.org/10.1093/jopart/muad023

Herd, P., & Moynihan, D. (2022). Behavior and Burdens. Journal of Behavioral Public Administration, 5(1), 1–5. https://doi.org/10.30636/jbpa.51.306

Jilke, S., Petrovsky, N., Meuleman, B., & James, O. (2016). Measurement equivalence in replications of experiments: When and why it matters and guidance on how to determine equivalence. Public Management Review, 1–18. https://doi.org/10.1080/14719037.2016.1210906

Governments worldwide invested considerably in public policies to help refugees’ integration in the labor market such as credential validation, host country language acquisition, etc.. But the labor market participation of refugees remains low This raises the question of whether employers value refugee participation in such programs and consequently are more inclined to hire participating refugees.

The public sector is often seen as a more equal opportunity employer than the private sector, but it also typically has more rules than the private sector when it comes to qualification requirements. Additionally, it is more difficult to monitor productivity in the public sector than in the private sector. For both reasons, participation in certain types of activities such as language certification or credential recognition may be more likely to be more rewarded in the public sector than in private sector employment. However, there is a lack of research examining this topic.

Using a conjoint survey experiment of 650 public and private sector employers in the Netherlands, we estimate public and private sector employers’ perception of refugee participation in specific labor market integration activities: credential validation, host country language acquisition, volunteering activities and on the job training courses. Specifically, we tested whether participation in these activities enhances refugee employment in the public and private sector. Data collection is in progress.

This study is important for the following reasons. Public sector jobs have played an important role historically in providing employment opportunities to marginalized communities and continues to be a source of relatively "good" jobs. This study is the first to provide experimental evidence of potential sectorial differences in the employment of refugees with regards to participation in these labor market activities. Such insights are crucial in designing more equitable hiring processes in the public sector.

Scholarship emerging from the behavioral public administration tradition has made valuable contributions to scholarly understanding of the citizen-state interactions by unpacking the micro-foundations of the organizational behavior of street-level bureaucrats and citizens. However, this scholarship remains largely embedded within the behavioral economics and cognitive psychology tradition. Very little attention has, so far, been paid to broader theories of personality and psychotherapy (e.g., existential, gestalt, psychodynamic, and humanistic perspectives) despite their obvious utility and practical relevance to the study of citizen-state interactions. To contribute to advancing scholarship in this area, this article engages with the concept of psychological defenses as conceptualized in different theoretical traditions and their relevance to the study of citizen-state interactions. We particularly focus on Vaillant’s four-level classification of psychological defenses. We argue that an understanding of the prevalence of different defenses like displacement, projection, denial, acting out, reaction formation and many others is critical for a comprehensive understanding of bureaucratic and citizen interaction in frontline organizations. Through a systematic analysis of examples from existing research as well as popular media, we illustrate how a study of psychological defenses and healthy responses to them is also crucial for resolving some common real-world dilemmas face by street-level bureaucrats in their routine work. We further discuss the relation of psychological defenses with existing scholarships on coping behavior among citizens and street-level bureaucrats. In addition to contributing to existing scholarship on street-level bureaucracy and the citizen-state interaction, this article will also hopefully facilitate further expansion of the concept of behavioral public administration.

Citizens consistently report dissatisfaction and distrust towards government. However, it is unclear whether citizens hold these opinions only against abstract organizations or also towards individual officials. Moreover, while literature suggests citizens hold individual bureaucrats in higher regard than depersonalized bureaucracies, the effect of individual frames on perceptions remains understudied. We argue individual framing and referring to individual officials with more favorable language can reduce anti-public sector bias. Thus, people should react more negatively against an official described as a “bureaucrat” vis-à-vis a more positive term (“public servant”). In a survey experiment, we found no evidence of more positive perceptions about individual officials than bureaucracies. However, compared to officials framed as “bureaucrats”, “public servants” score higher on trust and satisfaction, and lower on responsibility attribution. These findings suggest the terms used to describe public officials matter for citizen perceptions while framing government work more positively may help offset perception issues arisen from anti-public sector bias.