Glenn Reynolds links the abstract of a prepublication law review article, titled Harry Potter and the Half-Crazed Bureaucracy, by Benjamin Barton, a University of Tennessee Law School colleague, arguing that the Harry Potter series is capable of being read as a sustained critique of government. Rowling’s portrait of the Ministry of Magic, its decisions, and operations represents so negative a view that

The most cold-blooded public choice theorist could not present a bleaker portrait of a government captured by special interests and motivated solely by a desire to increase bureaucratic power and influence.

Instapundit tells us that Barton believes that Rowling’s disenchantment with government may be the product of her experiences dealing with the British Welfare bureaucracy during her early years of poverty.