The politics of administrative burden

This chapter presents the administrative burden framework. This approach examines how people experience policy implementation as onerous in their interactions with the state, whether it be learning costs involved in finding out about public services, compliance costs like filling out forms, or psychological costs, such as stress, stigma or loss of autonomy. After introducing the concept of administrative burden, we address the politics of how burdens are made. This section argues that political preferences shape the creation or tolerance of burden. Indeed, burdens serve as a form of policymaking by other means because they are opaque. Next, we consider the administrative setting as a site of politics - how do the officials delivering public services make sense of administrative burdens, and use their discretion to buffer or amplify the effects of hassles on members of the public? Finally, we consider the policy feedback effects of burdens on members of the public. Burdens are targeted to some groups more than others, and some people have greater capacity to overcome burdens. Thus, burdens reinforce patterns of inequality. Negative experiences become meaningful in shaping people's views of the state, and their relationship with it.