Shaping and Carving Out the Burden: Using Administrative Burden to Understand Regulatory Systems

1/8/2022

Administrative burden, as developed by Pamela Herd and Donald Moynihan (2018), is one of the clearest tools we have for understanding how regulation is experienced: not by policymakers, but by the people and organisations subject to it.

It draws attention to the indirect but substantial costs of interacting with the state: what people need to learn, what they’re required to do, how it makes them feel, and how they come to view the system as a result.

When we talk about regulatory or compliance burden in Aotearoa New Zealand, we often default to abstract language: for example, red tape, reporting load or compliance.

Administrative burden, in contrast, helps cut through that. It puts structure around the lived experience of regulation. It tells us where the system drags, where it bites, and where it quietly shuts people out.

The framework poses four simple but demanding questions:

What are people required to learn?
What are they required to do?
What psychological costs are imposed?
And how do they evaluate the experience overall?

To make that concrete, think about something like getting a driver’s licence. Not usually treated as regulation, but it is: the document the state usess to control access and use of the roads, and to some extent, how the private sector confirms that the person is the person they say they are.

The burden isn’t in the rule itself, but in the pathway.

First, you have to learn what’s required. The information’s there, but it’s scattered. Booking systems, ID requirements, test content: it’s not always clear or accessible. Especially if you don’t have reliable internet, high literacy, or someone to walk you through it.

Then, you have to do the work. Find documents, travel to testing sites, pay fees, sit exams, and maybe do it all again if something doesn’t go right. For those without cars, credit cards, or flexible jobs, that’s a serious lift.

The psychological costs can be invisible, but real: embarrassment if you fail, confusion navigating systems, anxiety if your application hits a snag. It’s worse if you’ve already had bruising experiences with state institutions.

And at the end of it: how does the person see the system? If it felt confusing, slow, or unfair, that lingers. It shapes whether they trust the next interaction. Whether they see the state as something they can navigate or something they have to avoid.

This is where the concept of whakairo or carving offers more than metaphor. In carving, every notch has meaning. You don’t gouge for the sake of it. You cut with care, so that form and function align. The same should be true of regulation. If the pattern is too dense, the design too complex, the result is cluttered and heavy. But when the lines are clean, purposeful, and proportionate, the system holds its shape and its mana and integrity.

Administrative burden gives the state a way to carve better.

Good regulators should be asking : are we shaping something functional and fit for purpose, or are we just piling layers on top of each other because we can? Are we paying attention to how each cut lands and therefore who’s being cut out, and who is being cut too deep?

This isn’t a call to strip back every rule. It’s a call to pay attention to the experience of those who live under the rules.

To recognise that complexity, like carving, leaves marks. And frankly that state is accountable for the patterns they leave behind.

References:

Herd, P., & Moynihan, D. P. (2018). Administrative burden: Policymaking by other means. Russell Sage Foundation.