Children of a Lesser God: Administrative Burden and Social Equity in Citizen–State Interactions

Nisar, Muhammad Azfar

doi:10.1093/jopart/mux025

Cited by 125 publications

(111 citation statements)

References 36 publications

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“…The public sector is commonly associated with burdensome and time‐consuming administrative procedures that obstruct the effective delivery of public services (Bozeman, Reed, and Scott ; Nisar ; Pandey and Kingsley ). While the “rule of law” in the constitutional state is an indispensable foundation of democratic societies (Weber ), it also creates idiosyncrasies that prescribe seemingly irrational behaviors.…”

mentioning

confidence: 99%

Emotional Responses to Bureaucratic Red Tape

Hattke

Hensel

Kalucza

2019

Public Administration Review

112

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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.

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mentioning

confidence: 99%

Emotional Responses to Bureaucratic Red Tape

Hattke

Hensel

Kalucza

2019

Public Administration Review

112

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“…Even so, we worry that BPA may be seen as an attempt to privilege a particular method in ways that may needlessly alienate some PA scholars—especially those who use descriptive and ethnographic research methods to shed light on complex social, policy, and administrative issues. Such work (see Barnes and Henly ; Nisar ) is necessary to ground and improve our understanding of behavior in the public sector. Although recent estimates suggest that the top management and organizational behavior journals publish experimental and quasi‐experimental research more often than PA journals, it is important to note that such designs only reflect a small percentage (11.5 percent) of all publications (Podsakoff and Podsakoff ).…”

Section: “Methodolotry”: Applying More Lessons From Neighboring Discimentioning

confidence: 99%

The Behavioral Public Administration Movement: A Critical Reflection

Hassan

Wright²

2019

Public Administration Review

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Proponents of the behavioral public administration movement call for greater use of theories from psychology and experimental research designs to improve the rigor of public administration research. We agree that the use of such theories and methods will provide much-needed reinforcements to public administration research, but the approach taken so far might be too narrow and might unnecessarily alienate scholars using other perspectives and research approaches. Reflecting on our own training and experiences, we suggest that adopting a more inclusive approach that employs insights and research tools not only from psychology but also from other disciplines will provide public administration scholars with a stronger footing in their efforts to generate actionable knowledge for public managers and policy makers. We also identify some key methodological issues that behavioral public administration scholars need to consider and address as the use of experiments becomes more common in public administration research. Finally, we encourage public administration scholars interested in behavioral research questions to do more to contribute to broader management and organizational behavior research. Viewpoint

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“…Due to their social stigmatization and illiteracy, most Khawaja Sira live in extreme poverty and are forced to carve out a living through begging, dancing, and sometimes sex work. For further social and self‐identity of the Khawaja Sira, please see Nisar ().…”

Section: Research Context and Methodologymentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Moreover, in its focus on the individual—instead of a group in traditional ethnography—as the unit of analysis, person‐centered ethnography allows for a discussion of the heterogeneity and intersectionality within social groups. Further details of the philosophical foundations of my research methodology are given in Nisar ().…”

Section: Research Context and Methodologymentioning

confidence: 99%

“…In addition, I also observed many interactions between the Khawaja Sira, the government officials, and the public at multiple institutional sites including urban public spaces, traffic stops, frontline offices of the government, and workplaces. Nisar () provide details about the different checks for trustworthiness used during this research. The data collected during fieldwork were coded in MAXQDA using thematic content analysis scheme (Kuckartz, ).…”

Section: Research Context and Methodologymentioning

confidence: 99%

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Overcoming resistance to resistance in public administration: Resistance strategies of marginalized publics in citizen‐state interactions

Nisar

2018

Public Admin & Development

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There has been a general resistance to resistance studies in public administration (PA) research.Although previous research has documented instances of selective policy implementation by PA practitioners that put minority groups at a comparative disadvantage, we still have a limited understanding of the different ways in which these groups contest discriminatory administrative practices especially within non-western developing countries. To address this gap, in this article, I discuss the various strategic responses the Khawaja Sira-a genderqueer group of Pakistanemploy in their interactions with the frontline police workers to contest their hyper-surveillance and moral policing. The discussion illustrates that while Khawaja Sira mostly rely on individual acts of contestation in their interactions with police officers, the emerging leadership of the Khawaja Sira is enabling emergence of new forms of resistance based on social capital and collective protests. In addition to contributing to the limited literature on citizen perspectives and LGBT issues in PA research, the theoretical framework of resistance presented here can serve as a good template to analyze citizen responses to discriminatory frontline practice in other sociopolitical contexts as well.

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Children of a Lesser God: Administrative Burden and Social Equity in Citizen–State Interactions

Cited by 125 publications

References 36 publications

Emotional Responses to Bureaucratic Red Tape

Emotional Responses to Bureaucratic Red Tape

The Behavioral Public Administration Movement: A Critical Reflection

Overcoming resistance to resistance in public administration: Resistance strategies of marginalized publics in citizen‐state interactions

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