The Burden of Bad Intentions: Analyzing Politicized Administrative Burdens

• Published date: 01 August 2024
• DOI: http://doi.org/10.1177/02750740241231248
• Author: Chad B. Newswander,Matthew R. Miles,Lynita K. Newswander
• Date: 01 August 2024

The Burden of Bad Intentions: Analyzing

Politicized Administrative Burdens

Chad B. Newswander

1

, Matthew R. Miles

1

and Lynita K. Newswander

2

Abstract

Using a survey of nearly 2,000 federal government employees, we test the extent to which civil servants are willing to use

their position to impose administrative burdens on political opponents. Such an act would create a burden of bad intentions.

Rather than discovering that administrators are partisan actorsthrough their use of burdens, we find that federal public

employees support administrative burdens when they reduce fraud and waste. Furthermore, these civil servants are also

not politically motivated. More precisely, federal government employees do not support administrative burdens that will

give unequal benefits to members of their own political party or that will create uneven challenges for members of the oppo-

sition. Therefore, we theorize that administrators’decisions relating to burden are motivated by a generalconcern for effi-

ciency and ethics, even as decisions related to compliance and discretion may be divided into partisan lines.

Keywords

administrative burdens, politics and administration, legitimacy of the administrative state, neutral competence

At its core, an administrative burden is the “individual’s

experience of policy implementation”that is “onerous”

(Burden et al., 2012, p. 741). Both citizens and administrators

have on-occasion experienced nuisances that impede action

because of extensive statutory-imposed barriers. Even

though the imposition of administrative burdens by policy-

makers has been a primary theme in the literature, the

concept has broadened over time. There is awareness that

state action encompasses both the formal and informal

aspects of policy design (Baekgaard & Tankink, 2022). In

particular, administrators can also impose burdens on either

themselves or citizens (Bell et al., 2021; Jilke et al., 2018).

Situating administrators as a causal source of some burdens

raises significant concerns. Most notably, an active adminis-

trator who creates and carries out burdens conveys the

impression that public servants are partisan actors who

have an agenda and are willing to execute it.

The impact of using burdens as a means to implement

inequitable and partial administration has the potential to

besmirch administration with a burden of bad impressions.

Such an impression conveys a sense of distrust, as adminis-

trators may impose costs on one population of people who

need help and not on another population of people. The

result is that, rather than being seen as honest brokers who

are free from political meddling, civil servants might unnec-

essarily be impaired by the distaste of partisan politics that

aims to treat people differently. Accusations of unfair admin-

istration are piercing, and rightly so. But even when such

accusations are made in error, the claim confirms what

many already feel—that the deck has been and continues to

be stacked against them. Even worse, unjustified burdens

promote citizens’perception that the government that is sup-

posed to work for them is working against them.

While the concern of administrators acting in a partisan

manner is distressing, we speculate that the motivation

behind the use of burdens fits in the mold of an older tradition

in public administration that aims toward administrative neu-

trality and competence. Rather than being influenced by par-

tisan favoritism, civil servants have retained a commitment to

align their actions with a sense of professional responsibility

rooted in competence and neutrality. To examine whether

administrators tilt toward such an ethos, we begin by

looking at the theoretical backdrop of administrative

burdens. Because our study shifts the focus from the

impact of policymakers creating burdens (i.e., legislatures)

to policy implementors working through them (i.e., civil ser-

vants), we highlight the contrast between expectations of

neutrality and the perceived reality of partisan-motivated

administrators who desire to advance an agenda. While the

1

Department of History, Geography and Political Science, Brigham Young

University-Idaho, Rexburg, USA

2

Department of English, Brigham Young University-Idaho, Rexburg, USA

Corresponding Author:

Chad B. Newswander, Department of History, Geography and Political

Science, Brigham Young University-Idaho, Rexburg, ID, USA.

Email: newswanderc@byui.edu

Article

American Review of Public Administration

2024, Vol. 54(6) 507–517

© The Author(s) 2024

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DOI: 10.1177/02750740241231248

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