Citizens’ choice to voice in response to administrative burdens

Abstract

Public-administration research analyzes the variation in citizens’ experiences of administrative burdens, yet it is almost silent regarding their propensity to challenge bureaucratic hurdles. This article analyzes welfare applicants’ inclination to provide a bureaucracy with critical feedback regarding their experience of administrative burdens. We demonstrate that citizens’ minority identity and its intersection with gender, and prior reliance on means-tested benefits reduce their inclination to convey criticism, whereas academic education enhances it. The concrete research setting indicates that citizens’ objective knowledge and skills cannot account for the variation that we find. Drawing on supplementary analysis, we suggest that citizens’ internal self-efficacy, as well as their internalization of their social standing vis-à-vis bureaucracy, shape their voice behavior. These findings imply that the feedback that bureaucracies receive, and the problems that they are therefore more likely to rectify, pertain to those of citizens who are objectively and subjectively less burdened than others.