The higher the administrative burden, the more it will be as the authorities say .... We just don’t bother. Or?

Resumé

The article examines the correlation between citizens’ perception of administrative burdens and their behavior interacting with public authorities. Traditionally, large burden perception is expected to lead to passive behavior (flight). However, the article argues that burdens can also evoke emotion-based reactions such as fight or befriend. The empirical part shows that larger perception of burden leads to more fight reaction and less passivity. It is only for resourceful citizens that a large burden perception leads to passivity. However, it is worth noting that resourcefulness is negatively correlated with burden perception. So, in addition to fight being a more likely reaction to large perceived administrative burdens than flight, the results point to a social bias in burden perception and behavior.