Governance by artifacts: Theory and evidence on materiality of administrative burdens
本文利用民族志数据，探讨官僚机构中的物质和虚拟人工制品如何通过其物质、符号和审美维度影响公民获取社会服务时的行政负担，发现某些人工制品会不成比例地增加弱势群体的负担。
Abstract Administrative burden research has contributed to improved understanding of citizens' experiences while accessing state services. However, the significance of the material infrastructure within which citizen–administrator interactions take place remains largely absent from this line of research. To help address this research gap, this article uses ethnographic data to discuss the influence of material and virtual artifacts in bureaucratic offices on the administrative burden faced by citizens accessing social services. This significance of artifacts is further unpacked along their material, symbolic, and aesthetic dimensions. Our findings suggest that the instrumentality of certain artifacts (or lack thereof) can disproportionately decrease accessibility and usability of bureaucratic spaces for certain social groups thereby augmenting their administrative burden. Moreover, artifacts symbolizing power, prestige, and administrative easing are reserved for spaces occupied by the social elite while the underprivileged groups are relegated to bureaucratic spaces characterized by a general neglect of aesthetics and symbolism of decay.