Burdens, Sludge, Ordeals, Red tape, Oh My!: A User's Guide to the Study of Frictions
| Published date | 01 June 2022 |
| Author | Jonas K. Madsen,Kim S. Mikkelsen,Donald P. Moynihan |
| Date | 01 June 2022 |
| DOI | http://doi.org/10.1111/padm.12717 |
ORIGINAL ARTICLE
Burdens, Sludge, Ordeals, Red tape, Oh My!: A
User's Guide to the Study of Frictions
Jonas K. Madsen
1
| Kim S. Mikkelsen
1
| Donald P. Moynihan
2
1
Department of Social Sciences and Business,
Roskilde University, Roskilde, Denmark
2
McCourt School of Public Policy,
Georgetown University, Washington, District
of Columbia, USA
Correspondence
Jonas K. Madsen, Department of Social
Sciences and Business, Roskilde University,
Universitetsvej 1, 4000 Roskilde, Denmark.
Email: jkroghm@ruc.dk
Abstract
Recent years have seen a dramatic growth in the study of
frictions that individuals experience, especially in their inter-
actions with the public sector, creating both the potential
for new research opportunities and conceptual confusion.
We seek to head off the latter by providing, in one place, a
definition, description of the development, and comparison
of four dominant conceptions of frictions: ordeal mecha-
nisms, red tape, administrative burden, and sludge. In partic-
ular, we discuss the four concepts' definitions and use in
terms of their objectivity, distributive effects, object and
domain, and deliberate design. This article helps researchers
to understand the overlap and distinctions between these
concepts and the role of public administration in these dif-
ferent traditions. Comparisons of the different approaches'
thinking also suggest opportunities for mutual learning.
1|INTRODUCTION
In recent years, it has become increasingly popular to study how citizens and public employees experience frictions
in the delivery of public services. Frictions help us understand how well, and legitimately, governments do their job
and are most often addressed through concepts such as red tape and ordeal mechanisms and—more recently—
administrative burden and sludge (Carrigan et al., 2020; Sunstein, 2020).
With this multitude of concepts—and one could include more—the study of frictions is potentially hampered by
conceptual clutter that challenges the accumulation of knowledge.
1
Some researchers appear to be using differing
concepts interchangeably (e.g., Steijn & van der Voet, 2019), while others contrast them and find some less useful
than others for their research agendas (e.g., Heinrich, 2016; Peeters & Widlak, 2018). Certainly, there are similarities
that provide a basis for sharing of research and ideas across fields of studies. However, the four concepts are not
equivalent. They feature significant differences in definitions and underlying assumptions. Such basic differences
meaningfully alter how researchers approach the topic, affecting both the basics of how they measure key variables
and the types of explanations they pursue. This combination of overlap and substantive differences may cause
Received: 30 June 2020 Revised: 21 October 2020 Accepted: 9 December 2020
DOI: 10.1111/padm.12717
Public Admin. 2022;100:375–393. wileyonlinelibrary.com/journal/padm © 2020 John Wiley & Sons Ltd 375
researchers studying quite different phenomena to be incorrectly grouped together, and it may cause researchers
studying similar phenomena to fail to communicate or to set up rival camps rather than coordinating efforts and
learning from one another.
It is therefore an opportune time to undertake a conceptual stock-take of the study of frictions. In this article,
we map out the conceptual landscape to not just provide a user's guide to a growing, interdisciplinary attention to
the broad topic of what we refer to as frictions but to also address three basic questions of interest to public admin-
istration scholars and other researchers: How are administrative burdens, red tape, ordeals, and sludge similar? How
do they differ? How might researchers studying them learn from one another?
As public administration scholars, we focus the greatest part of our energy on the “home-grown”concepts of
red tape and administrative burden, searching systematically through their associated literature.
2
We also examine
sludge and ordeal mechanisms more briefly as useful contrasts for lesson drawing beyond the field. The four con-
cepts do not form an exhaustive list. On the contrary, as with any relatively broad social science concept, there are
other potential constructs we could have pursued. Some, such as formalization or transaction costs, do address
potential frictions but are too broadly conceptualized for our purposes of studying frictions within public services.
To secure the foundation of our discussion, we review relevant literature. Yet, the purpose of our article is not a
systematic review. Instead, our focus is conceptual discussion and clarification. As a result, we do not provide
exhaustive overviews of the empirical literature on any of our four types of frictions but focus instead on papers that
provide the conceptual foundations and investigate how they are alike, how they differ, and what their similarities
and differences teach us about them.
Our basic criterion for inclusion is, therefore, to focus on papers that develop one of the four types of concepts
in public services that public administration scholars are likely to be exposed to. In doing so, we aim to not only bring
attention to other conceptualizations of frictions outside of public administration but also highlight the overall contri-
bution that public administration has made to the framing of frictions relative to neighboring fields.
We start by outlining definitions and discuss how they differ. We then analyze similarities and differences
between the concepts along four parameters: whether the concepts describe objectively existing or subjectively
experienced phenomena (objectivity), whether they facilitate more targeted provision of public services or inequality
(distributiveness), who is typically analyzed as the object and in what setting (object and domain), and to what extent
do the concepts theorize frictions as deliberately imposed on their objects (intentionality).
The four parameters are chosen for their capacity to comparatively illustrate similarities and differences between
concepts. As such, our choice of parameters is inductive and not deductive, an inevitable function of trying to make
sense of overlapping concepts, some relatively novel, without predetermined hypotheses about them. Our guiding
framework is based on addressing the questions mentioned above, exploring similarity, thematic divergence, and—in
the process—drawing lessons and identifying internal contradictions.
In doing so, we draw some notable implications. One is that the recent work on frictions is expanding the
purview of public administration to consider how members of the public experience the state as opposed to
focusing on the experiences of public employees and managers. Second, there is much possible overlap
between the approaches. Some of this overlap is revealed in contradictions between formal concept definition
and actual research practice. For example, while red tape is generally defined in terms of rules, it usually
focuses on individual experience. Another example is that both red tape and ordeals literature defines frictions
solely in negative terms, reflecting a very general evaluative standard, but the sheer difficulty of identifying
rules that are, in practice, inherently negative should motivate studies to acknowledge the potential benefits of
frictions relative to their costs. The focus on frictions without benefits may blind researchers from addressing
frictions where benefits exist but do not exceed costs or where costs more than justify the friction. Finally,
despite the potential for overlap, there are some real differences. For example, the ordeals approach assumption
that rational actors will weigh the costs and benefit of hassles is at odds with the administrative burden empha-
sis on human capital differences, which implies that frictions have a disproportionate negative effect on those
with the fewest resources.
376 MADSEN ET AL.
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