Challenging Conventional Wisdom on Administrative Capacity With Open Data: Could ‘Administrative Throughput’ Be the Missing Link Between Administrative Inputs and Outputs?

Despite the popularity of the concept, the measurement and the conceptualization of administrative capacity remain ambiguous, based on proxies, and overlook the local level. Conceptualization is weakened by the conflation of exogenous variables. Quantitative and qualitative perspectives are rarely reconciled, leading to fragmentation and to an overestimation of the effect of administrative capacity on policy performance. We tackle these shortcomings through the elaboration of novel indicators derived from open project data to build new measures of administrative capacity at the municipal level. In so doing, we first demonstrate the feasibility and value of open-data-based indicators to generate much-needed local data on administrative capacity. Further, we show that municipalities with similar resources can exhibit significantly different performance, challenging established assumptions of linearity between inputs and outputs in administrative performance. Finally, we introduce the concept of ‘administrative throughput’ as a possible explanation for the mismatch between administrative inputs and outputs, and provide a first theorization of this concept to allow for a more nuanced understanding of administrative capacity and open new avenues for public administration theory, research and practice.