Informal Authority, Legitimacy Transition, and Institutional Change: A Theory of Advisory Capture

ABSTRACT How do informal actors achieve rapid bureaucratic dismantlement without formal authority? Analyzing the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) initiative, this article argues that when performance‐based legitimacy displaces procedural legitimacy as the dominant evaluative framework, informal actors can bypass established safeguards and reshape government institutions. Three concepts capture this process: advisory capture , legitimacy regime transition , and constrained coercion . The analysis reveals that dismantlement targets agencies based on political vulnerability rather than functional logic, that informal authority becomes institutionalized through formal rulemaking such as the Schedule Policy/Career rule, and that judicial review operates as ongoing contestation rather than definitive constraint. Protecting democratic governance requires defending not only formal rules but the legitimacy regimes within which those rules derive meaning.