Political Theory

Re: Term for difficulty in decreasing government size?

Donny with an A — Tue, 11 Nov 2008 02:14:24 GMT

MacFall:
Higgs' "ratchet effect" might be applicable.

Re: Term for difficulty in decreasing government size?

Sage — Tue, 11 Nov 2008 02:06:26 GMT

lucas20:

I was wondering if anyone knew if there was a 'term' in political theory that represents the difficulty that new administrations or reformers have in decreasing the size of government institutions.

Yeah, it would be sweet if there was a term for that. Maybe it could be derived from the root word "bureaucracy", as it is the bureaucratic incentives which lead to an expansion of government.

Re: Term for difficulty in decreasing government size?

MacFall — Tue, 11 Nov 2008 01:37:09 GMT

Higgs' "ratchet effect" might be applicable.

Although to my knowledge, there has never been a new administration since Van Buren that has ever meant to decrease the size of government, and certainly not one which has actually done so.

Term for difficulty in decreasing government size?

lucas20 — Mon, 10 Nov 2008 15:03:51 GMT

I was wondering if anyone knew if there was a 'term' in political theory that represents the difficulty that new administrations or reformers have in decreasing the size of government institutions.