Theorizing Negative Policy Feedbacks as ‘Slow-Developing Consequences’: Administrative Burdens and the Public Activism Against India’s Citizenship Law Reforms

When do administrative burdens in citizen-state interactions become a factor in visible politics? This article answers this research question by contextualizing the role of administrative burdens in citizen-state interactions as intermediate negative policy feedbacks and public activism, protests, and social movements as manifest forms of negative policy feedbacks that mark the shift from invisible to visible politics. It uses the case of India’s emerging digitalized policy regime leading up to the National Register of Citizens (NRC) and the social movement against it to highlight the role of public activism, protests, and social movements in drawing the hidden agendas, policy design, and implementation practices into the domain of visible politics. It highlights the essential role of extra-parliamentary forms of collective action in lessening the power imbalance between citizens and the state in contexts characterized by the weak rule of law. It makes a valuable contribution by foregrounding the negative policy feedback effects of public sector digitalization in forcing a reconsideration of the citizen-state relationship in the digital era.