Experiences of Administrative Burden
If the first agenda asks which demands are seen as legitimate, this one asks what those demands do to the citizens who face them. Administrative burdens — the learning, compliance, and psychological costs of dealing with the state — are consequential and unequally distributed. Here I study how citizens experience these costs, who bears them most heavily, and where common assumptions in the literature do not hold up to closer scrutiny.
Administrative Burden in Citizen-State Interactions: A Systematic Literature Review
with Martin Bækgaard · Journal of Public Administration Research and Theory, 34(2): 180–195, 2024
This review synthesizes 119 studies to map how administrative burden has been studied since the concept emerged in 2012, and offers a comprehensive model linking its core concepts. We confirm that burdens are consequential, distributive, and socially constructed, and trace how the field has moved on to frontline delivery, government communication, and the emerging idea of burden tolerance.
Beyond the Hassle: How Favorable Outcomes Reduce the Subjective Experience of Administrative Burden
with Frederik Godt · International Public Management Journal, 2026
Experienced burden is almost always measured through citizens’ self-reports, which may capture the outcome of a process as much as the process itself. Drawing on both observational data and an experiment that independently randomized the demands people faced and whether the process ended in their favor, we find that a favorable outcome makes the same procedure feel considerably less burdensome. Part of what the field records as the cost of the process is thus a reaction to the outcome, a real problem for a literature that leans so heavily on self-reports.
Taxing Language: Do Interpreting Fees Affect Immigrant Healthcare Usage? Evidence from a Regression Discontinuity Design
Public Administration Review, 85(4): 1019–1037, 2025
When Denmark introduced a fee for interpreter services, critics warned it would push immigrants away from healthcare. Using a regression discontinuity design and Danish register data, I test whether the new cost reduced immigrants’ use of general practitioners. It did not: I find no effect on GP visits, even among the most disadvantaged patients. A new barrier of this kind, the study shows, need not change behavior in the way policy debates assume.
Administrative byrder i mødet med lægen: oplevelser af efterlevelsesomkostninger blandt borgere med dårligt helbred
Politica, 56(4): 318–336, 2024
This Danish-language study turns to a setting where burdens are rarely examined: citizens’ encounters with the healthcare system. Drawing on a representative survey of 1,020 Danes, I ask whether people in poor physical or mental health face greater compliance costs when visiting their doctor. Both poor physical health and poor mental well-being are associated with heavier burdens, though I find no extra penalty for those who suffer from both at once. The paper received Politica’s 2024 best-paper award.
Work in Progress
Personality as a Mechanism of Inequality in Experiences of Administrative Burdens
Experiences of administrative burden vary substantially across individuals, but the psychological sources of that variation are not well understood. This paper argues that two stable personality traits—conscientiousness and emotional stability—shape how citizens cope with administrative demands. Across two studies fielded in a pre-registered Danish survey, both traits consistently predict lower learning, compliance, and psychological costs, and match or exceed established predictors such as education, health, and financial scarcity. The paper received the Best Paper award in the Behavioural Public Administration Research Group at the 2026 ENPA Conference.
Færre valgsteder, færre vælgere? Valgstedslukninger og valgdeltagelse fra 2007-2026
The number of polling places in Denmark has fallen markedly since the early 2000s, driven by decentralized municipal decisions rather than any central reform. Using panel data on all 98 municipalities across parliamentary, municipal, and European Parliament elections from 2007 to 2026, we estimate the effect of a municipality reducing its number of polling places with a two-way fixed-effects model. We find a small but significant negative effect on turnout, concentrated in second-order elections: largest for the European Parliament, smaller at municipal elections, and absent at parliamentary ones. Closures also increase the share of postal votes, so some voters compensate by voting by post rather than abstaining.