Perspectives on Public Management and Governance· 2026Q1
“A bridge over troubled water?”: conceptualizing third parties’ involvement in administrative burden
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- Q1SCImago
- 2026year
Short summary
A new multidimensional framework categorizes third-party actors (agents, service providers, verifiers, reformers) by their functional role, formality (formal, semi-formal, informal), and institutional position (state, non-state, hybrid) to systematically understand their impact on citizen encounters with administrative systems.
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Key points
- Third-party actors' theoretical conceptualization in administrative burden is underdeveloped.
- A new multidimensional framework is proposed for understanding third parties.
- The framework uses three dimensions: functional role, level of formality, and institutional position.
- This extends the understanding of administrative burden beyond the citizen-state dyad.
AI-generated from the title and abstract; the full text is not read.
Abstract
Abstract While the mediating role of third-party actors in shaping administrative burdens has gained growing recognition, their theoretical conceptualization remains underdeveloped. Through a two-stage deductive-inductive process combining conceptual synthesis from the administrative burden literature with an illustrative case study of the Israeli disability benefits system, this article proposes a multidimensional analytical framework for understanding third-party actors in administrative burden contexts. The article identifies three core dimensions characterizing third-party actors: their functional role (agents, service providers, verifiers, and reformers); their level of formality (formal, semi-formal, and informal); and their institutional position (state, non-state, and hybrid). Together, these dimensions provide a systematic understanding of the varied mechanisms through which third parties shape burdensome citizens’ encounters, extending administrative burden beyond the citizen-state dyad and widening the definition of who counts as a third party.
The authors' abstract, as published at the source. Perspectives on Public Management and Governance, 2026 · DOI ↗
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Field: Public Administration
Public AdministrationSocial Sciences