The Effect of Administrative Burden on Bureaucratic Perception of Policies: Evidence from Election Administration

AuthorBarry C. Burden,David T. Canon,Donald P. Moynihan,Kenneth R. Mayer
Published date01 September 2012
DOIhttp://doi.org/10.1111/j.1540-6210.2012.02600.x
Date01 September 2012
Barry C. Burden is professor of political science
at the University of Wisconsin–Madison. He is author
of Personal Roots of Representation (Princeton
University Press, 2007) and coauthor, with David C.
Kimball, of Why Americans Split Their Tickets:
Campaigns, Competition, and Divided
Government (University of Michigan Press, 2002).
His primary research interests are electoral politics,
public opinion, and representation.
E-mail: bcburden@wisc.edu
David T. Canon is professor of political science
at the University of Wisconsin–Madison. His
teaching and research interests focus on American
political institutions, especially Congress. His books
include The Dysfunctional Congress? The
Individual Roots of an Institutional Dilemma
(Westview Press, 1990), Race, Redistricting,
and Representation (University of Chicago
Press, 1999), and American Politics Today
(W. W. Norton, 2011), in addition to several edited
volumes and various articles and book chapters.
He recently completed a term as Congress editor of
Legislative Studies Quarterly.
E-mail: dcanon@polisci.wisc.edu
Kenneth R. Mayer is professor of political
science and aff‌i liate faculty in the La Follette School
of Public Affairs at the University of Wisconsin–
Madison. He is author, with David T. Canon, of
Dysfunctional Congress? The Individual Roots
of an Institutional Dilemma (Westview Press,
1999) and author of With the Stroke of a Pen:
Executive Orders and Presidential Power
(Princeton University Press, 2001). Over the last
several years, he has been active as consultant and
expert witness in redistricting, voter identif‌i cation,
and campaign f‌i nance litigation.
E-mail: kmayer@polisci.wisc.edu
The Effect of Administrative Burden on Bureaucratic Perception of Policies 741
Public Administration Review,
Vol. 72, Iss. 5, pp. 741–751. © 2012 by
The American Society for Public Administration.
DOI: 10.111/j.1540-6210.2012.02600.x.
Donald P. Moynihan is professor of public
affairs in the La Follette School of Public Affairs at
the University of Wisconsin–Madison. His research
examines the application of organization theory to
public management issues such as performance,
budgeting, homeland security, election administra-
tion, and employee behavior. He is author of The
Dynamics of Performance Management:
Constructing Information and Reform,
which was named best book by the Academy of
Management’s Public and Nonprof‌i t Division and
won the American Political Science Association’s
Herbert Simon award.
E-mail: dmoynihan@lafollette.wisc.edu
Barry C. Burden
David T. Canon
Kenneth R. Mayer
Donald P. Moynihan
University of Wisconsin–Madison
is article argues that administrative burden—that is,
an individual’s experience of policy implementation as
onerous—is an important consideration for administra-
tors and inf‌l uences their views on policy and governance
options.  e authors test this proposition in the policy
area of election administration using a mixed-method
assessment of local election of‌f‌i cials.  ey f‌i nd that the
perceived administrative burden of policies is associated
with a preference to shift responsibilities to others, percep-
tions of greater f‌l aws and lesser merit in policies that have
created the burden (to the point that such judgments are
demonstrably wrong), and opposition to related policy
innovations.
“I wanted to stress very strongly that I feel the elec-
tions have become a huge burden for me,” said a
municipal clerk in the state of Wisconsin. Like other
clerks, it is her job to administer elections amid a
myriad of other duties. “ We live in a rural area, this
is a part-time job for me, and the added duties are
making me wonder if I want to continue as town
clerk. Every year, it gets more complicated!” Her expe-
rience is not unusual. Another clerk said, “ e elec-
tion process has created a burden for municipalities
and takes too much time to prepare for and complete
after it is over. It is very dif‌f‌i cult to get workers that
are qualif‌i ed and can handle all the paperwork. It used
to be fun—not anymore.”
Policy implementation requires someone to do the
job of implementing.  is job might be welcome
or unwelcome, hard or easy.  e burden of policy
implementation is embedded in the day-to-day exist-
ence of the implementer. It surely has an inf‌l uence on
bureaucratic preferences and actions related to these
policies. And yet, the concept
of administrative burden has
been given little direct attention
in administrative scholarship.
We argue that administrators’
experience of policy implemen-
tation as onerous is an impor-
tant variable in understanding
bureaucratic policy preferences. Applying these ideas
to the study of local election of‌f‌i cials, we f‌i nd that
administrative burden has important ef‌f ects on the
perception of election laws and practices.
is article contributes to our understanding of
bureaucratic preferences in two ways. First, existing
theory emphasizes the importance of a match between
the individual and the substantive values of the task
in fostering workplace attitudes and ef‌f ort (Brehm
and Gates 1997), but it has largely neglected how the
perceived burden of a task might matter. For example,
agency theory assumes the potential for shirking
among employees, but it does not consider onerous
work as a reason for shirking. Second, rather than
focus on commonly studied indicators of employee
task and behavior—such as job satisfaction, turnover,
or commitment—we instead examine how adminis-
trative burden frames employee attitudes about policy
and governance issues.1 We hypothesize that higher
perceived administrative burdens will cause employees
to prefer shifting responsibilities to others, perceive
greater f‌l aws and lesser merit in policies that have cre-
ated the burden (to the point that such judgments are
demonstrably wrong), and oppose policy innovations
perceived as increasing workload. Importantly, percep-
tions of burden can inf‌l uence bureaucratic support for
such policies regardless of their objective merit.
We employ a mixed-method approach in which quali-
tative data are used to provide support for the validity
of the concept of administrative burden, and quantita-
tive data are used to model the potential implications
for bureaucratic policy preferences. Our empirical
data come from a survey of local election of‌f‌i cials, a
group that has experienced a
clear increase in administrative
burden in recent years.
The Concept of
Administrative Burden
All work confers a certain set of
demands, and all public of‌f‌i cials
e Ef‌f ect of Administrative Burden on Bureaucratic
Perception of Policies: Evidence from Election Administration
We argue that administrators
experience of policy implemen-
tation as onerous is an impor-
tant variable in understanding
bureaucratic policy preferences.

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