On March 15, 2024, the 50th Fudan-LSE Lecture Series was held at Institute for Global Public Policy (IGPP), Fudan University. Professor Tom Christensen from the University of Oslo in Norway delivered a lecture on  Administrative Burden in Public Services Provision. The lecture was chaired by Professor Yijia Jing, Dean of the IGPP.

Before the lecture began, Professor Yijia Jing introduced Professor Christensen's academic background. Professor Christensen is a professor emeritus from the Department of Political Science at the University of Oslo in Norway, with 40 years of research experience in public administration. His research interests, rooted in organizational theory, encompass areas such as crisis management, university governance, and health governance, as well as various topics including trust, accountability, and reputation management. Professor Christensen has been teaching in China for 30 years and has collaborated with Chinese scholars to publish more than 40 papers in international journals on public administration.

At the beginning of the lecture, Professor Christensen provided a clear and concise introduction to the concept of administrative burden. He pointed out that administrative burden reflects the significant challenges and dilemmas faced by citizens in their interactions with the government, including learning costs, compliance costs, and psychological costs. Through introducing several specific cases, Professor Christensen further explained how administrative burden affects individuals' lives in terms of citizen rights, welfare provision, employment, income, and exacerbates the imbalance in public service resource allocation. Subsequently, Professor Christensen analyzed the mechanisms underlying the formation of administrative burden. He noted that administrative burden is not only rooted in internal government structures and regulations but also closely related to external stakeholders' interests.

Finally, from the instrumental perspective, cultural perspective, and demographic characteristics, Professor Christensen introduced various factors influencing the levels of administrative burden. He emphasized that a comprehensive understanding and effective response to administrative burden are crucial for improving public services.

During the Q&A session, the audiences engaged in lively discussions on topics such as defining the concept of administrative burden, operationalization, and frontier research topics.