Administrative Burden as Intermediate Negative Policy Feedback: Explaining Low-Income Migrant Exodus amid the COVID-19 Pandemic in India

Abstract

This article describes the social mechanisms that condition the negative policy feedback effects among powerless social groups. It uses the policy feedback theory to explain the role of the administrative burden as the intermediate negative policy feedback that can lead to end negative policy feedback effects. The article elaborates upon the unequal treatment of low-income migrants in cities during pre-pandemic times and how that has led to alienation and civil disobedience during the COVID-19 pandemic in India. It highlights the essential role of democratic mechanisms like media and the judiciary in mitigating the inequality exacerbating effects of public service encounters. The article makes a case for promoting an understanding of the concept of the administrative burden that converges its experience-distant and experience-near meanings.

Keywords:

• Negative policy feedback
• administrative burden
• inequality
• low-income migrants
• COVID-19

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Srinivas Yerramsetti

Srinivas Yerramsetti holds a Ph.D. in public administration from the School of Public Affairs and Administration at Rutgers University, Newark, and an M.Phil. in Science Policy from the Centre for Studies in Science Policy at Jawaharlal Nehru University, New Delhi. He now works as a postdoctoral researcher at the KPM Center for Public Management at the University of Bern, Switzerland.

Suparna Soni

Suparna Soni is an Associate Professor at the Department of Political Science & Public Administration at the State University of New York, Buffalo State College. She earned her master's at the Delhi School of Social Work and her MPA at Cornell on the International Ford Foundation fellowship. She received her Ph.D. from the University of Buffalo. Her work is published in both political science and Public Administration journals about gender rights and public management.

Nidhi Vij Mali

Nidhi Mali is a Clinical Research Associate and Manager with the Quality of Life and Palliative Care Division at St Jude. She has over 20 years of research and University teaching experience in public health, socio-economic global development, and digital governance. She has a PhD. in Public Administration from the Maxwell School of Citizenship and Public Affairs at Syracuse University, a background in economics, and has worked on maternal and neo-natal health policies and advocacy before joining St Jude.