Suchergebnisse

Abstract
Based on a systematic review of 119 articles and working papers, we provide an overview of how administrative burdens in citizen–state interactions have been studied since the inception of the research agenda in 2012. We develop a new and comprehensive model of how key concepts in the framework are related, assess the evidence of the causal relationships proposed by the model, and discuss where more evidence is needed. Empirical research supports conventional claims that burdens are consequential, distributive, and constructed. However, the literature has moved further by (1) demonstrating that factors such as frontline service delivery and government communication influence experiences of burdens; (2) highlighting how factors beyond ideology influence constructions of burdens; (3) introducing the burden tolerance concept; (4) illustrating that experiences of burden influence policymakers' and members of the publics' burden tolerance. Based on the review, we propose an agenda for future administrative burden research. We call for studies linking experiences of burden to outcomes such as democratic behavior and take-up, and for studies connecting policymakers' burden tolerance to actual state actions. Moreover, we argue that future studies should use qualitative methods to further explore the nature of burdens from the perspective of citizens, rely on experimental methods to establish causal links between state actions and experiences of burden, and compare burdens across contexts. Further, empirical studies should examine the tradeoffs between legitimacy and experiences of burden, and how actors outside the citizen–state interaction may influence experiences of administrative burden.

AbstractThe emergence of the administrative burden literature has generated new theoretical, conceptual, and empirical knowledge. However, the accumulation of comparable knowledge is limited by the lack of validated measurement of core concepts. This article validates a four‐item scale of burden tolerance, that is, people's acceptance of state actions that impose administrative burdens on citizens and residents interacting with government, using data from seven countries and 12 surveys. We illustrate the usefulness of the scale by examining its correlates. Burden tolerance varies substantially across the countries examined, but is generally higher for males, young adults, less well educated, those with good health, those who trust state actors more, and ideological conservatives. We demonstrate how the scale can be adapted to specific policy areas and that our generic scale correlates highly with the tolerance for burdens in such diverse domains as income supports, health insurance, passport renewals, and small business licensing.

AbstractThe literature on administrative burdens demonstrates that citizens may experience different kinds of administrative burdens when interacting with the state. However, we know little about whether citizens' communication of these experiences affects how frontline employees implement compliance demands. Building on the street‐level bureaucracy and administrative burden literature, we hypothesize that citizens' communication of direct and indirect psychological costs affects frontline employees' inclination to accommodate citizens. Furthermore, we expect this effect to be stronger for members of the ethnic majority than for ethnic minority members. We test these expectations using a preregistered survey experiment on a sample of 1048 Danish public caseworkers from 32 employment agencies. Results show that frontline employees are indeed more willing to reduce demands and help citizens that communicate their experiences of direct and indirect psychological costs. Further, we find some evidence that frontline employees are more responsive to citizens from the ethnic majority.

AbstractDeservingness literature has shown that people, including frontline workers, spontaneously judge whether welfare recipients are responsible for their own situation or are victims of circumstances beyond their own control, and that these judgments shape behaviors and opinions. We contribute to this literature by examining the impact of clients' responsibility for their own sickness on how the clients are treated by frontline workers. Using a pre‐registered vignette survey experiment among 1050 caseworkers, we examine our hypothesis that frontline workers treat clients who are responsible for their own sickness more harshly. In the experiment, we manipulate whether a client got COVID‐19 because of his own behavior or was unlucky to catch it. We find that although the manipulation strongly influences frontline workers' responsibility attribution, it does not affect inclinations to help or sanction the client. Our findings highlight that factors other than deservingness are important for frontline workers' prioritization of sick citizens.