Diffuseness of regulatory authority

In a particular nation or federation, authority concerning matters impeding social or economic change may be distributed among many different bodies at different levels. Even implementing changes whose value is uncontested by all parties may be extremely difficult and time-consuming.

An example of this problem is that it took seven years for the Inter-American Development Bank to persuade most of the states within the USA to permit its securities to be held by banks, savings banks, trust accounts and pension funds.