Increasing the cost of participation: red tape and public officials’ attitudes toward public participation
| Author | Koen Migchelbrink,Steven Van de Walle |
| Published date | 01 September 2022 |
| Date | 01 September 2022 |
| DOI | http://doi.org/10.1177/0020852320942311 |
| Subject Matter | Articles |
Article
Increasing the cost of
participation: red tape
and public officials’
attitudes toward
public participation
Koen Migchelbrink
KU Leuven, Belgium
Steven Van de Walle
KU Leuven, Belgium
Abstract
Red tape is seen as a destructive organizational force that reduces public officials’
motivation and curtails organizational performance. By increasing the time, cost, and
effort required to inform the public and coordinate participation, red tape has also been
said to reduce public officials’ positive attitudes toward public participation. However,
research on the effects of red tape on public officials’ attitudes toward public partic-
ipation remains inconclusive. This study examines how the lack of functionality and
compliance burden of rules affect public officials’ attitudes toward public participation.
Using cross-sectional survey data of n¼862 municipal public officials and a structural
equation modeling approach, this study finds that public officials’ perceptions of the lack
of functionality of rules are positively associated with attitudes toward public partici-
pation, and that perceptions of the compliance burden of rules are negatively associated
with attitudes toward public participation.
Points for practitioners
•Red tape affects public officials’ attitudes toward public participation.
Corresponding author:
Koen Migchelbrink, Public Governance Institute (PGI)—KU Leuven, Parkstraat 45—bus 3609, 3000 Leuven,
Belgium.
Email: Koen.migchelbrink@kuleuven.be
International Review of Administrative
Sciences
!The Author(s) 2020
Article reuse guidelines:
sagepub.com/journals-permissions
DOI: 10.1177/0020852320942311
journals.sagepub.com/home/ras
2022, Vol. 88(3) 644–662
International
Review of
Administrative
Sciences
•The compliance burden of rules is negatively associated with public officials’ atti-
tudes toward public participation.
•The perceived lack of functionality of rules is positively associated with public
officials’ attitudes toward public participation.
•The effects of red tape are multifaceted and should be examined from a multidimen-
sional point of view.
Keywords
attitudes, public officials, public participation, red tape, structural equation model
Introduction
Public officials’ willingness to engage with the public is an important attitudinal
determinant of successful public participation (Eckerd and Heidelberg, 2019; Liao
and Schachter, 2018). Overall, officials appear to have a positive outlook on public
participation (Liao and Schachter, 2018; Migchelbrink and Van de Walle, 2020).
However, burdensome rules, regulations, and procedures that do not serve their
intended purpose (e.g. red tape) can reduce officials’ willingness to engage.
Ineffective organizational structures and procedures, unnecessary procedural
delays, and excessive reporting requirements increase the time, resources, and
effort that public officials need to invest in informing the public, coordinating
participation, and mitigating possible conflicts (Liao and Schachter, 2018). As a
result, officials who are entangled in red tape are likely to view public participation
as a source of inefficiency and delay.
Prior research examining the effects of organizational characteristics on public
officials’ attitudes toward public participation focused on the role of organization-
al resources (Liao and Zhang, 2012; Neshkova and Guo, 2018), size (Johnson,
2011; Yang and Callahan, 2007), and hierarchy (Yang and Pandey, 2011). Other
studies examined the effects of organizational autonomy (Neshkova, 2014; Van
Damme and Brans, 2012), personnel mobility (Koontz, 1999), procedural orien-
tation (Yang, 2005), and formalization (Alkadry, 2003; De Vries, 2000). A number
of studies also examined the effects of organizational red tape on officials’ attitudes
toward public participation (Campbell and Im, 2016; Liao and Schachter, 2018;
Yang and Pandey, 2011) and their willingness to co-create with citizens (Van Eijk
et al., 2019).
However, studies examining the effects of red tape on officials’ attitudes toward
public participation are scant and present diverging results. Most of these studies
show that red tape reduces officials’ willingness to engage with the public (Liao and
Schachter, 2018; Yang and Callahan, 2007). Other studies are less clear about the
detrimental effects of red tape on officials’ participatory attitudes (Campbell and
Im, 2016), while a third group of studies finds diverging effects depending on the
645
Migchelbrink and Van de Walle
To continue reading
Request your trial