Elevating subjective individual experience in public policy and public administration: Reflections on red tape, administrative burden, and sludge

• Published date: 01 September 2023
• Author: Sanjay K. Pandey
• Date: 01 September 2023
• DOI: http://doi.org/10.1111/puar.13695

VIEWPOINT

Elevating subjective individual experience in public policy

and public administration: Reflections on red tape,

administrative burden, and sludge

Sanjay K. Pandey

Trachtenberg School of Public Policy and Public Administration, The George Washington University, Washington, DC, USA

Correspondence

Sanjay K. Pandey, Trachtenberg School of Public

Policy and Public Administration, The George

Washington University, 805 21st St NW,

Washington, DC 20052, USA.

Email: skpandey@gwu.edu,sanjay.k.pandey@

gmail.com

Editor-in-Chief’s Note: Sanjay K. Pandey was

honored with the Herbert Simon Award and

delivered the Herbert Simon Lecture at the 2023

annual conference of the Midwest Political

Science Association. Professor Pandey’s

scholarship has been honored with the Dwight

Waldo Award by the American Society for Public

Administration in 2023 and The H. George

Frederickson Award by the Public Management

Research Association in 2022. The “Nobel

Prizes”of our discipline, the Waldo Award, and

the Frederickson Award, are the highest awards

for scholarship in public administration and

management. We are grateful to Professor

Pandey for his permission to publish his lecture.

Abstract

In this essay, I take stock of the red tape research program (and research programs

on administrative burden and sludge) to assess whether subjective individual

experience has been given its rightful due in public policy and public administra-

tion. My primary purpose is to assess how concepts facilitate or hinder our under-

standing of the subjective individual experience. To serve this purpose, I present a

conceptual analysis strategy and elaborate on the value of interrogating the mod-

ularity assumption (fit between conceptualization and experience). I conclude by

advocating for consilience across concepts and research programs to better cap-

ture the subjective individual experience.

Evidence for practice

•Policymakers need to articulate how public policy shapes the subjective individ-

ual experience.

•Policymakers need an awareness of the different ways in which the social posi-

tion of the individual, in the policy implementation phase, influences the subjec-

tive individual experience.

•Policymakers need to ask for and develop a better understanding of how the

subjective individual experience determines individual-level and aggregate pub-

lic policy outcomes.

INTRODUCTION

Concepts—like red tape, administrative burden, and

sludge—create both clarity and opacity about the subjec-

tive individual experience of organizational life. Under-

standing how concepts cast shadows and create light can

help us account for the subjective individual experience

in public policy and public administration. I use the term

subjective individual experience to cover the entire range

of human experiences as sentient beings. Making sense

of the subjective individual experience has been a chal-

lenge since the beginning of time. In the ancient Indian

epic, Mahabharata, Arjun compares the mind to the wind,

noting that “The mind is very restless, turbulent, strong,

and obstinate, O Krishna. It appears to me that it is more

difficult to control than the wind (Mukundananda, n.d.)”.

Philosophers present alternative ways of conceptualizing

the human subjective experience. Evan Thompson (2015:

xxxi), for example, notes that “we enact a self in the pro-

cess of awareness, and this self comes and goes depend-

ing on how we are aware.”Philosophical analyses of

subjective individual experience point to a range of men-

tal phenomena, highlighting fine distinctions as well as

overlap among categorizations such as sensations, inten-

tional states, emotions, and volitions (Kim, 2011). My use

of the phrase subjective individual experience is inclusive

of and goes beyond “clean”cognitive science concepts

to include emotions and feelings and remains open to

rethinking and tinkering with conceptual boundaries.

Nearly three decades of scholarship on bureaucratic

red tape, more than a decade on administrative burden,

and nearly 5 years on sludge provide the raw material for

reflections in this essay. I draw extensively on my involve-

ment in the red tape research program over the last three

decades, especially from the more recent contributions

with a reflective bent (e.g., Campbell et al., 2023; Carrigan

Received: 21 April 2023 Revised: 17 May 2023 Accepted: 15 June 2023

DOI: 10.1111/puar.13695

1072 © 2023 American Society for Public Administration. Public Admin Rev. 2023;83:1072–1082.wileyonlinelibrary.com/journal/puar