The Good‑Government Compliance Trap

Outsider administrations that shift from spectacle to 'good government' get dragged into process, interagency wrangling, and legal exposure that can neutralize or even criminalize them. In a regime where power lives in procedures and decentralized veto points, governing 'seriously' means entering hostile terrain designed to grind opponents down. The paradox is that performative politics may be safer for insurgents than procedural governance. — This reframes reform strategy by arguing that compliance‑centric governance can be a self‑defeating trap for populist administrations in entrenched bureaucratic systems.