“They Are Underpaid and Understaffed”: How Clients Interpret Encounters with Street-Level Bureaucrats

By Carolyn Barnes, Julia R. Henly. 2018

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Scholars have explored the nature and consequences of administrative burden but less is known about how citizens interpret costly encounters with the state. This qualitative study of 85 child care subsidy recipients applies attribution theory from psychology to illustrate how clients develop causal explanations for administrative burden. The findings show that clients either blamed negative experiences on bureaucrats—viewing workers as in control of their behavior, or the bureaucracy—blaming factors related to the subsidy system. In rare instances, clients viewed the bureaucracy as intentionally discouraging claims. We observed some variation by race/ethnicity and study sites. Examining clients’ causal explanations of administrative burden helps clarify how clients’ interpretation of costly bureaucratic encounters influences future claims, their perceptions of the state, and their political participation. Public administration scholars have revisited the study of administrative burden, or citizens’ onerous experiences with policy implementation (Burden et al. 2012). Studies have demonstrated how administrative burden affects bureaucrats who implement policy (Burden et al. 2012) and clients who apply for and receive benefits (Heinrich 2015). Moynihan, Herd, and Harvey (2014) have conceptualized administrative burden as learning, psychological, and compliance costs that can undermine the effectiveness of policy, and negatively shape perceptions of the government. This literature focuses on the valence, nature, and broader effects of administrative burden, but less is known about how citizens interpret administrative burden. We argue that it is not just what citizens experience when interacting with public bureaucracies; it is also how they interpret those experiences that may influence whether or not they claim benefits and their perception of the state and political rights as citizens (Soss, 2005). While qualitative studies of bureaucratic encounters suggest that clients hold nuanced views of bureaucrats and bureaucracies (e.g., Adams, Snyder, and Sandfort 2002; Soss 1999a; Watkins-Hayes 2011), few studies explain how clients interpret costly encounters, how they ascribe responsibility for their quality, or the conditions under which distinct attributions emerge. We argue that a client’s decision to seek future public benefits depends in part on her interpretation of who (or what) controls the quality of a bureaucratic encounter. We address these questions through a qualitative study of a means-tested, child care subsidy program. Serving more than 1.4 million children a month (U.S. DHHS 2015), the federal Child Care Development The authors gratefully acknowledge funding provided by the Office of Planning, Research and Evaluation in the Administration for Children and Families, US Department of Health and Human Services under grant 90YE0133. The contents of this article are solely the responsibility of the authors and do not represent the official views or endorsement of the funding agency. The authors are also grateful to the study participants for contributing their valuable insights and time to this project. Special thanks to Merete Monrad and Jennifer Mosley, and three anonymous reviewers, for helpful comments on an earlier draft. Address correspondence to the author at carolyn.barnes@duke.edu. Downloaded from https://academic.oup.com/jpart/article-abstract/28/2/165/4885362 by Duke Medical Center Library user on 10 March 2018 Journal of Public Administration Research and Theory, 2018, Vol. 28, No. 2 166 Fund (CCDF) is the primary source of governmentfunded child care assistance for low-income working families in the United States (Lynch 2014). Like other public programs, child care subsidies aim to promote work and the economic “self-sufficiency” of families. Child care subsidies have received little attention in the public bureaucracy literature. The interpretive approach we take reflects the lived experiences of study respondents (Schwartz-Shea and Yanow 2013). To understand clients’ causal explanations for negative bureaucratic encounters, we draw from the administrative burden literature and attribution theory—a theory that explains how individuals use information to arrive at a causal explanation for some behavior or event (Fiske and Taylor 1991; Heider 1958; Jones and Davis 1965; Kelley 1967; Weiner 2000). We adapt a concept we call “attributions of control”—whether claimants view outcomes as under their control, under the control of bureaucrats, or due to external factors to explore how claimants develop perceptions of who is responsible for the bureaucratic encounters. Attribution theory acknowledges the valence and costs of bureaucratic encounters—a familiar topic of administrative burden research— and incorporates the capacity of clients, workers, and bureaucracies to control bureaucratic encounters, important concepts in prominent public administration frameworks. We contribute to the study of administrative burden by conceptualizing key elements of clients’ interpretive process—illustrating what clients do when interpreting burdensome encounters (develop causal explanations) and whom claimants view as responsible for their costs (distinct objects of ascription). We argue that attribution theory from psychology provides a cognitive model for this dynamic that can supplement research on bureaucratic encounters and clarify the relationship between claiming behavior and political participation. Extending attribution theory to the study of administrative burden also opens the black box of client interpretation in ways that may reconcile conflicting insights in existing theory and the gaps between theory and empirical realities. For example, the administrative burden perspective and related frameworks cast claiming behavior as a function of client resources relative to the costs of claiming benefits, but conflict on how costs deter claims. The street-level bureaucracy framework and power-dependence theory suggest that those with the least resources claim benefits despite burdensome experiences because they lack alternatives. In contrast, administrative burden studies frame costs as deterring the most disadvantaged because they cannot afford to pay the high costs of claims. Empirical studies are inconclusive on this point—and demonstrate how costs deter both the well resourced and those who cannot bear the burden of costly encounters. Modeling how clients make sense of onerous experiences—how they arrive at causal explanations for costly encounters—may help explain why costs deter some clients and not others. These insights can clarify how administrative burden will affect client claiming behavior and can inform policy interventions that aim increase program access. Finally, integrating client causal attributions into theories of bureaucratic encounters may inform understanding of the influence of public policies on citizens’ political participation (Moynihan and Soss 2014). Whom clients view as responsible for onerous experiences may shape their views of government and political behavior. We begin by reviewing research on administrative burden and bureaucratic encounters. We then summarize key concepts from attribution theory and turn to our empirical case: bureaucratic encounters with the child care subsidy programs in four regions: two in Illinois and two in New York. Using qualitative interviews with 85 clients, we examine administrative burden and attributions of control within clients’ evaluations of program experiences, asking whom or what clients view as responsible for negative and positive bureaucratic encounters. We leverage differences in subsidy administration across the four study sites and race/ethnic differences in attributions to explore the conditions under which distinct attributional patterns emerge. We discuss attributions of control as a conceptual link that can help public administration scholars understand how subjective interpretations of costly interactions with government can shape citizens’ willingness to claim benefits and participate politically. Bureaucratic Encounters: Theoretical and Empirical Background Qualitative studies of administrative burden suggest that clients hold nuanced interpretations of burdensome bureaucratic encounters. For example, Soss’s (1999a) study of welfare application encounters suggests that negative experiences do not always lead to dissatisfaction with welfare claims. He finds a “paradox of subordination” across client responses whereby clients express both satisfaction with claims and dissatisfaction with caseworker treatment. Soss surmises that the high stakes of application processes and clients’ low expectations of caseworkers lead clients to rationalize that experiences could be worse. Soss (1999a) finds that clients of the Aid to Families with Dependent Children (AFDC) program evaluate workers and agencies separately, rather than having a generally negative or positive view of their bureaucratic encounters. Similarly, Watkins-Hayes’s (2011) study of racial representation in welfare bureaucracies suggests Downloaded from https://academic.oup.com/jpart/article-abstract/28/2/165/4885362 by Duke Medical Center Library user on 10 March 2018 Journal of Public Administration Research and Theory, 2018, Vol. 28, No. 2 167 that clients sometimes recognize that the constraints workers face (e.g., time burdens, paper work, limited resources) can confine their interactions with workers to brief untailored service experiences. Although this finding is not central to Watkins-Hayes’s analysis, it suggests that clients may recognize obstacles limiting bureaucrats’ agency when evaluating encounters. Adams, Snyder, and Sandfort’s (2002) qualitative study of clients and staff in the child care subsidy program show that some but not all subsidy clients blame caseworkers for negative experiences such as losing paper work, failing to return phone calls, and pr

Subfields: Political Science and International Relations, Sociology and Political Science

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