The authors ask whether distinct state actions—learning demands, compliance demands, and sanctions—affect how citizens perceive welfare policy, beneficiaries, and the administering agency. Using a factorial survey experiment framed around German unemployment benefits, the study aims to distinguish which kinds of administrative burdens produce shifts in policy support, spending expectations, and legitimacy judgments. The piece contributes by unpacking heterogeneous policy-feedback effects across conceptually different state actions rather than treating administrative burden as a single phenomenon.
2 × 2 × 2 factorial survey experiment sample of 1,602 German citizens sanctions linked to lower support and lower perceived legitimacy
Data and methods
The study implemented a 2 × 2 × 2 factorial survey experiment that manipulated three distinct state actions in the context of German unemployment benefits: learning demands, compliance demands, and sanctions. The analysis draws on responses from a sample of 1,602 German citizens. The abstract reports the experimental manipulations and the targeted outcomes—prejudices against beneficiaries, policy support, perceived spending needs, and perceived legitimacy of the Federal Employment Agency.
Main findings
The abstract summarizes that exposure to sanctions (one of the manipulated state actions) was associated with reduced policy support and higher expectations for policy spending. Sanctions also decreased perceived legitimacy of the Federal Employment Agency. The authors interpret these patterns as evidence that specific administrative actions can produce distinct policy-feedback effects rather than uniform consequences across all forms of burden.
- Sanctions reduced citizens’ support for the program and lowered perceptions of the administering agency’s legitimacy.
- Sanctions increased respondents’ expectations for higher policy spending.
Implications noted by authors
The authors suggest that distinguishing among different state actions offers more nuanced evidence for administrative-burden and policy-feedback research, and they advise practitioners to weigh whether sanctions are necessary given their potential unintended feedback effects.
