Understanding Bureaucracy: A Concept and Scale Development of Citizens’ Administrative Literacy

Administrative Literacy is the capacity to obtain, process, and understand basic information and services from public organizations needed to make appropriate decisions. Citizens’ competencies necessary for successful interactions with public administration are an important resource that remains widely neglected. While interactions with public organizations impose a considerable administrative burden on citizens, that burden may differ quite significantly depending on their available resources to cope with such a burden. Research from other fields such as data or health literacy suggests that these concepts influence a variety of outcomes for both the individual and society. Such competence may change behavior and perception when interacting with public organizations, indicating its potential as an important factor influencing behavior such as compliance, and other outcomes. Citizens with high administrative literacy have a better understanding of procedures, structures, and rules. The article develops a concept and scale for measuring administrative literacy using data from a citizen survey.