Bureaucratic overburdening in advanced democracies
研究了发达民主国家中政策持续增长而执行能力未同步扩张导致的官僚超负荷现象，分析了其趋势、制度差异及对政策有效性和民主合法性的影响，并提供了21个OECD国家45年间的数据。
Abstract Constant policy growth can overburden bureaucracies if implementation capacities are not expanded in lockstep with policy production. This development may undermine policy effectiveness and hence the long‐term legitimacy of democracies. This article provides a systematic analysis of this phenomenon. We demonstrate that (i) overburdening is a general trend in advanced democracies; (ii) the extent of overburdening varies by the institutional context in which policy makers operate; and that, in consequence, (iii) countries' bureaucracies differ in their distance (or closeness) to the “tipping point” after which additional policies do more harm than good. We provide information on the ratio between the policies up for implementation and the bureaucratic capacities available for 21 OECD countries over a period of 45 years (1976–2020), focusing on the areas of environmental and social policy as two major areas of governmental intervention. Bayesian analyses and background interviews serve to illuminate the reasons for and consequences of overburdened bureaucracies.