TEACHING COMPANION / NO ACCOUNT NEEDED
The Overloaded State
You passed the law. Why is nothing happening?
State capacity, bureaucracy & implementation · Self-paced inquiry · timing not yet measured
Learning goals
- Distinguish a policy decision from implementation capacity.
- Compare administrative burden, resources, expertise and control.
- Specify how evidence could evaluate a proposed reform.
Before the activity
Self-contained introduction; no advance reading required.
Syllabus description
Follow a public promise into a jammed bureaucracy. Find the bottleneck, weigh expertise against political control and propose a reform you can actually test. Students produce capacity diagnosis and reform/evaluation brief.
Discussion prompts
- Did your diagnosis concern authority, resources or a different bottleneck?
- How could the reform work on paper and still fail in practice?
What to assess
Look for a specific mechanism, a rival account, a feasible reform and an evaluation matched to the claimed effect.
Limitations
A proposed reform is a hypothesis. Do not treat a programmed outcome as a measured real-world reform effect.
Credit & permissions
Created by Yoav Duman. Free educational use, sharing and hosted embedding; software rights reserved. Software, artwork, branding and third-party materials are separate; see the full reuse information.
Suggested citation: Yoav Duman, “The Overloaded State: Teaching companion,” Possible States, https://possiblestates.com/teaching/overloaded-state. Include your access date.
ASSESSMENT & SUBMISSION
Grade the explanation.
The interface has no opinion.
Set an endpoint, ask for the activity’s readable report, and use your existing LMS. Students can use Print / Save as PDF where a separate download is not offered. A progress backup is for restoring work, not grading it.
A suggested 10-point rubric
For each criterion: 0 = absent, 1 = partial, 2 = clear and supported. Adapt the weighting to your course; this is guidance, not automatic scoring.
- Concepts / 2
- Use the relevant political concept accurately.
- Evidence / 2
- Support a claim with a specific record or comparison.
- Mechanism / 2
- Explain how the rule or arrangement produces a consequence.
- Revision / 2
- Address a rival account or explain a change of mind.
- Limits / 2
- State what the model or evidence cannot establish.
Say this before they begin.
- Choose For class and follow the instructor’s endpoint.
- Save a progress backup before moving devices or changing website address.
- Open the readable report and check the required responses.
- Upload it to the course assignment. Check the LMS submission confirmation.
Switching from exploration keeps the current work, but skipped class responses may still need completing. A local report cannot establish authorship or make an activity tamper-proof.
Prepare an assignment to share.
Edit this text, then copy it into Canvas or your course website. These edits stay in this tab.
Syllabus description & discussion prompts
Syllabus description
Follow a public promise into a jammed bureaucracy. Find the bottleneck, weigh expertise against political control and propose a reform you can actually test. Students produce capacity diagnosis and reform/evaluation brief.
Questions for a discussion board or class debrief
- Did your diagnosis concern authority, resources or a different bottleneck?
- How could the reform work on paper and still fail in practice?