Journal of Public Administration Research And Theory, 2017, 1–16

doi:10.1093/jopart/mux025
Article

Article

Children of a Lesser God: Administrative Burden

and Social Equity in Citizen–State Interactions
Muhammad A. Nisar
Lahore University of Management Sciences

Abstract
An important research agenda in public administration is to investigate how formal and realized
public policy influences the lives of marginalized social groups. Recently, reinvigorated research
on administrative burden can make useful contributions to this line of inquiry. Using ethnographic
research methods, this article analyzes administrative burden experienced by the Khawaja Sira—
individuals culturally defined as neither men nor women—of Pakistan in getting a legal ID. In doing
so, this article contributes to a better understanding of the role played by third parties, administra-
tive behavior and social factors play in influencing the level of administrative burden and social
inequity for genderqueer groups.

Understanding the social equity footprint of public
policy is a critical research agenda in contemporary
public administration (PA) research. Although previous
research has contributed to an improved understand-
ing of the relationship between public policy and social
equity, we still know relatively little about the context-
specific ways in which public policies and governing
practices produce marginalization, and how margin-
alization is experienced in citizen–state interactions.
An important reason for this limitation is that most
PA scholarship has primarily focused on practitioners
instead of the citizens they work with (Catlaw 2007;
Farmer 2003; Jakobsen et al. 2016). Consequently, we
still have a limited understanding of citizens’ experi-
ences and perspectives about different aspects of pub-
lic policy and administration. Given the significance of
understanding citizens’ perceptions, many PA research-
ers have called for a change in the empirical focus of
PA research toward increased direct engagement with
the “ostensible beneficiaries” of various public policies
(e.g., Catlaw 2007; Soss 2014; Williams 2015). This
The author would like to thank Thomas Catlaw, Mary Feeney, Spiro
Maroulis, Ayesha Masood, and the anonymous reviewers (especially
Reviewer 1) for their valuable comments on the earlier drafts of this article.
Address correspondence to the author at azfar.nisar@lums.edu.pk.
emphasis on studying citizen experiences is especially
relevant for social equity research as minority groups
might interpret and experience public policy very dif-
ferently from practitioners and the majority groups.
In this regard, the recently reinvigorated research
on administrative burden—the experience of policy
implementation as onerous—holds much promise
(Burden et al. 2012; Heinrich 2016; Herd et al. 2013;
Moynihan, Herd, and Harvey 2014). Researchers on
administrative burden have illustrated that citizens’
interactions with government are often influenced
by “hidden politics” through which some groups are
exposed to a disproportionately higher administra-
tive burden compared to others (Moynihan, Herd, and
Harvey 2014). Thus, rules, processes, and behaviors,
which might seem neutral in theory, end up sustain-
ing or increasing social inequity by reducing access
to government services or public places for minority
groups (Epp, Maynard-Moody, and Haider-Markel
2014). Therefore, a study of administrative burdens
experienced by marginalized groups while accessing
governmental services might help us better understand
how rules and practices of administration contribute
to social inequity.
To theoretically and empirically contribute to this
important line of inquiry, in this article, I analyze the

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2 Journal of Public Administration Research and Theory, 2017, Vol. xx, No. xx
administrative burden experienced by a socially mar-
ginalized group (the Khawaja Sira1 of Pakistan) while
getting a legal ID.2 The Khawaja Sira have historically
been marginalized in Pakistan due to their gender non-
conformity. Culturally categorized as “neither men nor
women” (Nanda 1990), the Khawaja Sira are exposed
to various forms of disciplinary pressures, harassment,
and violence by the cisgender (individuals who iden-
tify with the gender ascribed to them at birth) major-
ity.3 Due to high illiteracy rates, exclusion from their
biological families and social stigmatization, most
Khawaja Sira do not have legal IDs. Recently, due to
increased urban surveillance by the government in the
aftermath of the war on terror, and the creation of a
legal third gender category in Pakistan, getting a legal
ID has become an important consideration for them.
However, as I discuss in this article, the Khawaja Sira
face a high administrative burden in getting a legal ID.
The specific research questions that this article investi-
gates are the following: What are the sources of admin-
istrative burden for the Khawaja Sira in getting a legal
ID and how do they experience such burdens? How
do third parties affect administrative burden for the
Khawaja Sira?
In doing so, this article makes the following broad
theoretical contributions: First, it highlights the differ-
ent ways in which the marginalization of the Khawaja
Sira augments their administrative burden. Rules that
appear to be neutral put disproportionate burden on
the Khawaja Sira because of the different social biases
associated with their gender nonconformity. Second,
Moynihan, Herd, and Harvey (2014) and Heinrich
(2016) have called for a better understanding of the
role of third parties in influencing administrative bur-
den experienced by citizens. To this end, this article
highlights different ways in which third parties affect
the administrative burden experienced by marginalized
groups.. My research shows that while family members
and cisgender clients in frontline organizations contrib-
ute to higher administrative burden, nongovernmental
organizations (NGOs)—by providing alternative spaces
of citizen–state interaction—can reduce the psychologi-
cal and learning costs experienced by the Khawaja Sira
in their interaction with the state. Third, this article
contributes to a better understanding of the multiple
1 Multiple terms are used for the Khawaja Sira community. The reasons
for choosing the term Khawaja Sira are discussed in Supplementary
Appendix A.
2 In Pakistan, legal ID refers to the Computerized National Identity Card
(CNIC) issued by the National Data Base and Registration Authority
(NADRA). While the passport also qualifies as a legal ID most
Pakistanis, except those who need to travel abroad, only have the CNIC
as their legal ID.
3 The term “cis” means “on the same side of” and the term cisgender
refers to a person who conforms to the gender ascribed at birth. So, a
male self-identifying as a man would be labeled a cisgender.
ways in which bureaucratic behavior can contribute to
the higher administrative burden. My research shows
that through moral policing, dismissive interactions,
and selective implementation of rules, frontline workers
can increase the administrative burden experienced by
marginalized groups in accessing state services. Finally,
this work adds to the limited empirical literature on
citizen–state interactions in developing countries and
governance of genderqueer groups.
Social Equity and Administrative Burden: An
Understudied Intersection
Despite the long-standing commitment to fair-
ness as an administrative principle, administra-
tors must be humbled by the realization that
they contributed to the discrepancy and, in many
places, helped institute inequality in the past by
enforcing discriminatory laws and by using their
broad discretion to advance exclusionary social
mores. (Gooden 2015, 373)
According to the National Academy of Public
Administration Standing Panel on Social Equity in
Governance (2000), social equity is defined as “the fair,
just and equitable management of all institutions serv-
ing the public directly or by contract, and the fair and
equitable distribution of public services, and implemen-
tation of public policy, and the commitment to promote
fairness, justice, and equity in the formation of public
policy.” While economy and efficiency have always
been the guiding principles of administrative practice,
the idea of social equity remained largely peripheral
in traditional PA research. However, the pioneering
work by Frederickson (1971, 1990), accompanied by
other developments in the field during the last quar-
ter of the 20th century, including the Minnowbrook
Conferences, made social equity an important research
agenda for PA researchers. Consequently, numerous
studies have investigated the influence of government
practices and policies on social equity.
Social equity research in PA can broadly be classi-
fied into two intersecting thematic areas (c.f. Gooden
2015; Guy and McCandless 2012; Wooldridge and
Gooden 2009). First, research on formal public pol-
icy—the written laws, rules, and regulations—high-
lights how limitations in policy formulation and design
contribute to the unequal distribution of governmental
resources. This line of inquiry can be further subdivided
into two subcategories: financial policy and social
policy research. Researchers on public finance have
investigated the relationship between different aspects
of budgeting like contracting (LaNoue and Sullivan
1995), procurement (Celec et  al. 2000), resource
allocation (Chitwood 1974; Rubin and Bartle 2005),
Journal of Public Administration Research and Theory, 2017, Vol. xx, No. xx
and social inequity. Similarly, examining public policy
formation and design, social policy researchers have
highlighted how explicit or implicit limitations in wel-
fare (Soss, Fording, and Schram 2011), transportation
(Poister 1982), disability (Bishop and Jones 1993),
health care (Liebert and Ameringer 2013), and disaster
management (Craemer 2010) policies limit effective-
ness and access of governmental services for minority
groups.
Second, researchers on realized public policy—pol-
icy as interpreted and implemented by bureaucrats,
especially frontline workers—have shown that seem-
ingly neutral formal public policies can contribute to
social inequity through selective implementation. For
example, selective policing has been shown to contrib-
ute to increased experiences of racial injustice in soci-
ety (Epp, Maynard-Moody, and Haider-Markel 2014;
Ward 2002). Importantly, policy implementation
researchers have found that the individual and group
identities of frontline workers of government play an
important role in determining how they use discretion
in implementing public policy (Maynard-Moody and
Musheno 2003; Oberfield 2014).
Although both these lines of inquiry have contrib-
uted to an improved understanding of the relation-
ship between PA praxis and social equity (Guy and
McCandless 2012), there remain significant limitations
in existing PA research on social inequity. As mentioned
above, most previous research on the accessibility of
governmental services has remained concerned with
the practices and perspectives of bureaucrats instead
of directly engaging with citizens for whom these ser-
vices are provided. As an example, apart from some
notable exceptions (e.g., Kaufman and Feeney 2014),
the primary focus of red tape research—an important
line of inquiry for making governmental services more
efficient and less burdensome—has been on measuring
the attitude of bureaucrats toward organizational rules
and regulations (Moynihan and Herd 2010). While
this research has been helpful in highlighting the asso-
ciation between burdensome organizational rules and
different aspects of organizational behavior (DeHart-
Davis and Pandey 2005; Moon and Bretschneider
2002), and the extent of red tape in different organiza-
tions (Feeney and Bozeman 2009; Feeney and Rainey
2010), we still know relatively little about the way in
which official rules influence the clients of these organ-
izations, especially marginalized groups.
Even in cases where the empirical focus is on mar-
ginalized individuals, “various academic pressures
push students of political behavior” to prefer “decon-
textualized analyses of individual respondents based
on nationally representative samples” (Soss 2014,
251). This pattern of research, while being informative
about macro-level social equity patterns, fails to situate
3
“individuals as members of communities and [show]
how their political lives are shaped by institutional
rules, public policies, and relations with state authori-
ties” (Soss 2014, 251). That is why some researchers
have called for a fundamental shift in the normative
and empirical focus of PA scholarship and for an
increased emphasis on studying citizen perspectives
to understand how public policy contributes to social
inequity (Catlaw 2007; Farmer 2003; Nisar 2015).
Analyzing Administrative Burden
While there are multiple reasons for the persistence
of social inequity, unequal access to state services is
perhaps the most relevant to PA praxis. Generally, the
response of policymakers to equity-related critiques
is the creation of policies and laws that are ostensi-
bly “identity neutral”; they apply across all sections of
society irrespective of identity. However, these meas-
ures often do not consider the fact that despite the
introduction of identity-neutral rules, the compliance
burdens incurred by such rules are not identity-neutral;
marginalized social groups continue to face dispropor-
tionate difficulties in accessing state services due to
various informal social and administrative biases.
That is why, the study of administrative burden—
the cognitive, temporal and economic costs of access-
ing governmental services—holds a lot of promise
in improving our understanding of the intersections
between PA practice and social inequity. Researchers
on administrative burden have emphasized that while
written rules and policies might seem neutral, adminis-
trative burdens are not, that is, different individuals are
likely to face different administrative burdens based on
their social position on different axes of identity. This
can be due to deliberate design or due to neglect by
administrative authorities. As Moynihan, Herd, and
Harvey (2014) note:
[T]he level of administrative burden placed on an
individual, as well as the distribution of burden
between the state and the individual, will often
be a function of deliberate political choice rather
than simply a product of historical accident or
neglect. The opaque nature of administrative
burdens may facilitate their use as forms of “hid-
den politics,” where significant policy changes
occur without broad political consideration. (43)
That is why administrative burden is a policy instru-
ment that can be used to implicitly or explicitly limit
access to the state for different social groups. A study
of administrative burden can, therefore, highlight
how marginalization is experienced and (re)produced
through the implementation of public policies during
routine citizen–state interactions.
4 Journal of Public Administration Research and Theory, 2017, Vol. xx, No. xx
There are two primary empirical approaches to
studying administrative burden. Although Moynihan,
Herd, and Harvey (2014) analyze administrative bur-
den through different costs (learning, psychological,
and compliance) involved in accessing state services
(or privately provided public service), Heinrich (2016),
in an insightful recent analysis, studied different types
of interactions (intra-organizational, citizen–state,
and citizen–citizen) to assess administrative burden.
Although useful, both these approaches are distinct in
terms of their thematic focus: Moynihan, Herd, and
Harvey’s (2014) approach elucidates the different
types of the administrative burden whereas Heinrich’s
(2016) approach focuses on the different causes of
administrative burden. Heinrich’s approach—in its
emphasis on studying citizen–state interactions—is
especially helpful in studying experiences of marginal-
ized social groups.
Studying different types of policy implementation-
related interactions is also important because the dis-
tinction of the concept of administrative burden lies
in its ability to move beyond the costs associated with
formal rules (emphasized in the red tape research) to
account for more experiential elements (like attitudinal
biases of frontline workers and other citizens) related to
policy implementation (Moynihan, Herd, and Harvey
2014). Therefore, a comprehensive analysis of admin-
istrative burden, especially given my empirical focus on
marginalized individuals, warrants a specific emphasis
on understanding different types of interactions, the
cognitive associations with such interactions, and the
burdens they entail in accessing services of the state.
In the discussion that follows, I use a hybrid approach
that is attentive to the different causes of administra-
tive burden, including formal rules, but also considers
the subjective experiences resulting from various types
of citizen–citizen and citizen–state interactions. More
importantly, such an empirical focus warrants use of
ethnographic research methods to help elucidate the
experiential and cognitive elements associated with
different types of interactions causing administrative
burden.
Research Context and Methodology
Research Context
The Khawaja Sira are a group of genderqueer indi-
viduals who are generally labeled as men at birth
but prefer the feminine gender. Due to their gender
nonconformity, they face social stigmatization and
exclusion throughout their lives. Because of social
and familial pressures to conform to societal gender
norms, most Khawaja Sira are forced to leave their
homes in early adolescence (Abdullah et al. 2012, 3).
Moreover, due to marginalization and harassment at
school, most Khawaja Sira leave school at a young age
(Abdullah et al. 2012). Due to high illiteracy rates and
social stigmatization, most Khawaja Sira are jobless
and forced to live in a life of poverty. For example, a
survey by the Government of Punjab in 2009 classified
84% of the surveyed Khawaja Sira as poor, indicat-
ing rampant poverty in the community (Social Welfare,
Women Development and Bait-ul-Mal Department,
Government of Punjab 2009). In response to their
exclusion from their families and other social institu-
tions, the Khawaja Sira have created their own com-
munity through an elaborate kinship system founded
on Guru–Chela relationships. A  young Khawaja Sira
leaving her home typically joins this community by
becoming the Chela (an amalgam of child and student)
of a Guru (an amalgam of parent and teacher).
Shunned from formal institutions and workplaces,
getting a legal ID was rarely a priority for the Khawaja
Sara until recently. For example, in 2009 a survey
found that only 16% of Khawaja Sira in Punjab
had legal IDs (Social Welfare, Women Development
and Bait-ul-Mal Department, Government of Punjab
2009). However, legal IDs are increasingly required
at the growing number of security checkpoints in
Pakistan’s urban centers created in response to a recent
surge of terrorism in the region. A  legal ID is now
required to apply for a job, stay in a hotel, buy or sell
property, and participate in public welfare programs
such as the Benazir Income Support Program (BISP).
Consequently, getting a legal ID has now become a
major concern for the Khawaja Sira. For example, one
of my research participants, an activist for Khawaja
Sira rights, mentioned that she had never felt the need
to have a legal ID for anything until recently. Now, due
to Pakistan’s security situation, she finds having a legal
ID obligatory. Similarly, another research participant,
whose ID had been stolen a while back, said that she
never thought of applying for a new ID until recently
as “one can’t live without having a legal ID anymore.”
Many other Khawaja Sira also reported increasingly
being asked to prove their identity at security check-
points by the police.
Another factor contributing to increased impor-
tance of legal IDs for the Khawaja Sira is the recent
creation of a legal third gender category in Pakistan.
In 2009, the Supreme Court of Pakistan, while hearing
a case about the constitutional rights of the Khawaja
Sira, ordered the creation of a legal third gender cat-
egory for the Khawaja Sira. This landmark decision,
which took place during an era of high judicial activ-
ism in Pakistan, re-affirmed the Khawaja Sira’s consti-
tutional rights. Hence, in a society where the Khawaja
Sira’s “thirdness” was hitherto questioned, the legal
ID now represents a document that legitimizes their
unique gender identity.
Journal of Public Administration Research and Theory, 2017, Vol. xx, No. xx
Methodological Approach
I have adopted a constructivist-interpretive research
methodology for this research project. Constructivist-
interpretive research methodology is based on an
underlying belief in “(potentially) multiple, intersub-
jectively constructed ‘truths’” about the social world
which can best be “accessed, or co-generated, through
interactions between researcher and the researched
as they seek to interpret those events and make those
interpretations legible to each other” (Schwartz-Shea
and Yanow 2012, 4). The data were collected by con-
ducting a nine-month long person-centered ethnogra-
phy—a qualitative-interpretive research method in line
with my constructivist-interpretive methodology—in
Lahore, Pakistan. In addition to direct observation
and participant observation, in-depth person-centered
interviews were conducted with 50 Khawaja Sira to
understand their experiences of government in its vari-
ous forms. Person-centered ethnography was used as
the primary research method because it is based on
the idea of an inter-subjectively constructed social
world, and enables the researcher to situate an indi-
vidual within multiple social, symbolic, and material
discourses (Levy and Hollan 2014). This makes it the
method of choice to investigate various aspects of
identity, subjectivity, and agency. As Levy and Hollan
(2014) summarize, person-centered ethnographers are
able to investigate questions like:
How are community members constituted by
their contexts? To what degree and in what way
are they at least partially autonomous individu-
als, engaged in dynamic, sometimes coercive,
sometimes enabling interplay, with a context that
is in some way separate from and alien to them?
(314)
In contrast to traditional ethnography, which typi-
cally focuses on the description of a community or a
group, person-centered ethnography tries to “tell us
what it is like to live there—what features are sali-
ent to its inhabitants” (LeVine 1982, 293). In other
words, person-centered ethnography is concerned
more with presenting the subjective experiential real-
ity of a society and less with a supposedly objective
description or observation of a group. Hence, person-
centered ethnographers primarily try to communicate
the subjective experiences and embodied responses of
their research participants. In addition to being treated
as informants (providing information about their cul-
ture or social group) as in a traditional ethnography,
research participants are also treated as respondents
(providing information about themselves as an indi-
vidual) in a person-centered ethnography. This enables
investigation of group level discourses as well as the
intersectionality and heterogeneity within the group.
5
Supplementary Appendix B provides further details of
my research methodology.
Access to the Khawaja Sira community was made
possible by a key member of their local leadership who
also helped me become familiar with their unique lan-
guage—the Khawaja Sira Farsi4—used for communi-
cation within the community. During my fieldwork,
I was able to observe and take part in many discussions
between the Khawaja Sira and observe many Guru–
Chela interactions. I also visited many Khawaja Sira’s
homes and institutional sites during my fieldwork and
conducted a total of 76 formal interviews at 11 research
sites. Of the 11 research sites, three were Khawaja Sira
deray (places generally owned or rented by the Guru
where multiple Khawaja Sira live together), four were
places of work, and the rest were individual Khawaja
Sira’s houses. Supplementary Appendix C provides a
more detailed overview of my fieldwork.
A summary of some critical aspects of the individual
identities of my research participants is given in tables
1–4.
In addition to informal conversations with many
frontline workers from different departments dur-
ing my fieldwork, formal interviews were conducted
with 16 frontline workers from the National Database
and Registration Authority (NADRA) (10) and local
NGOs5 (6) to understand their opinion about the
Khawaja Sira and their experiences of interacting with
them. The frontline NADRA workers (seven men and
three women) were recruited from three local NADRA
offices where many research participants had applied
for a legal ID. The NGO frontline workers (four men
and two women) were associated with Khawaja Sira
welfare programs of their respective organizations.
Supplementary Appendix D gives further details about
the selection of frontline workers for this study.
The data collected during fieldwork were coded in
MAXQDA. I did coding iteratively: After conducting
Table 1.  Age Group Details of Research Participants
Age Group Number of Participants
19–30 7
31–40 9
41–50 16
50–60 12
>60 6
4 Developed over hundreds of years, this Farsi—a unique dialect—is
known only to the Khawaja Sira (and those few cisgendered individuals
who interact with them regularly) and allows them to privately discuss
matters in public (Hall 1995).
5 Since the NGOs whose frontline workers I interviewed were catering
to many basic needs of the Khawaja Sira, following Smith and Lipsky
(1993) I treat them as street-level bureaucrats.
6 Journal of Public Administration Research and Theory, 2017, Vol. xx, No. xx

Table 2.  Education Level of Research Participants repeatability in interpretive research; a researcher with
a different personality and knowledge may generate
Education Number of Participants
different data or come to different results based on
College 4 the same data in interpretive research (Schwartz-Shea
High school 2 and Yanow 2012). Hence, I  used multiple checks for
Some schooling 15 trustworthiness (reflexive bracketing, respondent vali-
Religious only 1 dation and accounting for self) appropriate for qualita-
Illiterate 28 tive-interpretive research. Supplementary Appendix E
provides further details about the different checks for
trustworthiness used during this research study.
Table 3.  Jobs of Research Participants

Job Number of Participants

Navigating the Administrative Burden
Begging 21 Citizen–Citizen Interactions
NGO 5
Most Khawaja Sira find it difficult to get a legal ID due
With travelling Jamaata 4
Shop 3 to lack of cooperation by family members and harass-
Religious 2 ment by cisgender applicants at the frontline offices
Maid/cook 2 of NADRA. Consequently, rules and spaces that are
Government 1 ostensibly neutral turn out to be disproportionate hur-
Jobless and presently doing 12 dles for the Khawaja Sira, making getting a legal ID a
nothing burdensome disempowering experience for them.
a
Some Khawaja Sira travel with ritualistic religious processions Intersection of ID Rules and Family Biases
that moves from one city to another every year. These processions
are associated with death anniversary of some religious saints. The
Burdensome administrative rules are often blamed
Khawaja Sira with these processions are given alms by some locals. for inefficiency and inaccessibility of governmental
services (Gore 1993; Yang and Pandey 2011). While
such rules can be onerous for all citizens, they often
Table 4.  Housing Situation of Research Participants
disproportionately affect disadvantaged social groups
Housing/Room Number of Participants (Moynihan and Herd 2010). In the present case, two
rules identified by my research participants that incur
Rented with other Khawaja Sira 20
the highest administrative burden on them in obtaining
Rented alone 12
At Guru’s home 5
an ID are the requirements to submit a computerized
Home owner 2 birth certificate and verification by a blood relative to
With family/relatives 7 (3 rented by Khawaja apply for a legal ID. At first glance, these requirements
Sira, 4 owned by might seem unproblematic, and for most people in
family) Pakistan, that is indeed the case. However, as I discuss
Temporary Jhugi (tent) 3 below, both these requirements force the Khawaja Sira
Mosque 1 to ask their families for favors, which is a disempower-
ing experience for them.
the first few interviews, I  coded the data from those They [NADRA frontline workers] ask for so
interviews to see if I  was getting the information many things. Bring the birth certificate, bring the
needed to answer my research questions. I  used this death certificate [if your parents are dead], bring
preliminary analysis to inform my interview approach this, and bring that. Look at Najma.6 It took her
and to focus on themes that needed to be explored in seven years to get her ID.
detail. Overall, I used thematic content analysis scheme NADRA officers ask me to bring my birth certifi-
(Kuckartz 2014) to identify major themes in the data. cate. How can I bring my birth certificate? Both
The major themes identified through data analysis my parents are dead. My brothers don’t meet me.
that pertain to the administrative burden faced by the From where do I bring it? [They say]
Khawaja Sira while getting IDs inform the discussion “We don”t know. Just bring it’. They flatly refuse us.
in next section.
As Schwartz-Shea and Yanow (2012) note, tradi- Since proper documentation of birth and issuance of
tional measures to ensure validity in qualitative posi- computerized birth certificates are relatively recent
tivist research like reliability and triangulation are
not applicable to qualitative-interpretive research. 6 To protect the privacy of research participants, real names have not
There are no associated assumptions of reliability or been used.
Journal of Public Administration Research and Theory, 2017, Vol. xx, No. xx
developments in Pakistan, most Khawaja Sira do not
have access to their birth certificates. Official birth cer-
tificates are issued by the Secretary of the local Union
Council where the applicant was born. The applicants
must submit their parents’ names and ID informa-
tion as part of the birth certificate application. Some
secretaries also require physical verification by the
applicant’s family members for issuance of their birth
certificate. If someone’s parents are dead and they can-
not get a birth certificate, they are supposed to provide
the death certificate of their father as a proof of their
lineage. Getting a death certificate can be even more
difficult than a birth certificate. To get a death certifi-
cate issued by the Union Council, the applicant must
comply with multiple documentation requirements
like providing copies of the hospital death certificate,
the deceased person’s ID, and the applicant’s ID. As
I discuss below, all these requirements prove to be dis-
proportionately difficult for the Khawaja Sira due to
a lack of co-operation by surviving family members.7
Similarly, the official policy requires that all appli-
cants for legal ID must have a blood relative—who
already has a legal ID—accompany them to verify
their identity. This focus on situating every citizen of
Pakistan as a member of a family is counter to the
contemporary trend of what Bennett and Lyon (2013)
call “individuation” where the state, instead of treating
individuals as members of families, focuses on having
a unique ID for every individual. While the unique ID
remains an important concern, the primary motivation
of the Pakistani government is to be able to trace every
individual to a family.
This rule exists primarily because of the recent wave
of terrorism in Pakistan. Pakistan has hosted about 1.5
million Afghan refugees since the Soviet invasion of
Afghanistan in 1979. In the last decade, many Afghan
refugees and some foreign terrorists managed to get
IDs as Pakistani citizens. Recent years have seen a
crackdown against such incidents, with NADRA at the
forefront of such efforts. The government of Pakistan
is also currently carrying out a massive re-verifica-
tion initiative in which all 105 million IDs issued by
NADRA are being reverified (The Nation 2016). The
purpose of this initiative is to find and block any IDs
where the family of an ID recipient cannot be re-veri-
fied. A NADRA frontline worker mentioned that one
of his colleagues was recently fired after it was revealed
7 To make matters even more difficult, if more than 60 days have passed
since the death of a person—a common occurrence in Pakistan—
the application for a death certificate is generally processed via a
local court. Moreover, if an applicant cannot produce either her birth
certificate or the death certificate of her parents, she can submit a
legal affidavit declaring their correct date of birth and parentage. Most
Khawaja Sira either don’t know about these requirements or don’t have
the means or inclination to go through these additional hurdles.
7
that he did not verify the family identity of an appli-
cant who later turned out to be an Afghan refugee.
Per media reports, some NADRA workers have also
been arrested for issuing legal IDs to foreign nation-
als (Dunya News 2016; Pakistan Observer 2016). This
has put frontline NADRA workers under increased
pressure to make sure that any applicant who is not
accompanied by a verifying family member cannot
apply for a legal ID. Consequently, the frontline work-
ers are forced to treat Khawaja Sira who cannot get
their family members to verify their identity like for-
eigners or terrorists. As a frontline worker noted:
They [the Khawaja Sira] don’t get IDs because
they don’t want to disclose their real back-
ground…. We only ask them to bring some proof
of residence and lineage, for example a [utility]
bill, [or] property documents. The real reason
they don’t get IDs is the Terrorist Act [1997]
because [like the terrorists] they don’t want to
disclose their true identity. If the Khawaja Sira
can get their IDs [without disclosing their “true”
identity], terrorists will be able to exploit this
loophole and get IDs as well. That is why, only
those few [Khawaja Sira] have received IDs who
disclosed their real identity and were verified by
some “authentic” people as their relatives.
The reason why Khawaja Sira often fail to “disclose
their true identity” is because the rules about the provi-
sion of the birth certificate and blood relative verifica-
tion require them to ask their families for help. This
is a particularly onerous requirement for the Khawaja
Sira, most of whom have an uneasy relationship with
their families because of their gender nonconformity.
Most Khawaja Sira experience (verbal and physical)
violence by parents or elder siblings who try to force
the Khawaja Sira to renounce their feminine identity,
leading them to run away or be kicked out of the
family home.
My father was in police and my elder brothers
were lecturers…. They just did not accept this
[my femininity]. They used to say we judge the
disputes in the neighborhood [implying social
prestige], how can [we let] this happen in our
home? They used to try to change me both ver-
bally and by force but I did not stop.
I used to love dancing. When I  started to meet
the Khawaja Sira and went to a function (as a
dancer) with them, someone told my family
about it. They beat me so much that my ankle got
fractured. I have not been able to dance properly
ever since. I left my home soon after that.
Going back to family in such situations is often a dis-
concerting experience for the Khawaja Sira. As the
8 Journal of Public Administration Research and Theory, 2017, Vol. xx, No. xx

Khawaja Sira are supposed to bring dishonor to the There is no separate line for us. When we are
family name, relatives often refuse to cooperate with wearing women’s clothes, we stand in the wom-
them. As Laiba, one of my research participants, noted en’s line and when wearing men’s clothes, we
“They say, ‘you bring us a bad name by going to these stand with men. The women start laughing at us
people [the Khawaja Sira]’.” Other research partici- while the men start teasing us.
pants also echoed her sentiments:
Consequently, standing in line for ID can be a painfully
I can’t go back home as my elder brother says, long waiting experience as the Khawaja Sira cannot
“This Khawaja Sira [Khusra] shouldn’t come in escape glaring eyes, mocking laughter, sarcastic smiles,
our house. He will corrupt our children.” and the occasional physical gesture by other applicants.
Our families abandon us to preserve their honor. The long waiting periods and mocking by members
That is also why they don’t give us any share in of the public is another reason why family members
inheritance. refuse to cooperate with the Khawaja Sira in apply-
I don’t go home anymore. When someone is not ing for legal IDs. Family members often refuse to
respected at a place, why would s/he go there? wait. During my fieldwork, a special NADRA team
was invited by an NGO to help more Khawaja Sira
In a few cases, even after the Khawaja Sira leave their
get their legal IDs. However, many interested Khawaja
homes, the family members continue to try to force
Sira could not get their IDs simply because their fam-
them to become “normal” by abandoning their femi-
ily members refused to verify their applications. There
nine identity. For example, Reema’s family twice took
were many other Khawaja Sira, waiting for family
her to her family home in Bahawalpur on the pretext
members who had promised to come but never showed
of her mother’s illness. When at home, they tried to
up. Similarly, a Khawaja Sira’s mother had to lie to
force her to give up her life as a Khawaja Sira and even
her family (by saying that she was going for shop-
cut her long hair.
ping) to secretly come to the NADRA office to help
Under such circumstances, asking the Khawaja Sira
her Khawaja Sira child apply for the ID. She said that
to go back to their families exposes them to disem-
she could not stay for more than half an hour as the
powering and potentially abusive encounters. Consider
other family members might get suspicious and if they
the case of Salma, whose parents had died when she
found out that she was helping her Khawaja Sira child,
decided to apply for a legal ID. Due to a lack of coop-
all hell would break lose.
eration from her surviving family members, it took her
more than a year to get her father’s death certificate
Citizen–State Interactions
issued and get a legal ID. Others are not as persistent as
As gatekeepers to services of the state, the attitude and
Salma. That is why some Khawaja Sira who I met dur-
use of discretion by frontline workers in citizen–state
ing my fieldwork had abandoned the pursuit of a legal
interactions is an important determinant of policy
ID after trying in vain to comply with the rules that
implementation (Lipsky 1980). Moreover, selective dis-
require them to ask for help from their family members.
cretion used by frontline workers can augment the une-
qual distribution of governmental resources in society.
Long Lines and the Mocking Public
For example, Schram et al. (2009) found that African
As many researchers have noted (Abdullah et al. 2012;
American clients are more likely to be sanctioned by
Jami 2005), the Khawaja Sira are often harassed and
welfare frontline workers if they had an adverse iden-
teased by members of the public. While they can try to
tity marker compared to white individuals with identi-
ignore such people in the streets, in the confined spaces
cal traits. While not much work in PA or elsewhere has
of NADRA frontline offices, that is not always pos-
focused on the street-level governance of genderqueer
sible. Waiting in long lines is an integral part of going
individuals, researchers in other disciplines have found
to almost every government office in Pakistan. These
that such individuals often experience discriminatory
long lines prove to be disproportionately onerous for
behavior by law enforcement agencies (Grant et al.
the Khawaja Sira because of teasing by cisgender appli-
2011; Irvine 2014; Woods et al. 2013). In the present
cants. Although the government has created a new gen-
case, most research participants reported their interac-
der category, no separate lines or counters exist for the
tions with frontline workers to be another major cause
Khawaja Sira to apply for an ID, so they must stand
of administrative burden in getting a legal ID.
with men or women to wait for their turn. Consider
the following quotes of my research participants:
Citizen–State Interactions in NADRA Offices
I don’t go to the NADRA office now. I went once. A common theme mentioned by many research partici-
There was a long line. I got into the line but some pants was that they seldom receive complete attention
men started teasing and harassing me. So, I came or information from NADRA frontline workers, most
back [and haven’t gone back since then]. of whom have a dismissive attitude toward them.
Journal of Public Administration Research and Theory, 2017, Vol. xx, No. xx
You know NADRA staff doesn’t listen to us eas-
ily. If one knows some influential person, only
then they pay some attention. Otherwise, they
listen to us only superficially and tell us to do this
and that and bring our birth certificate. We are
completely illiterate, and don’t understand the
intricacies of the system.
How will we go there [to the NADRA offices]?
We don’t know what we must do there. [At the
office] they give us so many commands; Go here
and go there, get token etc. We don’t know where
to go. If there was a one-window office, we could
go there.
While one could argue that perhaps bureaucrats have
similar attitudes toward other applicants, it is critical
to remember that citizens at the receiving end of such
attitudes are not similar. The journey to, and the expe-
rience within, the NADRA offices is not an easy one for
the Khawaja Sira. When an individual is already teased
by other applicants in an office, a dismissive attitude
from officials is likely to incur disproportionate psy-
chological costs for them. Consequently, such encoun-
ters with frontline workers often left the Khawaja Sira
feeling powerless and vulnerable.
Moreover, occasionally, the Khawaja Sira are also
mocked or teased by frontline workers. As Mogul,
Ritchie, and Whitlock (2012) note in their classic study of
the interaction of lesbian, gays, bisexuals and transgen-
der (LGBT) individuals with the legal system, arche-
types—like “deceptive gender benders” and “disease
spreaders”—based on dominant social constructions
of marginalized individuals influence the way in which
they are classified and treated by the police personnel
and the legal system. Khawaja Sira are generally sexually
attracted to men, and as marriage between a Khawaja
Sira and a man is not allowed in Pakistan, their sexuality
is treated with contempt by the public. Moreover, due to
extreme poverty, some Khawaja Sira engage in sex work.
This has resulted in the development of the archetype of
the Khawaja Sira as a hyper-sexual moral pollutant in
Pakistani society. This archetype influences the attitude
of some frontline workers toward them. Many research
participants reported that some frontline workers mock
them like other members of society.
The other day two staff members at … [a
NADRA] Branch, started teasing us by say-
ing [sarcastically] so, how can we serve you
[sexual connotations]? We went to the other
workers who were much better and treated us
seriously…Unlike many others, I [also occasion-
ally] confront them [the frontline staff which
teases or mocks the Khawaja Sira] and say you
should be ashamed of yourself. The government
has not hired you to laugh at us but to serve us.
9
Some of them are better [as they change their
attitude after such confrontation] but others,
when they hear two sentences [of protest] from
us, say four [insulting sentences] in return… If
someone is without a sense of shame, what can
we do?
Another way in which frontline workers increase the
administrative burden experienced by the Khawaja
Sira is through gender policing. Instead of acting as
representatives of the state, a few frontline workers act
as enforcers of societal gender norms and biases. This
is generally in the form of objections to feminine cloth-
ing and makeup. In other instances, in line with domi-
nant social discourses about the Khawaja Sira, the
frontline workers doubt the femininity of the Khawaja
Sira by asserting that they are actually men pretending
to be women.
We have to pass through so many hurdles to
register as a Khawaja Sira. [The frontline work-
ers say that] You should grow moustaches
[because you are actually men] … Your face
doesn’t look like that of a woman. Your face is
that of a man.
They made me return to the office 4 times … .
I  am from that area [and] the frontline staff
knows me [and my family]. They said both your
parents are alive. Why would you do this [aban-
don your parents by registering as a Khawaja
Sira?] … . We know you. How can we write your
name among the Khawaja Sira? You should not
abandon your parents’ name.
The command “you should not abandon your parents’
name” is significant since it implies that the frontline
worker was dissuading the Khawaja Sira from reg-
istering under the third gender category. As I  men-
tioned above, having a Khawaja Sira family member
is believed to bring disrepute to the family name. This
is especially true in the case of any Khawaja Sira who
tries to register under the newly created third gender
category. Registering under the third gender category
is, therefore, considered by many families and even
some Khawaja Sira as a formal act of abandonment
of parents. Selma perhaps expressed this sentiment
the best when she said, “There is no use of it [regis-
tering as Khawaja Sira]. People [Khawaja Sira peers]
say do it, do it. How can one forget one’s own family,
one’s own parents?” Many Khawaja Sira, therefore,
end up choosing the legal male gender because they
think that it will keep them, at least symbolically, con-
nected to their families. In such situations, if a front-
line worker berates an already guilt-struck Khawaja
Sira about abandoning her parents, it is likely to influ-
ence her choice of legal gender considerably. Hence,
10 Journal of Public Administration Research and Theory, 2017, Vol. xx, No. xx
some frontline workers, either implicitly or explicitly,
dissuade the Khawaja Sira from registering under the
third gender category.8
Another factor contributing to the high adminis-
trative burden of citizen–state interactions is the lack
of understanding of relevant rules by some front-
line workers. For example, proving “legal thirdness”
requires the Khawaja Sira to comply with an addi-
tional compliance burden. The Khawaja Sira must
produce a medical certificate verifying that they belong
to the third gender category if they want to change
their gender on their legal ID. However, there is no
such requirement if the applicant is applying for an
ID for the first time. However, many frontline workers
still require Khawaja Sira applicants to do so. Since
many Khawaja Sira are unaware of ID-related formal
policies, they end up facing unnecessary administrative
burden at government hospitals to get a medical cer-
tificate. Consider the following account of Rani, who
accompanied her friend Neeli to the NADRA frontline
office to apply for a legal ID.
We had a long argument with the [NADRA front-
line] staff. But they said, “we can”t do anything.
We can only follow the documents you have sub-
mitted … if you want to register as a Khawaja
Sira, you should go to a doctor and get a medical
certificate [indicating that you are a biologically
a Khawaja Sira]. Only once we get the report will
you be registered as a Khawaja Sira’. We said,
“Ok we will get it done somehow”. [Next day,
we went to Jinnah Hospital]. When we reached
there, they told us that we were too late and that
we should come again the next day. When we
went back the next day, they told us that such
medical certificates are only issued at Services and
Munshi Hospitals. After that, I thought enough is
enough and told Neeli to go home.
Eventually, Neeli did get registered as a Khawaja Sira
after her friend went to the regional headquarters of
NADRA and contested the insistence of staff about
the medical certificate, but this episode shows the high
compliance costs in getting a medical certificate for the
Khawaja Sira.
Another example of rule-related ambiguity among
frontline workers with which the Khawaja Sira must
cope is the NADRA telephone helpline; a dedicated
phone service for providing information pertaining
to the provision of legal IDs. To check the quality of
8 The overall response of the Khawaja Sira to the third gender category
is complex and a complete discussion of it is beyond the purview of
this article. Overall, most Khawaja Sira opt to register as men due to
socio-religious stigma; high compliance costs; and limited benefits
associated with the legal third gender.
information available, I called the NADRA helpline
five times on five different days and inquired about
the process of getting a legal ID for the Khawaja Sira.
I  was surprised that almost every time I  got a dif-
ferent response from frontline workers. One of the
frontline workers correctly mentioned that there was
no need for a medical certificate for the Khawaja
Sira. Another mentioned that the medical certificate
was mandatory while the third one told me that it
was the discretionary authority of the manager of a
NADRA frontline office to ask for a medical certifi-
cate. Similarly, there was much confusion among the
helpline staff about the process of identity verifica-
tion for a Khawaja Sira if the applicants could not
find any blood relative to verify their legal identity.
One frontline worker was not even aware that a
separate third gender category existed in their regis-
tration system. These examples highlight how a com-
bination of frontline workers’ attitudes and lack of
understanding of relevant rules augment the admin-
istrative burden experienced by the Khawaja Sira in
getting an ID.
Citizen–State Interactions Outside NADRA Offices
In addition to the interactions that take place within
the confines of the NADRA frontline offices, the
interactions between government employees and the
Khawaja Sira that take place in public places outside
these offices also play an important part in increas-
ing the psychological costs of getting a legal ID. Most
research participants reported having disempowering
experiences with the police where they were humili-
ated, harassed, or detained after seemingly arbitrary
stops in urban public spaces. Sometimes these stops
are used as a pretext to make easy money from the
Khawaja Sira by forcing them to pay a bribe to
stay free.
I have had multiple encounters with the police.
They misbehave a lot. They never talk in a
respectable manner. First, they curse us and then
ask, “Who are you? What are you doing here?”
One day I got off at the bus stop while going to
work [in an NGO], the Police detained me [with-
out providing any reason] and took me away.
When I told them, I don’t have any money at all
[to bribe them], they let me go.
The taken-for-granted notion of Khawaja Sira hyper-
sexuality means that any adult male in conversation
with them in everyday spaces is deemed a potential sex
partner, and this assumption is often communicated
loud and clear by police officers. Many research par-
ticipants mentioned that police often accused them of
being sex workers, especially when accompanied by an
adult male companion.
Journal of Public Administration Research and Theory, 2017, Vol. xx, No. xx
Even if we are going somewhere with a family
member such as a brother, they [policemen] will
ask us, “Who is he? What is he paying you [alleg-
edly for sexual favors]?” They believe that the
only thing we can do is sex and nothing else. That
is completely wrong.
Once, I  was begging near the Wapda Town
Roundabout and a motorcycle rider stopped at
the signal. I  asked them to give me something
in the name of Allah. The policemen quickly
stopped both the rider and me. They asked me,
“Who is he? Has he come to take you [for a
sexual encounter]? He will violate you. Do you
know that?”
Experienced policemen [in our area] know us
and don’t disturb us … but whenever there is
new staff … they are very strict and are always
stopping us … . They say, “You are destroying the
society. You make [sexual] deals with men.”
While their clients are generally perceived as innocent
men who could not resist temptation, the few Khawaja
Sira who engage in sex work are held to be representa-
tive of all Khawaja Sira by some police officers. An
important consequence of the negative attitudes of
police is that most Khawaja Sira do not report offenses
against them to the police. For example, some research
participants reported being sexually harassed or raped,
but they never mentioned going to the police as a via-
ble option for them.
Others [a reference to the cisgender individual]
have the police. If they have some problem, they
can go to police where their problems are heard
and investigated … . We should also have some
protection [from the police] so that we can also
speak up. Only then will the public have some
fear that if they cross us, we can go to court
against them.
These interactions with frontline workers of other
departments are significant because the behavior of
individual citizens and the actions of governmental
institutions are not completely independent. A frontline
worker represents the visual interface of the state for
the applicants trying to access governmental services.
If a Khawaja Sira has experienced multiple incidents
of marginalization at the hands of police, her percep-
tion of a frontline worker in another department—like
NADRA—might be very different from that of a per-
son who has had no such experience. The psychologi-
cal cost of going to a government office and having to
interact with government employees is much higher for
the Khawaja Sira who have experienced discrimina-
tion by other frontline workers before. Moreover, this
also makes the Khawaja Sira less likely to contest the
11
dismissive behavior of frontline workers of NADRA as
they consider it to be the “normal” behavior of a state
representative towards them.
Third Parties and Administrative Burden
Third parties often influence the level of administrative
burden experienced by the Khawaja Sira in important
ways. As I discussed above, families often increase the
compliance costs of getting a legal ID for the Khawaja
Sira by withholding cooperation or asking for favors in
return for verification. Similarly, cisgender applicants
increase the psychological costs of getting a legal ID
for the Khawaja Sira through their teasing and har-
assment. In addition to individual family members or
other clients in frontline offices, institutionalized third
parties can also influence the administrative burden
experienced by the Khawaja Sira. For example, during
my fieldwork, a local NGO was helping the Khawaja
Sira get legal IDs by briefing them about the rules
and regulations related to ID provision. In effect, this
meant reducing the learning costs of getting IDs for
the Khawaja Sira, which helped some Khawaja Sira get
their IDs.
However, the role of NGOs in reducing the adminis-
trative burden of getting a legal ID goes beyond simple
reduction of learning or compliance costs. For exam-
ple, a local NGO in Lahore coordinated with NADRA
authorities to arrange a special team of frontline work-
ers for the provision of legal IDs to the Khawaja Sira.
A team of three frontline workers was eventually sent
to the monthly meeting of Khawaja Sira clients of that
NGO which I also attended. The best way to concep-
tualize the primary way in which this meeting eased
the process of getting a legal ID for the Khawaja Sira
is through the concept of space. As Massey (1994,
179) notes,
[S]pace and place are important in the con-
struction of gender relations and in struggles
to change them. From the symbolic meaning of
spaces/places and the clearly gendered messages
which they transmit, to straightforward exclu-
sion by violence, spaces and places are not only
themselves gendered but, in there being so, they
both reflect and affect the ways in which gender
is constructed and understood.
The difference in the citizen–state interactions at this
meeting and the NADRA frontline offices was striking.
As the preceding discussion highlights, the Khawaja
Sira experience the NADRA frontline offices as cisgen-
der spaces where they are treated as outsiders. There
are generally long lines at NADRA offices with no sep-
arate lines for the Khawaja Sira. In the congested spaces
of these frontline offices, the Khawaja Sira struggle to
“fit in.” On the other hand, there were no lines when
12 Journal of Public Administration Research and Theory, 2017, Vol. xx, No. xx
the special NADRA team visited the monthly meeting.
Unlike the NADRA front offices, no one seemed in a
rush. Everyone knew they would be accommodated
and waiting in an air-conditioned hall, sitting on com-
fortable chairs with friends did not seem to be as much
of an inconvenience as compared to braving the alien
space of NADRA frontline offices where the Khawaja
Sira were often treated as unwanted objects.
In addition, the nature of material space was dis-
tinctly different as compared to the NADRA frontline
offices. It was a space in which the Khawaja Sira were
very comfortable since their monthly meetings with
the NGO project staff were carried out within it. Most
Khawaja Sira were dressed up (wearing their best femi-
nine clothing and makeup) for the monthly meeting
as compared to the NADRA offices where they gener-
ally dress either in their routine clothes or in masculine
clothing to hide their feminine identity. Consequently,
they were more familiar with that space than the
NADRA officials and were visibly more comfortable
in interacting with them as compared to at NADRA
offices. It was a space where the Khawaja Sira were the
insiders and their cisgender relatives and the NADRA
officials were outsiders.
In many ways, this meeting represented a third
space: “a site where things are articulated and disar-
ticulated, and a practice that offers an opportunity to
reflect on and revision the ways in which discourses
have been used to erase, obscure, or exclude” (Licona
2012, 13). Hence, in addition to the altered citizen–
state interactions, better mutual understanding and
enhanced knowledge sharing were also possible within
this space. For example, one of my research participants
developed an acquaintance with one of the frontline
NADRA workers at that gathering; a contact which
was of great use later when she used the help of that
NADRA employee to contest arbitrary requirements
of another frontline worker. Moreover, in a familiar
space where they were in the majority, many Khawaja
Sira were also able to ask questions about different
rules related to the provision of legal IDs which they
could not have otherwise.
Hence, this reconfiguration of the spatial arrange-
ments surrounding the citizen–state relationship
allowed the local NGO to reduce the administrative
burden experienced by the Khawaja Sira by lower-
ing socio-psychological and learning costs associated
with getting a legal ID. However, dependence on fam-
ily members continued to remain an important hurdle
for the Khawaja Sira. The family members of some
Khawaja Sira did not show up due to which their ID
requests could not be processed. In the first meeting, 12
Khawaja Sira completed documentation for legal IDs.
This number might seem low, but as many NADRA
frontline workers told me, they generally receive less
than 10 Khawaja Sira applicants at their branches per
month. Moreover, the NADRA team came to the next
two monthly meetings as well, and the documentation
of more than 20 Khawaja Sira was completed each
time.
Discussion
In this section, I  discuss the main insights from my
analysis and elaborate how they inform the existing
research on administrative burden, social equity, and
frontline workers.
First, this article highlights the different ways in
which the social marginalization of the Khawaja Sira
intersects with official rules to increase the administra-
tive burden experienced by them. While legally there
is no special provision that prohibits the Khawaja Sira
getting an ID, getting an ID is not just a challenging
experience but one that leaves them feeling powerless
and helpless owing to their social marginalization. As
Herd (2015) and Moynihan and Herd (2010) note,
even seemingly neutral rules can result in some sec-
tions of society being exposed to disproportionately
more costs of doing business with the state. In the case
of Khawaja Sira, the high administrative burden often
results in them failing to get legal IDs which limits their
job opportunities and makes the frequent stops by
police in their everyday lives an even bigger nuisance.
However, my research shows that it would be incor-
rect to attribute the administrative burden experienced
by the Khawaja Sira exclusively on “hidden politics.”
Indeed, the deliberate design does inform the crea-
tion of administrative burden in many instances (e.g.,
Moynihan, Herd and Harvey 2014). Even in the pre-
sent case, the requirement to provide a medical certifi-
cate to change one’s legal gender is an example of such
an onerous rule which should be amended. However,
this research highlights that administrative burdens can
also be inadvertent consequences of seemingly neutral
rules that end up increasing compliance costs for some
individuals because of their social marginalization. For
example, the requirement of a birth certificate to apply
for a legal ID is not deliberately meant to make the
provision of IDs more burdensome for the Khawaja
Sira, but becomes onerous for them because of lack
of cooperation by their families. Similarly, the choice
to move the poor from welfare to work in the United
States was surely politically motivated, but the result-
ing administrative burden on the poor was amplified
by social factors like changes in the contemporary low-
wage labor market in which employers seek to mini-
mize labor costs and hours and require on-call workers
that work against meeting workfare requirements
(Matthews 2016). Hence, an important insight of my
analysis is to be cautious about the “agentification” of
Journal of Public Administration Research and Theory, 2017, Vol. xx, No. xx
administrative burdens and the resulting social ineq-
uity. The broader social milieu serves as an important
contextual factor that can increase the administrative
burden manifold for some groups. Therefore, it is criti-
cal to distinguish “official burden”—arising from pub-
lic policy—from “social burden”—arising from social
factors—in future research. Doing so will also help in
designing measures to reduce administrative burden; if
policy implementation is onerous primarily because of
social factors, interventions that address such biases—
instead of administrative changes—are likely to be a
better investment of time and resources.
Second, this article contributes to a better under-
standing of the different ways in which third par-
ties influence administrative burden experienced
by marginalized groups. My research indicates that
NGOs—by providing alternative spaces of citizen–
state interactions—can reduce the administrative bur-
den for marginalized groups. In doing so, my research
highlights that space is an important contextual factor
which can influence the nature of citizen–state inter-
actions and their associated administrative burden.
Alternative spatial arrangements not only have the
potential to reduce administrative burdens but also to
increase mutual understanding between citizens and
frontline workers. The idea of creating such “third
spaces” can provide a useful new lens to approach the
role of NGOs in other policy areas (like public partici-
pation and collaborative governance) as well.
Importantly, my research also points to the impor-
tance of analyzing citizen–citizen interactions in front-
line organizations, something often ignored in previous
research. In many developing countries, long waiting
lines at public organizations mean that applicants
spend a lot of time interacting with other citizens. For
marginalized groups, this represents another instance
in which they are exposed to the normalizing pres-
sures of dominant social groups. Consequently, public
offices, which should be a safe place for such groups,
can end up being exactly the opposite. Future research
comparing citizen–citizen interactions in different
organizations and contexts can highlight whether there
are organizational, spatial, and social factors that lead
to such interactions being more onerous in certain
circumstances.
Third, my analysis highlights that the attitude of
NADRA frontline workers is another important deter-
minant of administrative burden for the Khawaja Sira.
For many research participants, some frontline work-
ers acted as obstructive agents whose actions were not
only at odds with the stated policies and the desires of
their clients but actively prevented them from exercis-
ing their options (regarding their legal gender) in an
informed manner. Some research participants could
not get IDs only because of the attitude of frontline
13
workers trying to police and protect dominant soci-
etal norms. Therefore, it is critical to remember that
frontline workers are also socially situated individuals
who rely on dominant social norms in implementing
the formal rules and interpreting the citizen identities
and in doing so may augment the administrative bur-
den experienced by minority groups.
Hence, this analysis supports the importance of
going beyond the study of rules and their percep-
tion (red tape) to a study of associated administrative
behavior and socio-psychological context (adminis-
trative burden) (Moynihan, Herd, and Harvey 2014).
This comment is not meant to discount the importance
of red tape research, which has contributed signifi-
cantly to an improved understanding of rules that do
not contribute to organizational or stakeholder objec-
tives. However, in the present case, almost all rules of
ID provision serve important objectives for the state
related to legibility and reliable identification of its
citizens (low organizational red tape). Similarly, some
administrative burden experienced by the Khawaja
Sira is due to burdensome rules—like the requirement
to provide a medical certificate to change one’s gen-
der—(moderate stakeholder red tape), other factors,
like the psychological costs arising from citizen–state
interactions, are not accounted for by red tape theory.
Hence, a red tape based analysis would significantly
underestimate the administrative burden experienced
by the Khawaja Sira. Future research comparing levels
of stakeholder red tape and administrative burden in
other contexts can further refine this important insight.
More importantly, this study illustrates the impor-
tance of studying administrative burdens targeting spe-
cific marginalized groups. In the present case, a study
of a representative sample of the Pakistani population
would most likely show a relatively low level of admin-
istrative burden as most rules for ID provision might
not be burdensome for the majority. Unfortunately,
viewed from the perspective of the Khawaja Sira, many
of these rules are onerous distractions as social discrim-
ination and imperfect implementation result in them
experiencing high administrative burden. This points
to the need to conduct targeted analyses of administra-
tive burden with the marginalized groups likely to be
disproportionately affected by official rules.
Finally, this article also contributes to the limited
literature on the intersection between PA and gender-
queer individuals. As Candler, Johnson, and Anderson
2009, 236)  note, “LGBT scholars see an unwelcom-
ing environment in public affairs, and so opt for other
professional associations to write on LGBT issues.”
Consequently, PA research on LGBT issues continues
to remain “woefully inadequate” (Candler, Johnson,
and Anderson 2009, 236). Since the PA had a his-
torically important role to play in the categorization
14 Journal of Public Administration Research and Theory, 2017, Vol. xx, No. xx
(Canaday 2009) and management (Taylor 2007) of
LGBT groups, it is critical to study the intersections
of administrative praxis and the citizenship of LGBT
groups. Relatedly, most research on citizenship in gen-
eral and LGBT groups, in particular, has been done
primarily in Western, developed countries. The citizen–
state relationship can be different within non-Western
developing countries (Inoguchi and Blondel 2010) due
to various contextual factors (e.g., in the capacity of
the government to deal with identity differences within
its citizens). Therefore, it is important to expand the PA
canon to developing world contexts to understand the
different ways in which administrative practice affects
social equity ideas in other socio-political contexts.
Through a theoretically informed empirical analy-
sis of the interactions between a genderqueer group
and frontline workers of the Pakistani government,
this article contributes to addressing these important
gaps in PA research on LGBT groups and develop-
ing countries. In doing so, this article also extends the
limited literature (Álvarez, Devoto, and Winters 2008;
Heinrich 2016) on analytics of administrative burden
and social inequity in developing countries.
Conclusion
Having an accessible and equitable government
remains an important social ideal. To achieve this ideal,
the study of administrative burden offers a useful way
to assess the different costs involved in accessing gov-
ernment services. This article illustrates that it is vital
to conduct focused analyses of administrative burden
on marginalized social groups as they are likely to
face unique challenges in accessing state services. My
research further highlights that, in addition to formal
policy design, limitations of policy implementation,
social biases, and third parties play an important role
in increasing administrative burden for marginalized
individuals.
In addition to its theoretical contributions, this
research offers important practical insights to reduce
the administrative burden for marginalized groups.
My research shows that rules and policies can incur
very different degrees of compliance burden on citi-
zens depending upon their social identities and broader
social milieu. Hence, rules and policies—like the
requirement to have a blood relative verify the appli-
cant’s identity for ID provision—should have special
consideration for less privileged sections of society if
there is empirical evidence that they are experienc-
ing disproportionate administrative burden because
of them.
One way to address this issue is to introduce special
measures (officially or in coordination with nonprof-
its) to cater to the specific needs of the marginalized
groups. For example, in the NADRA frontline offices,
Friday is designated as “woman applicants only” day
to help them avoid the long lines during normal days
and to make them feel comfortable in the otherwise
cramped spaces of these offices. A simple yet effective
way to reduce many aspects of the administrative bur-
den experienced by the Khawaja Sira are to allocate a
separate day when only Khawaja Sira applicants can
come to NADRA frontline offices. Another strategy
could be to arrange special teams for ID provision in
alternative spaces in coordination with NGOs work-
ing with the Khawaja Sira. This would likely reduce
the administrative burden arising from citizen–citizen
and citizen–state interactions. In addition, it will likely
encourage the family members of the Khawaja Sira to
co-operate more frequently for verification require-
ments, as they will not be “exposed” in front of cisgen-
der individuals.
Another way to increase the responsiveness of
frontline workers to the Khawaja Sira is by increas-
ing representation of this community in street-level
bureaucracy. Due to high levels of illiteracy among the
Khawaja Sira, this is a difficult task, but as the repre-
sentative bureaucracy research (Meier 1993; Meier and
Crotty 2006; Dolan 2000) highlights, the dividends are
likely to be high in terms of increased accessibility and
responsiveness of frontline workers. Finally, it is also
critical to echo Frederickson’s call for a “compensatory
ethic” in public administrators’ behavior as an impor-
tant step in reducing the administrative burden for the
less privileged sections of society.
A full commitment to social equity might well
result in the development of a kind of compensa-
tory ethic, that is a norm which tells the adminis-
trator that public services must be especially well
developed in those areas of his community which
have the most critical need. Such a compensa-
tory ethic would have the effect of balancing the
inherited disadvantage of the poor. (Frederickson
as cited in Hart 1974, 9)
Supplementary Material
Supplementary data are available at Journal of Public
Administration Research and Theory online.
Funding
This work was supported by the American Institute of
Pakistan Studies and GPSA at Arizona State University.
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