Targeting Cooking Gas Benefits in India: Investigating
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Targeting Cooking Gas Benefits in India: Investigating Administrative Burden and Policy Feedbacks By Srinivas Yerramsetti A Dissertation submitted to the Graduate School-Newark Rutgers, The State University of New Jersey In partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy in Public Administration Written under the direction of Professor Norma M. Riccucci And approved by -------------------------------------------------------------- -------------------------------------------------------------- -------------------------------------------------------------- -------------------------------------------------------------- Newark, New Jersey January, 2019 © 2019 SRINIVAS YERRAMSETTI ALL RIGHTS RESERVED ABSTRACT OF THE DISSERTATION Targeting Cooking Gas Benefits in India: Investigating Administrative Burden and Policy Feedbacks Dissertation Chair: Professor Norma M. Riccucci Governments today face the unenviable challenge of expanding the social safety net in ways that strengthen the social contract between the citizen and the state without undermining individual autonomy and the overall experience of democratic citizenship. All too often, the legitimate politico-administrative values that are advanced as regulatory justifications, obscure the costs imposed by the specific choices of policy instruments and implementation on policy targets. In the context of a welfare program with increasing service outputs, this research explored how the costs of onerous experiences in administrative encounters restructure the citizenship outcomes, i.e., the civic capacities and social dispositions of the policy targets. The overarching objective of this research is to understand how administrative burden shapes citizenship outcomes. In the context of the cooking gas cash transfers reform in India, this dissertation used mixed methods research to explore the originators of administrative burden, its differential impacts on policy targets, and its role in shaping policy feedbacks. The qualitative research findings identify a broad range of costs associated with administrative burden, and how they are disproportionately experienced by the disadvantaged groups among the policy targets. ii The field survey findings showed that low education, female gender, and rural status are predictors of administrative burden. They also found that administrative burden has a negative predictive effect on civil participation, and a positive predictive effect on political participation, activism as well as citizen disengagement. These findings are in consonance with actual citizen participatory behaviors of the case context, wherein civil society led public interest litigation has developed as a response to technocratic implementation. Importantly, the findings also show that even when there is an increase in the policy targets’ perceptions of procedural justice and policy legitimacy, administrative burden is found to be a negative predictor of such positive citizenship outcomes. The results from the embedded field survey experiment find evidence that the strategic frames that use the fiscal and inequality frames are both very effective in enhancing policy legitimacy. The findings reflect the need for foregrounding administrative burden reduction as a public value integral to effective policy implementation in democratic societies. iii ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS I want to thank my Dissertation Advisor Professor Norma M. Riccucci for her constant support and encouragement. Professors Frank J. Thompson and Hindy L. Schachter were always helpful and guided in thinking through my ideas for this research. Professor Gregg Van Ryzin’s guidance and insights were invaluable in implementing the research. At a time when I was choosing a research topic, Professors Norma M. Riccucci and Hindy L. Schachter encouraged me to do research that is important and challenging. They will all always remain a source of inspiration and example for me. The paper on administrative burden by Professors Donald P. Moynihan, Pamela Herd and Hope Harvey inspired me to do research that concerns the effects of policy on citizens. I also greatly benefited by learning from Professors Sanjay Pandey, Marc D. Weiner, Suzanne J. Piotrowski and Jeremy Hall and many others. At Jawaharlal Nehru University, New Delhi, Professors Nasir Tyabji, Madhav Govind, V.V. Krishna and Pranav Desai were always supportive and influential in my intellectual growth as a researcher. My field work in India would not have been possible without the support of Bajrang Lal and Sridhar Chiruvolu. Bajrang supported me at every step, and I can’t thank him enough for that. One of my good fortunes since my undergraduate days is to have Sridhar as an inspiration, and I am grateful for that. He steered me to overcome the many challenges of doing field work in Bihar. Ms. Priyadarshini Jayaraaj was helpful in implementing the survey in a timely manner. Mr. K.M. Mahesh at the Ministry of Petroleum and Natural Gas, New Delhi and Hemant Varshney in Patna gave me time and support. Professor iv Reetika Khera’s work and passion as an academic is a source of inspiration for this research. I thank her and Mr. Abhishek Jain at the Council on Energy, Environment and Water (CEEW) for their advice and guidance in survey design. I also would like to thank my friends, Manish Tiwari, Aditya, Abhigya and especially Priyanka in India, and my friends and colleagues in the U.S., - Huafang Li, Javier Fuenzileda, Alex Ingrams, Yunsoo Li, Olu Sonola, Amber Williams, Josh Osowski, Margaret Riccardelli, Shugo Sinahara, Claire, Meril Antony, and most importantly, Vamsi Krishna Peddinti. I also thank the people of Patna and Delhi for sharing their experiences and perspectives with me. I learnt a great deal about striving through adversity from them. I would also like to thank Rutgers University, Newark for providing the teaching assistantship and the dissertation fellowship for undertaking this education and research. I am grateful to Dean Marc Holzer and everyone at the School of Public Affairs and Administration including Melissa, Madelene, and Gail Daniels for their support. Last but not the least, I am grateful for the love and unrelenting support from my mother Venkata Lakshmi. v TABLE OF CONTENTS ABSTRACT OF THE DISSERTATION ................................................................................ ii ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS ........................................................................................................ iv LIST OF TABLES .................................................................................................................... viii LIST OF FIGURES .................................................................................................................. viii CHAPTER 1: INTRODUCTION ........................................................................................ 1 Background and Motivation ........................................................................................................ 1 Context of the Research Problem ................................................................................................ 2 Research Statement and Purpose ............................................................................................... 17 Map of the Dissertation ............................................................................................................. 22 CHAPTER 2: LITERATURE REVIEW ............................................................................. 24 Conceptualization and Operationalization of Administrative Burden ...................................... 24 Factors Associated with the construction of Administrative Burden ........................................ 28 Administrative Burden as an Attenuator of Citizenship Outcomes .......................................... 34 Theoretical Approaches to the Study of Policy Feedbacks ....................................................... 41 Research Gap ............................................................................................................................. 44 CHAPTER 3: RESEARCH DESIGN AND OBJECTIVES ................................................ 45 Objectives of the Research ........................................................................................................ 45 Research Questions .................................................................................................................... 46 Rationale and Summary for the Use of Research Design ......................................................... 47 Exploratory Mixed Methods Research Design .......................................................................... 49 CHAPTER 4: QUALITATIVE METHODS & FINDINGS ................................................ 53 Qualitative Research Findings ................................................................................................... 68 The Construction of Administrative Burden ............................................................................. 68 Administrative Burden in Cooking Gas Cash Transfers ........................................................... 76 Policy Feedback Effects of Cooking Gas Cash Transfers ......................................................... 89 Findings from Qualitative Research .......................................................................................... 99 Strengths and Weaknesses of the Qualitative Data Collection Procedures ............................. 101 Limitations of the Qualitative research