Bureaucratic burdens and bureaucratic injustice

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Go, Johann (2025) Bureaucratic burdens and bureaucratic injustice. British Journal of Politics and International Relations, 27 (4). pp. 1567-1584. ISSN 1369-1481 (https://doi.org/10.1177/13691481251350479)

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Abstract

Bureaucracy is everywhere. We experience its burdens when we access (or attempt to access) many essential public goods and services, from healthcare and social welfare to visas and driving licences. I argue that not only can bureaucracy be burdensome, but it can also be unjust. When bureaucratic burdens unduly impair our ability to access our rights or disproportionately impact certain groups (such as disabled citizens or those from poorer backgrounds), they are unjust. This phenomenon is what I shall call bureaucratic injustice – an intermediate obstacle to a fundamental good, which gives rise to a second-order injustice. This article provides a normative conceptualisation of bureaucratic injustice aimed at those working within the liberal egalitarian framework of distributive justice and draws our attention to the kinds of burdens experienced by citizens attempting to access public services. I show that bureaucratic injustice ought to be a concern even for those working within a purely distributive justice framework (and who may not care directly about the impact of power structures on institutional design). Ultimately, through my conceptualisation of bureaucratic injustice, I aim to show that distributive justice is not merely about having the right institutions and policies in place, but also about how individuals experience these institutions and policies in their day-to-day lives.

ORCID iDs

Go, Johann ORCID logoORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0003-0293-095X;
CORE (COnnecting REpositories)