Jeremiah Brown

Thanks mate!

I show that while there is only one question on the form that a person might answer differently in-person as opposed to online (and without assistance), it is a very important one, and one which is important in determining the level of support they receive from the state.

While many questions are the same regardless of the platform through which we encounter the question, it's not true for all questions. In this paper, I use the example of the Job Seeker Snapshot to explore how answers can differ depending on who is there to help you provide them.

As I argue in this paper, the shift to technology-generated interactions with the state can generate additional administrative burdens, and it can change the way we respond to some questions.

The answer I give in the paper is that increasingly it is citizens doing the administrative work that was previously done by the state (and also us as customers that are doing the work for private enterprises as well).

Citizens putting in the work: how administrative work is shifting in the digital welfare state Current sorting practices in the provision of welfare, used in processes like categorising welfare recipients into cohorts for activation policies, rely on the data inputted into the system. With t...

My newest paper in the Journal of Social Welfare and Family Law asks a simple question - how is administrative work shifting as we move towards technology-generated interactions, where there is no one around to help us through administrative processes?
www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10....

Could it happen to us? Government approaches to learning from the Robodebt crisis — Power to Persuade The literature on policy diffusion is replete with examples, theories and frameworks about how ‘good’ policy travels. Many industries (such as healthcare and air transport) are built around learning f...

In today's post @danielcaseycbr.bsky.social explores how government communicated internally about the lessons to be learned from Robodebt.
www.powertopersuade.org.au/blog/learnin...

I had a paper that came out at the start of the year looking at administrative burden as a constraint on freedom that I think is useful for thinking about what’s going on in this space - it’s the deliberate restriction of citizens being able to exercise their rights.

Yeah, that’s definitely what Don highlights in his recent writing on what’s happening (which I think was the basis for some of Oliver’s segment).

It’s such a fascinating space at the moment, and in the context of our continual shift towards a digital welfare state it’s also getting harder for service users to see a real person to talk through things when they go wrong, which is about to happen a lot in the U.S.!

I haven’t had a chance to watch it yet but I’ve seen Don Moynihan talking about it a bit.

To put it bluntly, the project is an attempt to understand why some paperwork sucks, and how it could be better. I look forward to sharing more work from the project soon and unpacking why some forms are so bloody frustrating...

This work is part of a larger project which looks at the mechanisms that can make administrative documentation hard to interact with. I've been trying to take a very granular approach to different documentation to identify exactly where things go wrong, and how they can go wrong.

It is a particularly striking example of where behavioural insights have been applied in a subtle manner to produce an outcome, with little consideration of the harm that might occur by doing so. It shows us how subtle choices matter.

As I argue in the paper, the techniques used to generate this particular response were harmful to the economic dignity of the people who received this letter, and framed them in a negative light.

In the paper I examine how the initial Robodebt correspondence letter was designed using behavioural insights to produce a particular response - to get people to accept the debt - in an application of clawback logic.

This is a paper about why policy design choices matter, and about how subtle design choices - really specific choices about which words to use - can be deeply harmful.

Administrative burdens, behavioural insights and economic dignity: the case of Robodebt This paper uses the concepts of administrative burden and economic dignity to understand the harms imposed on welfare recipients from the application of behavioural insights in the initial correspo...

Excited to finally have some time to share my recent paper in the Australian Journal of Political Science - Administrative burdens, behavioural insights and economic dignity: the case of Robodebt.

www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10....

👉 Is it possible to theorise #AdministrativeBurdens as constraints on freedom through the lens of the #CapabilitiesApproach ❓

Ellie Malbon & @jeremiahtbrown.bsky.social show how subtle barriers can constrain the ability of citizens to realise their rights 👇

doi.org/10.1111/1467...

Now free access in the journal where she contributed so much, our tribute to Gemma - with
@hdicko.bsky.social, @jeremiahtbrown.bsky.social, Ellie Malbon onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/...

🌹 Gemma Carey, a valued author & a member of our Editorial Board, passed away on 17 November 2024.

@hdicko.bsky.social, @sophieyates.bsky.social, @jeremiahtbrown.bsky.social & Eleanor Malbon reflect on her academic work & engagement in public discussion on social justice👇

doi.org/10.1111/1467...

📣🆕Early View❗️

🎅Are you looking for a Season's reading❓

@jeremiahtbrown.bsky.social & Ellie Malbon study the relationship between administrative burden and the Capabilities Approach to human freedom👇

doi.org/10.1111/1467...

It’s exciting to have people engaging with this piece of work!

Must have been a real mindfuck living in the B.C. times and not knowing what the years were counting down to.

Concentrating on individuals like this, and having endless cycles of the “hero of the month” is deeply destructive to building social movements, and to thinking in collective terms. Both of which are necessary to actually creating the change that’s meant to underpin these demands in the first place.

That culture of public life produces deeper and deeper atomisation, because no human can ever live up to the demands of perfection, and so we churn through public figures/celebrities/stars as the flavour of the month until they do something unpopular.

It erodes our wider societal ability to be charitable towards others or have productive public conversations, because the person and the package of views they hold is the centrepiece of any conversation, rather than the specific idea or problem.

Public figures are all expected to hold the correct position on everything even remotely of public interest, regardless of how little relevance it holds to their daily life, or how informed they might be on the given issue. We’re never allowed to simply hold a view that unpopular/controversial.

One of the worst parts of living in a hyper-individualised society is the way that things are understood at the level of the individual, and of individuals in their “entirety”. There is always a demand for perfection and purity. You can’t have some disagreeable views, everything has to be perfect.