Perspectives on Public Management and Governance, 2023, 6, 7–13

https://doi.org/10.1093/ppmgov/gvac024
Advance access publication 28 January 2023
Essay

Digital Administrative Burdens: An Agenda for Analyzing

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the Citizen Experience of Digital Bureaucratic Encounters
Rik Peeters*,
*Centro de Investigación y Docencia Económicas (CIDE), Ciudad de México, México
Address correspondence to the author at [email protected].

Abstract
Innovations in digital government are changing state–citizen interactions. While often seen as means to increase government efficiency and
reduce compliance costs for citizens, a growing body of literature suggests citizens may also experience administrative burdens in such
interactions. This article aims to provide some cohesion to the existing research and makes three specific contributions. First, it carves out a con-
ceptual common ground by identifying digital administrative burdens and digital bureaucratic encounters as specific objects of study. Second,
automated administrative decision making, digital interactions, and data-assisted decision making are identified as contemporary practices of
particular relevance for future studies on the intersection of digital government and administrative burden. Studies suggest learning costs and
psychological costs may be especially prevalent in digital bureaucratic encounters and that they often have distributive effects. Third, the article
concludes with the formulation of several research themes for the further development of the field.

INTRODUCTION forms of digital service delivery (Lindgren et al. 2019) and

In recent years, scholars of administrative burden have devel- use of machine learning algorithms to inform risk assessments
oped a substantial body of knowledge on the barriers citizens and resource allocation (Busuioc 2021). Shifting the focus
may experience in their bureaucratic encounters and in their from face-to-face bureaucratic encounters to digital or dig-
efforts to access government services and programs (Bækgaard itally assisted bureaucratic encounters between citizens and
et al. 2021; Heinrich 2018; Moynihan, Herd, and Harvey the state matters because the latter are associated with a for-
2015). Research has highlighted the consequential, distribu- malization of administrative decision making (Bovens and
tive, and constructed nature of burdens (Herd and Moynihan Zouridis 2002), impersonalized interactions through digital
2018): consequential because the failure to overcome burdens channels (Breit et al. 2021), a transformation of street-level
can lead to the exclusion of citizens from rights, benefits, and discretion (Young, Bullock, and Lecy 2019), and information
services to which they are formally entitled; distributive be- asymmetries between citizens and bureaucracies (Busuioc
cause vulnerable groups are known to be disproportionally 2021). As technological artifacts, such as databases and in-
affected by burdensome procedures; and constructed because formation systems, increasingly replace or assist human
burdens are often a consequence of decisions in resource al- decision-makers (Jorna and Wagenaar 2007), the traditional
location and in the design of policies, programs, and admin- “dyadic relationship” (Breit and Salomon 2015) between
istrative procedures. One area in which relatively few studies citizens and bureaucrats transforms into a complex web of
have been conducted is at the intersection of administrative relationships between citizens, bureaucracies, and informa-
burdens and digital government. In fact, most studies merely tion systems. Despite the potential of digital government to
implicitly engage with the specific setting of the bureaucratic ease administrative burdens (Fox, Stazyk, and Feng 2020;
encounter in which burdens emerge (Madsen, Mikkelsen, and Herd et al. 2013), several studies have also indicated that it
Moynihan 2022, 382) or focus on “the intersection of public can trigger new forms of burdens and mechanisms of exclu-
administration and social policy” (Moynihan, Herd, and sion as a result of people’s failure to overcome digital admin-
Harvey 2015, 47), where bureaucratic encounters between istrative burdens (Larsson 2021; Linos et al. 2022; Madsen,
citizens and bureaucrats often take place face-to-face. Lindgren, and Melin 2022; Peeters and Widlak 2018).
Most administrative decisions regarding citizens’ rights The objective of this article is to integrate insights from
and obligations, however, are made by “decision factories” the literature on administrative burdens and digital govern-
that routinely process enormous amounts of relatively ment and, furthermore, to formulate research questions that
simple, highly formalized, and often automated procedures can help advance our understanding of digital administrative
for determining eligibility, imposing fines, or calculating burdens: digital bureaucratic encounters that individuals ex-
benefits (Bovens and Zouridis 2002). Furthermore, recent perience as onerous (cf. Burden et al. 2012, 742; Heinrich
developments in data governance and data analysis (Bekkers 2018, 216). Analyzing digital bureaucratic encounters
2007; Yeung 2018) have unlocked the potential for new through the lens of the administrative burden framework
allows us to identify the potential downsides of digital

© The Author(s) 2023. Published by Oxford University Press on behalf of the Public Management Research Association. All rights reserved. For
permissions, please e-mail: [email protected].
8 Perspectives on Public Management and Governance

government initiatives that are often surrounded by techno- because they allow governments to select specific segments
optimism and economic narratives of efficiency (Løberg 2021; of the population for a differential treatment. Additionally,
Vydra and Klievink 2019). Moreover, conceptualizing digital algorithm-based technological tools can be used to replace
administrative burdens as a specific form of administrative humans by automated agents. The robotization of state–cit-
burden is a useful analytical instrument to identify several izen interactions can be observed in, for instance, the re-
of its distinctive features, especially regarding origins, which placement of frontline helpdesks by AI-guided chatbots
are often hidden in the design of information systems and (Androutsopoulou et al. 2019) and the use of surveillance

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algorithms (Peeters and Widlak 2018), and possible remedies, drones (West and Bowman 2016).
such as carving out spaces for empathy and the human factor In more general terms, replacing, enhancing, or
in impersonal interactions and decision-making procedures complementing human agency with information technology
(Ranchordás 2022). Furthermore, an analytical focus on transforms the traditional “dyadic relationship” between
the impact of both the presence and absence of street-level citizens and street-level bureaucrats (Breit and Salomon
bureaucrats contributes to a relatively unexplored area in the 2015) into a complex web of relationships between citizens,
study of the causes of administrative burdens (Bell et al. 2020; bureaucrats, information systems, and technological artifacts
Bell and Smith 2022). such as databases and categorizations (Jorna and Wagenaar
The argument developed in the following is structured 2007). Although very few state–citizen interactions are now-
around a review of the literature on the intersection of ad- adays completely free of information technology, the impact
ministrative burden and digital government. First, the con- on state–citizen interactions has been relatively understudied.
cept of digital administrative burdens is further discussed by The study of administrative burden takes the citizen expe-
exploring the specific nature of automated or digitally as- rience of such interactions as analytical point of departure
sisted bureaucratic encounters between citizens and the state. but engages relatively little with the differences between
Second, using a distinction between three types of digital bu- types of bureaucratic encounters—for instance, face-to-face
reaucratic encounters, several key practices in which admin- or digital—in which citizens experience burdens (Madsen,
istrative burdens and exclusion emerge are discussed. Finally, Mikkelsen, and Moynihan 2022, 382). The few studies that
the main contributions of this article and avenues for future address the intersection between digital government and ad-
research are discussed. ministrative burden indicate that information technology is
crucial for understanding the way burdens are structured. On
the one hand, digital government has the potential to reduce
DIGITAL GOVERNMENT AND administrative burdens, for instance through automatic en-
ADMINISTRATIVE BURDENS rollment in social benefits (Fox, Stazyk, and Feng 2020; Herd
For better or for worse, the digitalization of administrative et al. 2013; Scholta et al. 2019), the reduction of practical and
practices changes the nature of citizen–state interactions. information barriers in the access to the state (Kuriyan and Ray
First, information technology can be used to automate ad- 2009; Mekonnen et al. 2019; World Bank 2016; Xu and Tang
ministrative decision-making procedures. Around the turn of 2020), or the improvement of procedural justice and fair treat-
the century, scholars highlighted the increased automation of ment (Busch and Henriksen 2018; Miller and Keiser 2021;
relatively simple mass decision making (Bovens and Zouridis Nagtegaal 2021).
2002)—a practice that has since then further developed by On the other hand, automated and digitally mediated cit-
fully automating enrollment in certain social benefits (Scholta izen–state interactions are identified as possible sources of ad-
et al. 2019) and integrating single-organization information ministrative burdens given their tendency to formalize and
databases into supra-organizational infrastructures of data standardize state–citizen interactions. Information technology
collection and sharing (Peeters and Widlak 2018; Yeung entails simplification and closure of tasks (Kallinikos 2005).
2018). This has had profound consequences for the nature Simplification refers to breaking down a task or problem
of citizen–state interactions, most notably in the reduction into a sequential set of operations. Closure complements
of discretionary space and human interaction at the street- simplification by isolating the sequential operations from ex-
level of routine administrative decision making (Landsbergen ternal interference (Cordella and Tempini 2015, 281). Both
2004) and in the increased availability of information to as- characteristics may clash with citizens’ diversity of needs,
sist street-level bureaucrats in their client interactions (Breit et personal circumstances, and human capital. The automa-
al. 2021; De Boer and Raaphorst 2023). tion of decision-making procedures impacts discretionary
Second, recent technological developments and mass data spaces at the operational level (Bovens and Zouridis 2002;
collection practices have enabled governments to develop De Boer and Raaphorst 2023) and transforms face-to-face
forms of complex (big) data analysis to inform administra- bureaucratic encounters into digital or digitally assisted ones
tive and professional decision making. By exploiting machine (Breit et al. 2021; Lindgren et al. 2019), whereas the use of
learning algorithms’ potential to analyze more data in less algorithms for data analysis and risk assessments is associ-
time and with more variables than humans are able to ana- ated with transparency and explainability issues (Bullock
lyze (Kitchin 2014), automated assessments are deployed to, 2019; Busuioc 2021) and with discriminatory effects of data
among other things, inform prioritization of resource allo- bias (Hannah-Moffat and Maurutto 2010). Additionally, in-
cation (Yeung and Lodge 2019), assessments of worker per- creasingly complex forms of data governance are informing
formance (O’Neil 2016), risk assessments in criminal justice these and other practices (Janssen et al. 2020; Yeung 2018),
(Douglas et al. 2017), child protection (Gillingham 2016), raising further concerns regarding fairness and transparency
and tax and welfare benefit fraud (Engin and Treleaven in decision making (Widlak, Van Eck, and Peeters 2021) and
2019), and modelling of group behavior (Morozov and Bria the “human factor” in bureaucratic encounters (Ranchordás
2018). Such developments impact state–citizen interactions 2022). Through these and other mechanisms, citizens may
Peeters Digital Administrative Burdens 9

face barriers and difficulties in their encounters with digital recent developments include the automated provision of so-
government and, moreover, potential exclusion from benefit cial benefits triggered by changes in information systems (such
applications or fair treatment in governmental rule enforce- as birth date registrations) (Scholta et al. 2019) and eligibility
ment activities. decisions following automated information sharing (Peeters and
The pervasiveness of digital technologies and their poten- Widlak 2018). Regarding the former, Larsson’s (2021) study of
tial to transform citizen–state interactions justifies analyt- a Norwegian social benefit shows this can reduce administrative
ical attention to the specific nature of digital bureaucratic burdens for a majority of cases, whereas nonroutine cases are

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encounters and how these may create burdens and exclu- more likely to be thrown out of the automated “happy flow”
sionary mechanisms for citizens. Following Heinrich (2016), and subjected to a more burdensome procedure. Crucially, such
I argue that “public encounters” (Bartels 2013) or “bureau- mechanisms of “digital sorting” often disproportionally af-
cratic encounters” (Kahn, Katz, and Gutek 1976) between cit- fect low-income citizens—echoing the idea that administrative
izens and government agencies (and their representatives) are burdens have distributive effects (Christensen et al., 2020).
a useful starting point for analyzing administrative burdens or These practices also reflect the increased importance of
“onerous encounters with government” (Heinrich 2018, 216). data governance or the use of government information for
A bureaucratic encounter is “an interactive product” and “the the primary processes of multiple organizations through data
major intervening event in a causal sequence” (Kahn, Katz, sharing (Yeung 2018). Changes in registrations may thereby
and Gutek 1976, 185) in policy implementation, service pro- cause cascade effects for citizens, including the possibility of
vision, and law enforcement. Accordingly, digital bureaucratic automated exclusion from a range of government services
encounters can be defined as the interactions between citizens and benefits (Peeters and Widlak 2018). Moreover, intra- or
and a state’s automated or digitally assisted decision making, supra-organizational data sharing reduces the possibilities
service provision, and communication. Digital administrative for human agents to verify the origin and correctness of data
burdens, then, are citizens’ experiences of digital bureaucratic (Peeters and Widlak 2021). This complicates citizens’ ability
encounters classified as onerous. These burdens may merely to acquire information regarding individual status of entitle-
be costly and tedious but may also prove insurmountable and ment or obligation, verify the reasons behind administrative
lead to exclusion from rights, benefits, and services to which decisions, and appeal against decisions based on presumably
citizens are legally entitled. More specifically, the previous dis- incorrect information (Widlak and Peeters 2020).
cussion of digital government initiatives allows us to develop
a tentative typology of bureaucratic encounters in which citi-
Digital Interactions
zens may experience burdens (figure 1).
In the following section, the relevant literature for under- Increasingly, governments are using digital channels as the
standing digital administrative burdens is discussed to identify default option for benefit applications and state–citizen
several key practices and mechanisms. Rather than providing interactions. A good example of digital-by-default are forms
a complete overview, the objective here is to provide an ini- of self-service by citizens through digital government portals.
tial analysis to establish a common ground for further explo- In their study of digital benefit applications in Denmark,
ration of the topic. The discussion is organized around the Madsen, Lindgren, and Melin (2022) provide important
types of digital bureaucratic encounters identified in figure 1: insights on the relation between administrative burdens and
automated administrative decisions, digital interactions, and the mandatory use of digital channels. Consistent with studies
data-assisted decision making. on state-initiated digital encounters, they find that citizens
can face increased learning costs due to, among other factors,
complicated language, difficulties in identifying relevant
BURDENS AND EXCLUSION IN DIGITAL authorities, and uncertainty regarding the initiation of appli-
BUREAUCRATIC ENCOUNTERS cation procedures. Moreover, the lack of access to a personal
Automated Administrative Decisions caseworker for negotiation and empathy can trigger psy-
chological costs. Although the study also identifies burden-
Automated administrative decision making often takes place in
mitigating factors, such as reduced paperwork, less waiting
the context of “decision factories” such tax offices and welfare
times, and online available information, it is consistent with
agencies (Bovens and Zouridis 2002). Besides familiar themes
findings elsewhere that the benefits of digital service provision
of reduced street-level discretion (Bovens and Zouridis 2002),
are not equally distributed among the population (Ebbers,
Jansen, and Van Deursen 2016; Larsson 2021; Pieterson and
Ebbers 2020) and that citizens may experience burdens in
matching their own life situation or life events with bureau-
cratic categories (Moynihan et al. 2022).
Studies focusing more broadly on citizens’ information
seeking through digital channels show similar results (Breit
and Salomon 2015; Hansen, Lundberg, and Syltevik 2018).
The use of chatboxes and email implies a depersonalization of
interactions. Call centers are another common entry point for
citizens, where operational staff is often constrained by formal
rules in providing information and support (Matarese and
Caswell 2018; Thunman, Ekström, and Bruhn 2020). Beyond
issues of practical access to information technology (e.g., ac-
cess to internet, financial resources for waiting in line in phone
Figure 1. A Typology of Bureaucratic Encounters. calls, and functioning websites), a broader understanding of
10 Perspectives on Public Management and Governance

the digital divide includes the cognitive and technical skills as of interaction, a more explicit attention for administrative
well as the confidence needed to navigate the digital maze and burdens in digital government can shed light on their (unin-
communicate through digital channels (Harvey, Hastings, and tended) consequences. This article makes two contributions
Chowdhury 2021; Linos et al. 2022; cf. Döring 2021 on ad- to the development of this field of study. First, it carves out
ministrative literacy and Masood and Nisar 2021 on citizens’ a conceptual common ground by identifying administrative
administrative capacity). Furthermore, the knowledge that burdens in various types of digital bureaucratic encounters
conversations through email, phone calls, or chat boxes can be as complementary to other well-documented phenomena

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saved and recorded also affects the behavior of both citizens in the field (Burden et al. 2012; Heinrich 2016). Second,
and bureaucrats (Breit et al. 2021). These studies suggest, there- these concepts are used to analyze a growing but often still
fore, that digital communications channels are associated with dispersed body of literature. Automated administrative deci-
increased learning costs and psychological costs. sion making (Peeters and Widlak 2018), digital interactions
(Breit and Salomon 2015; Lindgren et al. 2019), and data-
Data-Assisted Decision Making assisted decision making (Busuioc 2021) are identified as
Governments increasingly use algorithmic assessments to iden- topics of particular relevance for studies on the intersection
tify (groups of) citizens with a higher probability of showing of digital government and administrative burden. Moreover,
unwanted behavior. There are concerns that classification of findings from several key studies (Larsson 2021; Linos et al.
citizens based on “dirty” or biased data leads to over-policing 2022; Madsen, Lindgren, and Melin 2022) suggest that espe-
of high-poverty and nonwhite urban areas (Richardson, cially learning costs and psychological costs may be prevalent
Schultz, and Crawford 2019), to bail and sentencing decisions in digital bureaucratic encounters, as citizens require skills
biased against minority defendants (Angwin et al. 2016), to to navigate such encounters and are often blindsided from
negative effects for students from disadvantaged backgrounds information sources and algorithmic transparency. Finally,
in algorithm-assisted assessments for university admissions and consistent with other research in the field (Christensen et
(Broussard 2020), or unjustifiably flagging welfare recipients al. 2020; Chudnovsky and Peeters 2021), studies show that
as fraudsters (Carney 2020; Widlak, Van Eck, and Peeters digital administrative burdens are not evenly distributed but
2021). And while these algorithmic assessments usually assist are related to people’s variations in cognitive skills, digital lit-
rather than replace the actual human decision making, there eracy, self-efficacy, perceptions of fairness in digital govern-
are indications that they provide either a strong default for ac- ment, and practical access to information technology (Döring
tion or are often be misinterpreted, for instance by confusing 2021; Linos et al. 2022; Miller and Keiser 2021). The key
risk with blame (Hannah-Moffat 2013). Studies on the cit- findings of the literature review are summarized in terms of a
izen perspective of algorithmic decision-making demonstrate tentative anatomy of digital administrative burdens (table 1).
the possibility of psychological costs and loss of autonomy The objective of this article is the exploratory—to provide
due to the invasive nature of decisions and concerns regarding initial cohesion to a growing field of study. Further studies
their perceived fairness (Richardson, Schultz, and Crawford could explore the following set of themes and questions. First,
2019)—although such perceptions are often highly conditioned technologies: how do different technologies produce distinct
by citizens’ experiences with human decision-makers (Miller citizen experiences of bureaucratic encounters and associ-
and Keiser 2021). Furthermore, concerns are raised regarding ated administrative burdens? Just as the relationship between
the transparency of algorithmic decision-making procedures technology and street-level bureaucracy has been extensively
(Binns 2018; Pasquale 2015) and epistemological limitations explored, the relationship between technology and admin-
that inhibit the “reduction of algorithms to a human language istrative burdens is worthy of scholarly attention to under-
explanation” (Zarsky 2011, 293). It is well-documented that stand how the citizen experience of digital governments is
easy-to-understand language and communication are impor- structured. For instance, complex algorithmic analyses that
tant elements for the learning costs that citizens may face in un- inform administrative decision making affect citizens more
derstanding the motivations and data origins of administrative indirectly than fully digital interactions through government
decisions (Madsen, Lindgren, and Melin 2022). portals, thereby also shaping the way they are able to exert
their agency toward the bureaucracy and the levels of street-
level discretion they are likely to encounter.
CONCLUSION: A RESEARCH AGENDA Second, context is important: how do forms of digital gov-
As governments are increasingly using automated decision ernment play out in distinct policy contexts and domains?
making, algorithm-fueled data analysis, and digital forms Most of the study of administrative burden is situated in

Table 1. An Anatomy of Digital Administrative Burdens

Elements Characteristics Examples

Technologies Rule-based algorithms; machine Automated decision factories; big data analysis; chat boxes;
learning algorithms; robotization digital government portals
Contexts Law enforcement; regulation; welfare Welfare fraud detection; benefit enrollment and payment; auto-
systems; taxation; service delivery mated tax returns; resource allocation; information provision
Costs Mainly learning and psychological Digital literacy and skills; opacity in algorithms and data shar-
costs ing; stress; lack of access to human agents
Causes Data governance; information capac- Information architectures; reduction of street-level discretion;
ity; efficiency-concerns; digital divides data bias; access to internet and technology
Peeters Digital Administrative Burdens 11

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