Re-connecting access to benefits? Administrative burdens and welfare to work

The notion of the ‘enabling state’ has often referred to unemployment regimes emphasising the importance of generating ‘welfare to work’ incentives. At the same time, the ‘enabling state’ is said to suffer from a legitimacy issue in that citizens are said to be increasingly ‘disconnected’ from the state. While the literature has largely focused on the policy content of these welfare reforms, less attention has been paid to the ways in which welfare states have sought to ‘connect’ to potential welfare recipients. This paper focuses therefore in particular on the ‘administrative’ side of the enabling state, pointing to a central source of ‘citizen disconnect’ as diagnosed in the wider public administration literature. Drawing on cross-national research, this paper explores how understandings of administrative burdens have shaped the design and operation of unemployment regimes in the UK, Netherlands, Norway and Spain. A particular focus will be paid to the UK with its ambitious welfare reform, namely the move towards ‘Universal Credit’. Drawing on novel data, the paper explores the extent to which changes in the design and practices of welfare state reform across countries have been informed by concerns regarding administrative burdens and how feedback mechanisms have been used to inform ongoing administrative calibration.