Burden Tolerance: How Compassion and Discretion Shape Bureaucrats’ Attitudes

• In Event: Bridging the Gap: How Modern Street-Level Bureaucrats shape Administrative Burden and Citizen-State Interactions

Abstract

Administrative burden research mainly examines the onerous administrative frictions during citizen-state interactions or bureaucratic encounters. Yet, little attention has been given to burden tolerance—the attitude of bureaucrats toward administrative burden. Recent findings indicate that bureaucrats prioritize clients who express their emotions (Halling and Peterson, 2024) and those from vulnerable social statuses (Johnson and Neshkova, 2023). Still, there is a lack of understanding of the relationship between burden tolerance and citizens' experiences of burdens in various contexts and settings. 

This paper investigates the bureaucrats' burden tolerance. Specifically, we pose the research question: What managerial factors shape bureaucrats' attitudes toward clients' onerous experiences in application processes? Using a newly developed burden tolerance measurement, we investigate both independent effects and interactive effects of compassion and discretion on burden tolerance (Baekgaard et al., 2025). 

Leveraging a representative online survey conducted from June to September 2023, we found that highly compassionate bureaucrats are more likely to help clients experiencing difficulty. Yet, we unpacked that this association is only statistically significant when bureaucrats perceive that they have the discretion to do so. This study makes a significant contribution to the scholarship on administrative burden and citizen-state interactions by integrating factors that have been previously recognized as critical but often studied separately. 

Authors

• Jaeyeong Nam, Kyung Hee University
  Presenting Author

• Elizabeth Bell, The University of Texas at Austin
  Non-Presenting Co-Author