Does administrative burden create racialized policy feedback? How losing access to public benefits impacts beliefs about government

• 成果类型: Article
• 署名作者: Bell, Elizabeth; Wright II, James E.; Oh, Jeongmin
• 署名单位: University of Texas System; University of Texas Austin; State University System of Florida; Florida State University; Arkansas State University
• 刊物名称: JOURNAL OF PUBLIC ADMINISTRATION RESEARCH AND THEORY
• ISSN/ISSBN: 1053-1858
• DOI: 10.1093/jopart/muae004
• 发表日期: 2024
• 页码: 432-447
• 关键词: citizens; trust; state; PROGRAMS; welfare; RACE; PARTICIPATION; link

摘要

Public trust and civic predisposition are cornerstones of well-functioning democratic societies, and burdensome citizen-state encounters may undermine positive views of government, especially for racially minoritized clientele. Leveraging insights from policy feedback theory, we argue that administrative burden has the potential to undermine trust in government and civic predisposition through two mechanisms: (1) interpretive effects: burdensome experiences that induce negative emotional responses and (2) resource effects: experiences of losing access to public benefits. In our OLS regression analysis of survey data from applicants for a means-tested public benefit program in the US (n = 2,250), we find that clients who lost access to benefits were significantly less likely to trust government, and these findings were driven by racially minoritized clients rather than White clients. Our findings demonstrate that experiences of administrative burden that result in the loss of public benefits may result in racialized policy feedback, by disproportionately reducing trust in government and civic predisposition for racially minoritized clientele.