Institutional Pressures and Bureaucratic Responsiveness: Why Do Public Agencies Respond to Freedom of Information Requests?

Public agencies face diverse expectations from external actors regarding their responsiveness. However, systemic research explaining how institutional pressures arising from these expectations, particularly formal rules and informal norms, motivate public agencies to respond remains limited. By cond...

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Publicado en:Public Administration Review Vol. 86; no. 2; pp. 354 - 371
Autor principal: Yang, Wenting
Formato: Artículo
Publicado: Wiley-Blackwell Mar/Apr2026
Materias:
Acceso en línea:Ver este registro en EBSCOhost
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        atl: Institutional Pressures and Bureaucratic Responsiveness: Why Do Public Agencies Respond to Freedom of Information Requests?
      aug:
        au: Yang, Wenting
        affil: Zhou Enlai School of Government, Nankai University, Tianjin, China
      su:
        China
        Freedom of information
        Legal compliance
        Government agencies
        Social pressure
      sug:
        subj:
          Freedom of information
          Legal compliance
          Government agencies
          Social pressure
          China
          Other federal government public administration
          Other provincial and territorial public administration
          Other local, municipal and regional public administration
          Other General Government Support
      keyword:
        bureaucratic responsiveness to freedom of information (FOI) requests
        institutional pressures
        national‐scale field experiment
        bureaucratic responsiveness to freedom of information (FOI) requests
        institutional pressures
        national‐scale field experiment
      ab: Public agencies face diverse expectations from external actors regarding their responsiveness. However, systemic research explaining how institutional pressures arising from these expectations, particularly formal rules and informal norms, motivate public agencies to respond remains limited. By conducting a national‐scale field experiment among 949 provincial‐level agencies in China, this study tests the effect of regulative pressure from formal rules and normative pressure from informal norms on their responses to freedom of information requests. The results show that legal regulative pressure and social normative pressure make agencies more likely to respond within the legal timeframe and provide the requested information. Legal regulative pressure and professional normative pressure increase the likelihood of agencies providing additional information beyond the requested information. The findings suggest the critical roles that institutional pressures play in enhancing various degrees and aspects of bureaucratic responsiveness, with pressure from formal rules being more effective in enhancing responsiveness than informal norms.
      pubtype: Academic Journal
      doctype: Article
      src: R
    language: English
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