State Capacity

The State Capacity Initiative aims to improve our government’s ability to effectively implement its policy objectives. We focus on identifying the barriers and opportunities across various policy areas and levels of government that impact the public sector’s ability to function. Our mission is to rethink how the government must operate to meet the speed and scale required by today’s pressing challenges. 

Our government faces several fundamental dysfunctions. These include a lack of prioritization and refusal to make trade-offs, resulting in programs that are too unwieldy to be effective (Everything Bagelism); unchecked anxiety about legitimacy and accountability, leading to “procedural inflation that in turn heightens anxiety (Procedure Fetish); and a culture of risk aversion that often undermines policy intent (Culture Eats Policy). We must do better.

To strengthen state capacity, we must:  

  • Have the right people: Reform the civil service system to support the public service workforce required for today’s challenges. 
  • Focus on the right things: Shift the emphasis from process compliance to delivering results, making the hard choices necessary to achieve meaningful goals.
  • Minimize burdens: Tame rampant proceduralism and reduce the surface area for adversarial legal attacks that work against the public interest. 

Achieving these goals requires personnel, oversight, and funding reforms across both the legislative and executive branches. 

To effectively address today’s critical challenges–from national security and public safety to climate action and support to vulnerable populations–we need a government capable of delivering results. Rebuilding our government’s capacity for the modern era is essential for American prosperity. 

Suspicion of state power is embedded in our Constitution and our political culture; accordingly, work to produce a stronger, more capable state will never be the path of least resistance. But it’s the only path that leads where we need to go, and there is growing recognition across the political spectrum that this is the direction we need to take.

- Brink Lindsey

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