Although red tape has a long history in public administration research, the emotional consequences of bureaucratic procedures for citizens have received little attention in the literature. Within the framework of behavioral public administration, this article investigates how varying conditions of administrative delay, administrative burden, and rule dysfunctionality in citizen-state interactions spark discrete emotional reactions. Physiological measurements of emotions (e.g., facial coding, electrodermal activity, heart rate) from 136 participants in a laboratory study show that bureaucratic red tape evokes significant negative emotional responses, especially confusion, frustration, and anger. Experimental evidence also indicates that delay is less stirring than burden, while rule functionality has little placatory effect, regardless of the favorability of outcomes. These results support the conceptualization of red tape as an affective rather than a cognitive phenomenon. They also suggest that negative emotions of citizens are linked to the modus operandi of public administrations.

A growing body of literature has investigated the involvement of private and third-sector organizations in the provision and maintenance of public goods. Still, there is little empirical knowledge about the reasons for individual citizens to coproduce public services. Research discusses several motivational and situational factors as important antecedents. We elaborate on this framework and test the effect of the relationships proposed by the literature in a survey experiment by modelling a realistic coproduction situation in the context of city waste management. Our results show that general motivations are not a predictor of the individual willingness to coproduce, while context-specific self-efficacy, intrinsic, and prosocial motivation are. Furthermore, access to coproduction resources and expected personal benefits positively influence the willingness to coproduce, while performance delay has a negative effect. A post-hoc analysis identifies two distinct types of coproducers: a decisive type, whose willingness is most strongly influenced by intrinsic motivation; and a flexible type whose coproduction intention only depends on situational factors. These detailed insights yield valuable implications for public administrations that want to engage citizens in the provision of public goods.

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This study investigates how varying conditions of administrative delay, administrative burden, and rule dysfunctionality spark discrete emotional reactions. Physiological measurements from 136 participants in a laboratory study show that bureaucratic red tape evokes significant negative emotional responses, especially confusion, frustration, and anger, regardless of the favorability of procedural outcomes.

No abstract