Administrative Burden: Policymaking by Other Means

by Pamela Herd, Donald P. Moynihan

Winner of the 2020 Outstanding Book Award  Presented by the Public and Nonprofit Section of the National Academy of Management

Winner of the 2019 Louis Brownlow Book Award  from the National Academy of Public Administration
 

Bureaucracy, confusing paperwork, and complex regulations—or what public policy scholars Pamela Herd and Donald Moynihan call administrative burdens—often introduce delay and frustration into our experiences with government agencies. Administrative burdens diminish the effectiveness of public programs and can even block individuals from fundamental rights like voting. In AdministrativeBurden, Herd and Moynihan document that the administrative burdens citizens regularly encounter in their interactions with the state are not simply unintended byproducts of governance, but the result of deliberate policy choices. Because burdens affect people’s perceptions of government and often perpetuate long-standing inequalities, understanding why administrative burdens exist and how they can be reduced is essential for maintaining a healthy public sector.
 
Through in-depth case studies of federal programs and controversial legislation, the authors show that administrative burdens are the nuts-and-bolts of policy design. Regarding controversial issues such as voter enfranchisement or abortion rights, lawmakers often use administrative burdens to limit access to rights or services they oppose. For instance, legislators have implemented administrative burdens such as complicated registration requirements and strict voter-identification laws to suppress turnout of African American voters. Similarly, the right to an abortion is legally protected, but many states require women seeking abortions to comply with burdens such as mandatory waiting periods, ultrasounds, and scripted counseling. As Herd and Moynihan demonstrate, administrative burdens often disproportionately affect the disadvantaged who lack the resources to deal with the financial and psychological costs of navigating these obstacles.
 
However, policymakers have sometimes reduced administrative burdens or shifted them away from citizens and onto the government. One example is Social Security, which early administrators of the program implemented in the 1930s with the goal of minimizing burdens for beneficiaries. As a result, the take-up rate is about 100 percent because the Social Security Administration keeps track of peoples’ earnings for them, automatically calculates benefits and eligibility, and simply requires an easy online enrollment or visiting one of 1,200 field offices. Making more programs and public services operate this efficiently, the authors argue, requires adoption of a nonpartisan, evidence-based metric for determining when and how to institute administrative burdens, with a bias toward reducing them. By ensuring that the public’s interaction with government is no more onerous than it need be, policymakers and administrators can reduce inequality, boost civic engagement, and build an efficient state that works for all citizens.

Genres: Nonfiction, Politics, Economics, Government, Political Science, Grad School, Public Policy

304 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 2018

Reviews

[Alexander · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is the rare work of political non-fiction that wouldn't have been more effective as a magazine article. Those who know me know that's some of the highest praise I can offer books in this genre.

This book is a comprehensive, masterful investigation and exploration of "administrative burdens," the learning, compliance, and psychological costs of interacting with public services and policy. Herd and Moynihan make clear that burdens are constructed (not an accident), consequential, and distributive, affecting some populations (guess who...) more significantly than others. The book examines case studies where burdens have grown (voting, abortion), places they have been successfully reduced in part or in whole (Earned Income Tax Credit, Social Security), and some other, more complicated topics, such as SNAP, Medicare, and Medicaid. Each is well-worth a read, and I found myself taking copious notes as I read this book.

There is a moral clarity to this book that is extremely uncommon in academic writing — the authors don't shy away from making clear that one party (Republicans) has overwhelmingly been responsible for efforts to undermine policy implementation by imposing administrative burdens, and the authors emphasize how this behavior should upend simple narratives about which parties are comfortable creating red tape and interfering in the lives of Americans.

This book also serves to correct an important pair of asymmetries in how we think about program implementation. First, we currently overwhelmingly prioritize and fighting fraud much more strongly than making sure all eligible participants are able to take part and/or receive benefits. Second, taken as a whole, much modern policymaking is predicated on the idea that burdens on business are intolerable, while requiring ordinary Americans (especially poor ones) to jump through countless hoops is reasonable, especially because it will weed out the "undeserving" or there are no other practical options. Administrative Burden: Policymaking by Other Means makes the case that we should accept neither element of this status quo.

The book is of course imperfect. It's an academic publication, so it's needlessly comprehensive for the application-minded in a number of places. A stronger editor could have easily excised 20-30 pages where arguments made more clearly earlier are repeated to an unclear or less-than-maximally effective purpose, and the last chapter kind of peters out, with some digression into international examples right before the conclusion. Most seriously, there are some other places (as the authors themselves acknowledge) they could have explored administrative burdens on issues such as access to guns that affect different populations or have a less clear partisan breakdown than the ones they choose to feature. But these "flaws" are minor next to this issue-defining masterwork.

This book is well, well worth a read for those who think about public policy design and implementation, and we'd be wise to implement many of its recommendations.

[Kim · Rating 4 out of 5]

Read this book in one day. Great overview and conceptual framework of the administrative burden posed by government policies and regulations. My only criticism is my wish for more real-world examples in the book - it’s very healthcare and financial service heavy. But stellar, nonetheless.

[Alix · Rating 4 out of 5]

Administrative Burden is a great read. Herd and Moynihan develop the concept of administrative burden to capture the various impacts policies have on those who are trying to access them. They identify three main types of burden: learning costs that people endure to identify and understand policies; compliance costs generated from having to follow the rules that a policy carries; and the psychological costs of having to navigate systems, wait, be treated with suspicion and disrespect, and generated from the stigma that can be associated with accessing some government-provided benefits. The authors provide a number of engaging case studies on how burdens have been developed or decreased - either in support of or against a policy's stated goals. My only critique is that I would have liked to see more discussion of the methods they used to uncover the historical development of burdens, coupled with a discussion of how researchers and policymakers can analyze the development and effects of burdens empirically. That said, I thought the concluding section outlining ways to identify burdens was excellent and practical.

[Emily Rice · Rating 4 out of 5]

Banger, especially the conclusion. Slightly slow start with voter ID and abortion (tho maybe that’s just me because I’m used to hearing about those) but the healthcare chapters were excellent, especially the one about Badger Care in Wisconsin.

[Clay · Rating 4 out of 5]

The authors construct a comprehensive and, most importantly, practical framework for understanding how decisions about policy implementation (sometimes deliberate and politically motivated, sometimes unintentional) shape how citizens experience the state and ultimately how these experiences influence outcomes. The case studies, which explore how administrative burdens hinder constitutional rights, such as voting, and access to vital public services, such as healthcare, are a key strength of the book and underscore the importance of the topic. Their arguments are rooted in evidence, and I was quite impressed with their profound understanding of history. The trade off is that the book is quite long, but readers get a far more developed work of scholarship in return. As I read this, I couldn’t help but think about Kamala Harris’ student loan forgiveness plan, which would provide some student debt relief to Pell Grant recipients who start a business in a depressed community for five years after graduation. This book lays bare the poverty of the overly technocratic and incrementalist wing of the Democratic Party.

[Sam Dotson · Rating 5 out of 5]

The purpose of Administrative Burden was to establish a framework to formalize the study of how policymakers use administrative burdens to achieve their political agendas. The authors do this by applying their framework to a series of case studies. Critics of the book often cite the authors professed politics as evidence of unfair bias. However, the authors impress upon readers that the framework they introduce can be applied to any policy with public facing components (e.g. gun control). If critical readers are not satisfied with the common thread being a partisan one, a more appealing thread may be that every case study involves a "quality of life" issue. I learned a tremendous amount about policy specifics (and policies in general!) from this book. Their arguments are air tight and incredibly well researched. An excellent book for voters and aspirant policy wonks alike.

[Amber · Rating 5 out of 5]

This unassuming book is very good - I'm thinking of requiring it for future policy courses as the author provides strong evidence of the ways in which burdens can be put into place to meet/deny given political goals with set policy. These burdens are why the states vary so widely in terms of success and failure when given the same guidance.

[Charles · Rating 5 out of 5]

Good overview of administrative burdens, an often under considered or maliciously used dimension of policy making and implementation. Also happened to be a good overview of different federal programs like social security, voting, Medicaid and SNAP

[Sam · Rating 4 out of 5]

Very well done. The last chapters on the EITC and Social Security were the most informative.

[Lloyd Fassett]

10/13/21 Recommended by Phil Long when we met at a Thai restaurant in Georgetown

[Kate Johnson · Rating 4 out of 5]

Good, lots of food for thought. Very academic - more like a study published in an academic journal, not a “pop” poli sci read

[Lily Delianedis · Rating 2 out of 5]

Interesting, but not riveting

[Alan · Rating 2 out of 5]

I really wanted to like this book -- I've been vaguely interested in this topic for quite some time and I think it's an extremely important topic. Unfortunately, I did find much to recommend it (so much so that I stopped reading after roughly 100-150 pages).

It's basically written as a series of short vignettes about different "episodes" in American politics (e.g. the ACA, Voting Restrictions, Social Security, etc) to show how administrative rules can create clear barriers to access.

While this is ok in theory, the history recounted here is extraordinarily shallow -- each episode was given a pretty short amount of explanation (maybe 10-ish pages) and presents a cartoon version of history, with very little nuance. Having read other histories of these episodes, I'm very confident that the author's explanations are hugely lacking. This leaves me extraordinarily skeptical of (1) the author's understanding of what actually happened and (2) the validity of any conclusions drawn from such shallow work (perhaps this is just what happens when someone more used to reading history reads a political science text).

I also found the analysis to be pretty uninteresting -- at least in the first 100 pages, I didn't encounter anything that I didn't think was obvious from the two-paragraph summary, and did not feel like I gained any new insights into the problem.

[Wilte · Rating 4 out of 5]

Important topic on a very practical aspect of policy making and execution. Via administrative burdens (e.g. lowering or heightening thresholds), the success of a government intervention can be significantly influenced. Taking practical matters into account when devising and implementing policies is very important, as is the realization that political/special interest influence on this process can greatly determine its success. Herd and Moynihan also stress the importance administrative and IT capability in executing interventions.

Almost all examples are from the US, where politics seems more polarized with a two-party system, but the general message is globally relevant. And I also liked the fact that the book has one clear topic, a clear thread, that is elaborated with different cases.

Blog post with summary & quotes: https://wilte.wordpress.com/2021/12/2...

https://wilte.wordpress.com/2020/02/0...

[Nina Clark · Rating 4 out of 5]

Learned a lot!