Or at least efficient enough that illiberal movements can't exploit frustration at that inefficiency to seize power.

For that matter, despite all the creepy enthusiasm for dictatorships in this thread, they tend to be remarkably incompetent, being even more dysfunctional than democracies due to lacking their corrective mechanisms.

Despite the myth, Mussolini never made the trains run on time--he just relaxed the definition of "on time" until the trains were never officially late and then punished anyone who complained.

Redefine words, then punish any parties who complain. It's a strangely familiar pattern.

I understand that it comes from a place where we don’t want waste (in taxes, resources, time, etc), but what delivers that efficiency also delivers other undesired efficiencies (fine everyone who is contrarian, imprison the opposition, what have you).

Inefficient states are most of the states doing this though (say, Egypt is no paragon of efficiency.)

The inertia of the bureaucracy can be a hindrance but at the end of the day any bureaucrat will move mountains if a tyrant is breathing down their neck with knife in hand.

Ok, but imagine them being efficient at what they do. Imagine efficient suppression or efficient indoctrination policies, etc.

Gotcha, I was coming at this from a different angle. Mostly a local-government perspective for things like city services. That's the kind of government I want streamlined and efficiently run.

The problem is that if the elected government is weak, ineffective and isn't fulfilling its core roles, then other people and organizations would take on these roles and the associated power and decisionmaking - and those emergent de facto replacement "governments" are likely to be even more illiberal, oppressive mini-dictatorships that are not elected or accountable to the general society. That's how you get the origins of Cosa Nostra, or the cartel-governed zones in Mexico, or de-facto rule by corporations in the fictional cyberpunk dystopias.