A political scientist and a legal scholar walk into a conversation about #bureaucracy. No, really – it's an insightful read on why rules keep growing and how to prune them back without breaking what they protect.
👇 Knill @cknill.bsky.social & Burgi for @caslmu.bsky.social @lmu.de
"One-in-one-out" sounds simple: new rule in, old rule out. But does it work?
New in Public Administration Review: Fernández-i-Marín, Hinterleitner, Knill & Steinebach test Germany's scheme across 500+ laws. No reduction in restrictions. Even in Germany 🚨
doi.org/10.1111/puar.70107
“EU Better Regulation… doesn’t depoliticise. It reshapes politics.”
From a presentation at SNES at Linköping University, Brigitte Pircher @brigittepircher.bsky.social (with Miranda Thulin & Swapnil Vashishtha) shows how “good regulation” is being redefined—without changing the rules.
Publishing isn’t enough. Kudos to Steffen Hurka @steffenhurka.bsky.social & Yves Steinebach for actually translating research on climate policy complexity into something people can read.
More of this 👇 theloop.ecpr.eu/are-eu-clima...
Miroslav Nemčok @miroslavnemcok.bsky.social presenting at Queen Mary University of London.
New paper, with Prachee Arora and Yves Steinebach, develops a measure of social policy complexity—capturing how legislation becomes harder to implement for administrations and navigate for citizens.
Why do “independent” institutions become politicized?
In Regulation & Governance @reggovjournal.bsky.social, Brigitte Pircher @brigittepircher.bsky.social shows how institutional design itself can generate contestation.
doi.org/10.1111/rego...
Congrats, Brigitte! 👏
Important policy discussion at the German Federal Ministry for Digital Affairs and State Modernization.
Great to see Christoph Knill @cknill.bsky.social contributing to the debate on improving how regulatory burden is measured.
Nice to see researchers who don’t just publish papers but also translate their findings for a wider audience.
In The Conversation @theconversation.com, SUPA's folks explain which climate policies actually reduce emissions.
Worth a read: theconversation.com/which-climat...
Rules, competitiveness, and simplification on the agenda at SNS Center for Business and Policy Studies.
Great to see Brigitte Pircher @brigittepircher.bsky.social bringing SUPA-relevant insights to the debate.
🎥 Full recording: www.sns.se/evenemang/re...
Policy ambition ⬆️
Administrative capacity ↔️
We’ve finished data collection in Norway—and the pattern is clear: far more policy tasks over time, but not a proportional increase in actors responsible for implementation.
More rules. More work. Same system.
EU climate policy is getting more ambitious—and more complex. That undermines implementation.
S. Hurka @steffenhurka.bsky.social and Y. Steinebach show in @climate-policy.bsky.social that legal complexity is linked to implementation deficits across the EU: doi.org/10.1080/1469...
👇⬇️ Explained ⬇️👇
“In addition, the work builds on decentralization theory and research on ‘policy overload’,” says Signy Irene Vabo (University of Oslo), presenting the Norwegian Municipal Commission’s report to Jens Stoltenberg and Bjørnar Skjæran.
www.sv.uio.no/isv/om/aktue...
We set ourselves a mammoth challenge: mapping policy changes down to the level of individual tasks and their allocation across actors.
Such granular don’t exist. We take it VERY seriously.
Therefore, our research assistants met to calibrate coding practices to ensure our data are reliable.
‼️Join Brigitte Pircher @brigittepircher.bsky.social in an important debate on administrative burden reduction.
Brigitte will present fresh insights from the SUPA project on regulation, administrative capacity, and implementation challenges.
Details: www.sns.se/evenemang/re...
🎉 Big congratulations!
SUPA's WP co-PI Alexa Lenz @alexalenz.bsky.social has won the Gördeler Prize 2026 for her PhD on municipal crisis management — highlighting how local governments can stay effective and legitimate in times of crisis.
👏 Well deserved!
🔗 publicgovernance.de/html/de/Carl...
‼️Research impact in action ‼️
Our climate policy paper is now in the top 5% on @altmetric.com and covered by 28 news outlets - including @eurekalert.bsky.social, @scienmag.bsky.social, @idw-online.de, plus many national and regional outlets across Europe.
🚨 Fresh out of the oven 🚨
New #SUPA paper on which climate policies work “in all seasons,” even as policy mixes keep growing. Evidence from 40 countries.
⬇️⬇️⬇️
Which climate policies are the real “all-season players”? New SUPA research in @climate-policy.bsky.social identifies individual measures that reliably cut emissions across policy mixes.
Read: doi.org/10.1080/1469...
@cknill.bsky.social
🔓️ Using a new methodological toolkit which evaluates individual climate policies within expanding policy mixes, Fernández-i-Marín et al. identify a list of essential #climatepolicy measures that are effective across all contexts - read below⬇️
“Modern democracies tend to produce more policies than they can effectively implement… leading to selective implementation and ‘policy triage’.”
— Yves Steinebach, IPSA Companion to Political Science doi.org/10.1007/978-...
Is bureaucracy really the problem? Markus Hinterleitner (a close friend of SUPA!) argues that “bureaucracy-blaming” misses the real causes of governance failures.
Read at Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung @faznet.bsky.social : www.faz.net/aktuell/poli...
Should laws expire by default?
FDP @freiedemokraten.bsky.social leader Christian Dürr @christianduerr.bsky.social suggests letting all German laws passed since 2000 lapse unless reintroduced. A striking response to regulatory overload.
Source at @zeit.de: www.zeit.de/politik/deut...
At DFØ, Yves and Tuva @tuvamolde.bsky.social discussed how “smart regulation” and policy portfolios can help identify deregulation potential—by spotting instruments that add burden without improving effectiveness.
🌟 Join us as our WP co-lead, Dr. Alexa Lenz @alexalenz.bsky.social, presents on "Administrative Burden and Unequal Policy Implementation" at CAS, LMU München @caslmu.bsky.social
📅 January 14, 2026 | 🕧 12:15 PM
🔗 www.cas.lmu.de/en/events/ev...
Great session at the XIII Workshop on Empirical Political Science at @ub.edu! Prachee Arora showed how hidden compliance costs - below reporting thresholds- still shape policy outcomes. Thanks to discussants Jaime Bordel @jaimebgl.bsky.social and Pau Vall-Prat for the insightful feedback!
Legislative complexity on the rise: a new study in @jeppjournal.bsky.social shows EU acts are fewer, but denser with regulatory obligations.
Valuable work that complements what we’re exploring in SUPA.
doi.org/10.1080/1350...
Exploring the link between social policies and political attitudes: M. Nemčok (@miroslavnemcok.bsky.social, @uio.no) shared fresh insights with his colleagues at @statsvitenskap.bsky.social on SUPA’s ambition to examine how social policy complexity shapes citizens’ evaluation of political system.
Yves and Tuva met with the Norwegian Ministry of Digitalisation and Public Governance. Yves presented how AI-driven policy portfolios can help identify smart deregulation opportunities. Exciting conversation and promising next steps.
🚨 CfP 🚨
At ECPR @ecpr.bsky.social GC 2026 (Kraków, 8.-11. 9. 2026) Y. Steinebach and A. Lenz @alexalenz.bsky.social are convening a panel on "Overburdened Bureaucracies" - how public administrations cope with rising demands and limited capacity.
🚨 Submit your abstract by 17 Dec!
Details below ⬇️
German speakers: don't miss Christoph Knill @cknill.bsky.social joining Monika Schnitzer, Martin Burgi, Florian Englmaier, and Jens-Christian Rabe to discuss who needs bureaucracy and whether it can be eliminated for a better future.
📅 Dec11, 18:30, Munich
🔔 Register: www.cas.lmu.de/en/events/ev...
