A cascade of exclusion: administrative burdens and access to citizenship in the case of Argentina’s National Identity Document
| Author | Mariana Chudnovsky,Rik Peeters |
| DOI | http://doi.org/10.1177/0020852320984541 |
| Published date | 01 December 2022 |
| Date | 01 December 2022 |
| Subject Matter | Articles |
Article
A cascade of exclusion:
administrative burdens
and access to citizenship
in the case of Argentina’s
National Identity
Document
Mariana Chudnovsky
Centre for Research and Teaching in Economics (CIDE),
Mexico
Rik Peeters
Centre for Research and Teaching in Economics (CIDE),
Mexico
Abstract
Administrative burdens can hinder people’s social, political and economic participation.
However, most empirical studies usually tackle the issue of how they affect access to
citizenship merely indirectly. This article examines administrative exclusion from
Argentina’s National Identity Document and its effects on a key social policy: the
Universal Child Allowance. Findings indicate that: (1) administrative exclusion from
official identity documents ‘feeds back’ into the construction of a vulnerable target
group that is systematically excluded from social benefits and public services; and (2)
limitations in the administrative capacity for identity registration and documentation
‘trickle down’ to complications in the implementation of social policies as target groups
remain ‘off the radar’. Findings also demonstrate the importance of understanding
administrative burdens as a systemic issue. Burdens manifest themselves at the level
of citizen–state interactions but their causes and consequences are tied up with intrac-
table institutional characteristics, administrative capacities and social inequalities.
Corresponding author:
Rik Peeters, Centro de Investigaci
on y Docencia Econ
omicas (CIDE), Divisi
on de Administraci
on P
ublica
Carretera M
exico-Toluca,3655 Colonia Lomas de Santa Fe, CP 01210, Alcald
ıa Cuajimalpa Ciudad de M
exico,
M
exico.
Email: rik.peeters@cide.edu
International Review of Administrative
Sciences
!The Author(s) 2021
Article reuse guidelines:
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DOI: 10.1177/0020852320984541
journals.sagepub.com/home/ras
2022, Vol. 88(4) 1068–1085
International
Review of
Administrative
Sciences
Points for practitioners
Efforts by developing countries to develop effective social protection systems are often
thwarted by limitations in the state’s capacity to identify and reach marginalized citizens.
This suggests the need for a systemic perspective of the state’s entire capacity instead
of merely focusing on the design of social protection programmes. Specifically, we
demonstrate that complete, accessible and up-to-date civil registries, identity docu-
ments and other forms of registration are a precondition for transforming formal rights
into a tangible reality for citizens.
Keywords
administrative burdens, administrative exclusion, citizenship, identity documents, social
policy
Introduction
The study of administrative burdens has, in recent years, demonstrated how
bureaucratic barriers in citizen–state interactions can hinder people’s access to
rights, benefits and services (e.g. Heinrich, 2016; Herd and Moynihan, 2018).
This is consistent with the approach’s more fundamental claim that administrative
burdens can affect people’s social, political and economic participation (Moynihan
and Herd, 2010). However, studies often only indirectly tackle the relation between
administrative burdens and citizenship. Instead, scholarly attention has been ‘most
prominent at the intersection of public administration and social policy’
(Moynihan et al., 2015: 47), such as social programmes (Barnes and Henly,
2018), health care (Moynihan et al., 2016) and welfare benefits (Brodkin and
Majmundar, 2010).
A handful of recent publications on the role of administrative burdens in access
to official identity documents and registration (Heinrich, 2018; Nisar, 2018; Peeters
and Widlak, 2018) suggest two consequences of administrative burdens that anal-
yses of more isolated case studies on social policies tend to overlook. First, admin-
istrative burdens can trigger ‘policy feedback mechanisms’ (Moynihan and Soss,
2014) that shape distinct social groups. Administrative burdens in obtaining offi-
cial identity documents contribute to the construction of a social group that is
systematically excluded from social benefits and public services for which official
identification is an administrative requirement. Second, administrative burdens
may be experienced at the street level but often have systemic causes (Peeters,
2020). For instance, limitations in the state’s capacity to register and document
identity ‘trickle down’ to complications in access to social rights.
In the following, we answer the question how administrative burdens can hinder
access to official identity documents and how this, in turn, implies exclusion from
citizenship rights. We do this by providing evidence that exclusion from an official
1069
Chudnovsky and Peeters
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