🎉 As a partner of the @supaproject.bsky.social
project, we’re proud to announce the launch of the official website!

ECAS’s role in this project is to support crowdsourcing efforts, organise events, & share project findings with CSOs and national partners.

🔗 Learn more: buff.ly/ZXqO1EJ

🌍 ANALYZING (CLIMATE) POLICY PORTFOLIOS
New paper in @jcpaicpa.bsky.social introduces an analytical approach to systematically map what governments do on (climate) policy along two dimensions:

🎯 Targets – goals governments address
🛠️ Instruments – how they pursue them

🔗 doi.org/10.1080/1387...

📜 One way governments try to cut regulatory burden is #offsetting: for every new rule, an old one (or more) must go.

🗺️ The map and table show which OECD countries have used these schemes.

👉 Can you spot your country?

(from Steinebach, Hinterleitner & Fernández-i-Marín doi.org/10.1111/puar...)

Tired of ‘red tape’? UK planning reforms echo past failures like the "one-in, three-out" scheme.

One of our rerearches in progress shows why they fail:
➡️ Narrow Focus
➡️ Weak Enforcement
➡️ Political Reality

Result? Rules keep growing. Lasting reform needs smarter governance for true growth.
#SUPA

Hi Nadja! Our webpage is now up and running: www.supa.uio.no/english/inde...
Sorry for the earlier inconvenience — we’d love to hear what you think!

The SUPA project has a new webpage! 🌐
👉 www.supa.uio.no/english/inde...

There you’ll find:
🌍 project background & goals
👩‍🔬 team members & institutional partners
📢 news, events & publications (with more coming soon!)

Check it out — and let us know what you think!

🤔 What makes a law complex—and why does it matter?
In his talk, Steffen Hurka @steffenhurka.bsky.social (a close friend of SUPA) explains:
📏 how to measure legislative complexity
⚖️ why it varies across laws & policy areas
🏛️ how it shapes institutions & implementation
www.youtube.com/watch?v=gclb...

"‘Better deregulation’ doesn’t mean removing as many regulations as possible. It means eliminating the right ones while preserving effective rules," argue M. Hinterleitner, C. Knill @cknill.bsky.social & Y. Steinebach in a guest opinion for @nzz.ch

🔗 www.nzz.ch/meinung/dere...

Policies, rules & regulations keep on growing. 📈🚨
Have you ever wondered how quick that growth is? 🤔

Hinterleitner, Knill @cknill.bsky.social & Steinebach in @reggovjournal.bsky.social empirically demonstrate the swelling complexity of legislative rulebooks!

📚 Read: doi.org/10.1111/rego...

On 10–11 Sept, I’ll be presenting at the University of Valencia workshop on Political Agency between Human & AI. Looking forward to debating how AI is reshaping politics, democracy & civil society. #AI #Democracy

💥Your country may have a deregulation potential of 36% -
argue Yves Steinebach, Xavier Fernández-i-Marín, Markus Hinterleitner & @cknill.bsky.social. Find out more 👇

🔗 www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10....

💥 Publication ALERT 💥
Steinebach, Fernández-i-Marín, Hinterleitner & Knill examine #environmental policy in 21 democracies and find:
- 1/3 of measures could be streamlined
- Effectiveness preserved (sometimes improved!)

Not crude cost-cutting ➡️ Smarter rules > fewer rules.
🔗 doi.org/10.1080/1350...

[6/6]
Not all rules hit equally. Some create weak spots.
WP5 (Achilles’ Heels of Administration) identifies administrative Achilles’ heels - where burdens concentrate, outsourcing multiplies, or tasks get fragmented.
@lmumuenchen.bsky.social

[5/6]
Who carries the weight of growing rulebooks? WP4 (Rule Growth & Administration) investigates how expanding rules reshape public administration. We track how responsibilities spread, which bodies take charge, & whether burdens concentrate or decentralize.
@uio.no

[4/6]
Rules often beget rules. Therefore, WP3 (Endogenous Rule Growth) studies how legal design itself fuels expansion. By tracing first-, second-, and third-order rules, the team shows how legal texts spiral into complex webs.
@hebrewuniversity.bsky.social

[3/6]
Too many rules? Some countries try #rule-offsetting schemes (e.g. “one-in, one-out”). WP2 (Rule-Offsetting Schemes) asks: do these schemes work? It combines cross-country data & stakeholder interviews to uncover how governments attempt to curb rule overload. @sodertornshogskola.bsky.social

[2/6]
📊 WP1 (Rule Growth Data) builds the backbone of #SUPA: the first large-scale dataset on rule growth in social & environmental policy. Using legal archives, APIs & NLP, we turn dense law texts into machine-readable data. The result? A map of how rules pile up across Europe.
@ub.edu

[1/6] What is SUPA about? A thread 🧵👇

The #SUPA Project addresses rule growth - the rapid expansion of laws and regulations - and its implications for governance.

Through five research-focused Work Packages (WPs), we generate data, theory, and tools to help sustain an effective democracy.

🔍 Xavier Fernández-i-Marín, Christoph Knill, Christina Steinbacher & @dionyszink.bsky.social: Tackling blind spots in Europeanisation research: the impact of EU legislation on national policy portfolios

🧷 www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10....

Thank you for your quick interest! 💚💙 The webpage is currently under construction and will be launched this week. We apologize for the inconvenience and will keep you posted!
Main topics are presented here: doi.org/10.3030/1011...

📈 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 🏛️✨

Two inspiring days in Munich have come to an end. Thank you team LMU for hosting a SUPA kick-off, and to everyone participating. Look forward to seeing you soon! #supaproject #horizoneurope