SUPA: Sustaining Public Administration in Modern Democracies

📈 More laws, more policies, more regulations. But administrations aren’t growing at the same pace 🚨 This mismatch risks poor services, unequal treatment & frustration. That’s where #SUPA comes in: from 2025–2028, we’ll study how to improve rule design & strengthen modern democracies 🏛️✨

Voters whose party is in government are more satisfied with democracy. 🏆 But what happens when your party enters or leaves government mid-term, without an election? New open-access paper in @ejprjournal.bsky.social with @jfdaoust.bsky.social and Piret Ehin 🧵 🔗 doi.org/10.1017/S1475676526101479

What happens when governments adopt more policies than administrations can implement? Triage Bureaucracy by @cknill.bsky.social, Yves Steinebach & @dionyszink.bsky.social shows that overloaded bureaucracies don’t collapse – they start choosing which rules to enforce. 📖 doi.org/10.1017/9781009665872

Delighted to see SUPA's consortium leader Yves Steinebach step up as Lead Co-Editor at Regulation & Governance @reggovjournal.bsky.social – a well-earned promotion. Congrats, Yves! 👏

Do "one-in, one-out" rules deliver on their promise? New from SUPA: a report and policy brief across 28 countries (63 expert interviews): offsetting makes regulatory costs more visible, but doesn't consistently reduce burdens. 📘 doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.22081872 📄 doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.22165513

Yves Steinebach (University of Oslo) on Policy Accumulation, Bureaucratic Overload, and Regulatory Effectiveness is now out! Delivered at SPSAS/ISP RG2026 at FGV, the lecture is now available on the Regulation & Governance @reggovjournal.bsky.social YouTube channel: www.youtube.com/watch?v=Zcqh...

"Bureaucratic overload as a genuine threat." Great to see Eva Thomann @evathomann.bsky.social endorsing the central argument of Triage Bureaucracy by Christoph Knill @cknill.bsky.social, Yves Steinebach & Dionys Zink @dionyszink.bsky.social in her @jcpaicpa.bsky.social. doi.org/10.1080/1387...

Yves Steinebach took SUPA's questions on policy growth and bureaucratic overburdening to São Paulo last week — the SPSAS/ISP RG2026 school at Fundação Getulio Vargas. Ten days, thirty years of Brazilian regulation on the table, and confirmation that administrative overload doesn't need a passport.

A few SUPA folks at IWPP5 in Ottawa last week — marking 20 years of Regulation & Governance, with scholars from five continents. Tuva Lima Molde on how policy growth reshapes administrative structures, and Nir Kosti on measuring regulation itself. All beautifully organised by Yves.

Two SUPA panels on EU regulatory growth at #SGEU2026 in Catania 📸 Nir Kosti on complexity vs. discretion, Brigitte Pircher @brigittepircher.bsky.social on how "Better Regulation" quietly changed what it means. Sun, Sicily, and rule stocks — not a bad combo.

The SUPA team at #EPSS2026! Yesterday: Regulatory Growth: Implementation and Outcomes, chaired by B. Pircher. Five papers, plenty of fruitful exchange. Round two on Saturday: Regulatory Growth: Drivers and Design, chaired by X. Fernández-i-Marín. Come join us! epssnet.org/belfast-2026/

A clean framework for comparing what countries actually do on climate — beyond headline pledges. New in the Journal of Comparative Policy Analysis @jcpaicpa.bsky.social by SUPA's X. Fernández-i-Marín, C. Knill & Y. Steinebach (with M. Hinterleitner & D. Nachtigall). doi.org/10.1080/1387...

New in @jeppjournal.bsky.social: @dionyszink.bsky.social introduces *organizational corrosion* — the slow, self-reinforcing decay of public agencies under sustained overload. Illustrated with England's Environment Agency (deep into it) vs Ireland's EPA (largely spared). 📖 doi.org/10.1080/1350...

Two presentations, one big question: why do good political intentions get lost somewhere between ambition and reality? Today at the PBO seminar (UiO), Y. Steinebach and M. Nemčok @miroslavnemcok.bsky.social presented their recent research. Thanks to the PBO group at @uio.no for great feedback.

📢 CfP: "Politics of regulatory simplification in the EU" in @jeppjournal.bsky.social Guest editors: Steffen Hurka, Nir Kosti & Brigitte Pircher Abstracts by 22 July 2026 👇 think.taylorandfrancis.com/special_issues/politics-of-regulatory-simplification-in-the-eu/

Missed Yves Steinebach's appearance at the OECD Green Talks LIVE? Yves spoke on assessing policy effectiveness in an era of relentless policy growth. 🎦 The recording is out: oecd.org/en/events/2026/05/do-climate-policies-deliver-evidence-on-emissions-and-carbon-leakage.html

Two intense days in Oslo with the full SUPA consortium in one place 📸 Four panels of work-in-progress on the core questions driving the project — partners from Oslo, LMU Munich, Universitat de Barcelona, Södertörn, Zeppelin & Aarhus. More to come 👇

A few snapshots from Yves Steinebach's talk at Nordisk Administrativt Forbund 📸 A great deep dive into policy overload — why modern democracies keep stacking rules they can't actually implement, and what targeted simplification could look like.

ERC @erc.europa.eu spotlights Christoph Knill @cknill.bsky.social (LMU Munich @lmu.de) on policy accumulation — the very question SUPA was set up to tackle. Governments keep adding rules; capacity to implement them doesn't keep pace. Worth a read: erc.europa.eu/projects-sta...

📅 7 May: Yves Steinebach (University of Oslo @uio.no) gives a talk at Nordisk Administrativt Forbund on policy overload: why modern democracies keep producing more rules than they can implement. In Norwegian — kudos, Yves! www.nafnet.no/event-detail...

🔥🔥🔥 Lenz @alexalenz.bsky.social, Knill @cknill.bsky.social & Steinebach in @wepsocial.bsky.social: policymakers are cognitively wired to add rules, not remove them. A survey experiment with 1,454 Norwegian politicians shows the bias is persistent and hard to debias. 🔗 doi.org/10.1080/0140...

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...