Aske Halling

🚨 New book alert!

Policy Preparation Inside the European Commission is out with OUP @oxfordacademic.bsky.social

It’s about the behind-the-scenes stage of EU policymaking that shapes everything—yet rarely gets the spotlight: how the Commission prepares its proposals.

Link: doi.org/10.1093/9780...

What are your favorite papers that make descriptive claims (as opposed to causal claims)?

I'm thinking of papers in the spirit of Gerring's "Mere Description."

www.cambridge.org/core/journal...

I put a couple of examples below. What else do you like?

Do Justifications Affect Tolerance for Administrative Burdens? Evidence From a Survey Experiment Among Policymakers It is important to study what drives policymakers' tolerance for burdens because they adopt the policies and processes that organise citizens' encounters with the state. Relying on theories on accoun...

New paper with @halling.bsky.social
✔️ Policymakers more tolerant of administrative burden when provided with justification.
✔️ Justifications more effectual amongst right-wing politicians.
✔️ More tolerated when justified to protect budgets.
onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/...

The emergence of the administrative burden literature has generated new theoretical, conceptual, and empirical knowledge. However, the accumulation of comparable knowledge is limited by the lack of validated measurement of core concepts. This article validates a four-item scale of burden tolerance, that is, people's acceptance of state actions that impose administrative burdens on citizens and residents interacting with government, using data from seven countries and 12 surveys. We illustrate the usefulness of the scale by examining its correlates. Burden tolerance varies substantially across the countries examined, but is generally higher for males, young adults, less well educated, those with good health, those who trust state actors more, and ideological conservatives. We demonstrate how the scale can be adapted to specific policy areas and that our generic scale correlates highly with the tolerance for burdens in such diverse domains as income supports, health insurance, passport renewals, and small business licensing. Evidence for Practice Understanding why people tolerate burdens provides insights into the conditions under which burden-reduction efforts might gain broader support. Across multiple countries, we find a number of consistent predictors of burden tolerance. Women, older adults, those with higher education and those in poorer health are generally more opposed to burdens. People who identify with a conservative ideology and trust the state are more likely to accept burdens.

Two new pieces of open access research on administrative burden in Public Administration Review.
First, with @martinbaekgaard.bsky.social & @halling.bsky.social: we develop a measure to capture why some people tolerate administrative burdens.
onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/...

Our research on Need for Chaos was focused on how some voters wanted to watch the world burn: www.cambridge.org/core/journal...

With DOGE it now seems to be official government strategy from Trump & Musk

But the goal seems the same: Burning down existing structures for selfish status gain

Tak Peter! Det er virkelig dejligt at have den ude (og ikke skulle arbejde på det mere 😂)

8/ However, several studies highlight the risks of using nonprofessionals for translation in medical contexts, such as miscommunication and, in the worst case, medical errors. While I didn’t examine these issues directly in my study, they are important to consider when interpreting these results.

7/ So, what should we take away from these findings? It’s positive that immigrants continue to use healthcare despite the fee. This suggests that doctors use their discretion to lessen the fee's impact on immigrants, showing how frontline workers can reduce the effects of burdensome policies.

6/ To explore why this might be, I analyze survey data from Danish GPs. The data suggest that GPs may have increasingly relied on relatives or other nonprofessionals to translate after the fees were implemented.

5/ And now, for the key finding: I find no evidence that the introduction of interpreting fees affects immigrants’ use of GP services. Additionally, there is no evidence suggesting that these fees disproportionately impact disadvantaged immigrants.

4/ Using individual-level register data, I analyze the weekly GP usage of immigrants. The implementation of fees only for immigrants who have resided in Denmark for more than three years allows me to estimate the causal effect of the law through a regression discontinuity design.

3/ Theoretically, I argue that the fee could either: (1) reduce GP usage due to the administrative burdens associated with it, or (2) not affect GP usage, as immigrants might increasingly rely on relatives for translation.

2/ I examine whether a law requiring immigrants who have lived in Denmark for over three years to pay a fee (USD 28–48) for interpreter services during healthcare interactions affects their use of general practitioners (GPs).

<em>Public Administration Review</em> | ASPA Journal | Wiley Online Library Research has shown that administrative burdens significantly influence benefit uptake across various welfare programs in the U.S. and beyond. However, much of the existing research has focused primar...

🧵 My paper "Taxing Language: Do Interpreting Fees Affect Immigrant Healthcare Usage? Evidence From a Regression Discontinuity Design" is now out in @pareview.bsky.social . I began this project during the first year of my PhD six years ago, so it feels especially good to finally share it.

7/ To explore why this might be, I analyze survey data from Danish GPs. The data suggest that GPs may have increasingly relied on relatives or other nonprofessionals to translate after the fees were implemented.

6/ And now, for the key finding: I find no evidence that the introduction of interpreting fees affects immigrants’ use of GP services. Additionally, there is no evidence suggesting that these fees disproportionately impact disadvantaged immigrants.

5/ Using individual-level register data, I analyze the weekly GP usage of immigrants. The implementation of fees only for immigrants who have resided in Denmark for more than three years allows me to estimate the causal effect of the law through a regression discontinuity design.

4/ Theoretically, I argue that the fee could either: (1) reduce GP usage due to the administrative burdens associated with it, or (2) not affect GP usage, as immigrants might increasingly rely on relatives for translation.

3/ I examine whether a law requiring immigrants who have lived in Denmark for over three years to pay a fee (USD 28–48) for interpreter services during healthcare interactions affects their use of general practitioners (GPs).

<em>Public Administration Review</em> | ASPA Journal | Wiley Online Library Research has shown that administrative burdens significantly influence benefit uptake across various welfare programs in the U.S. and beyond. However, much of the existing research has focused primar...

2/ The paper is open access and available on the link.
Below I share the main conclusions for those wanting a short version.

National Institute of Justice has pulled funding.

At what point do the national media start treating this as an assault of federally funded research across the board, or at least, funding is reserved only for politically approved topics?

Does Ethnic Similarity Increase Well-Being?1 | American Journal of Sociology: Vol 130, No 4 How do people react to ethnic (dis)similarity? Whereas prior studies on ethnic diversity and intergroup contact often focus on interpersonal outcomes such as prejudice and trust, we turn to an essenti...

🚨New publication🚨

In a new article in American Journal of Sociology, @tsguul.bsky.social , Kristian K. Jensen, and I show that exposure to ethnic similarity in the local setting increases well-being for the ethnic majority + ethnic minority 🧵👇1/9

Link: www.journals.uchicago.edu/doi/10.1086/...

For all your 2025 teaching, writing, and article reviewing needs

“Doktor, patienten er døende!”

“Bare rolig! Her er en Panodil og en 10’er til slik.”

Walking and Cab Tours in Belfast | Belfast Mural Tours Local knowledge from local guides who live in Belfast. Our tours take you on a unique journey through Ireland from murals on the peace wall to Game of Thrones.

We did a mural tour when we visited Belfast for a EGPA conference. It was a blast! And a really good way to learn about the recent history. Not sure which one it was, but I guess there a many good ones. www.belfastmuraltours.com

Debat: En milliard træer afspejler overdreven virketrang Træplantning som klimaredskab ender ofte med meningsløse påstande om antal plantede træer. Det gælder også for ambitionen om en milliard træer i Grøn Trepart, skriver dagens debattør.

Der kommer IKKE til at blive plantet en milliard træer i Grøn Træpark. Det er nemlig et inderligt meningsløst mål. #dkpol #dkgreen #dknatur klimamonitor.dk/debat/art101...

Publication alert - now online @thejop.bsky.social: www.journals.uchicago.edu/doi/10.1086/...

Danish newspaper @information.dk announces its goodbye 👋 to X and move to 🦋 - with a gif they posted there and here and you should see too 😃

Og I får da også lige denne gif 📽️

fra X: x.com/informeren/s...

The super election year is ending, with many winners and losers.

Our new @thejop.bsky.social paper, (@henrikseeberg.bsky.social, @martinbaekgaard.bsky.social ) asks: How do winning and losing candidates see elections?

Spoiler: Losers are more concerned about fairness.
Link: doi.org/10.1086/734240