Vetocracy is a real thing. It plays an important (devastating) role in scientific progress, even there is a saying about advancement at funeral-based time steps, making a similar point:

Science advances funeral by funeral. Science advances one funeral at a time. Science progresses funeral by funeral. Knowledge advances funeral by funeral. [1]

The quote is attributed to economist Paul A. Samuelson[1].

[1] https://quoteinvestigator.com/2017/09/25/progress/

- Wikipedia page for Vetocracy:

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vetocracy

- Notable prior HN coverage of topic:

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=29625988

Perhaps is there a better term to describe vetocracy in science? Wikipedia here just refer to it's application to democratic institutions.

Likely better to generally the pattern than narrow it, since more surface area it covers, more likely people are to want to understand it.

For example, in my opinion, pattern aligns to phrase "not in my back yard" — where ultimately, like in science, if a subject matter is vetoed as being off limits, scientists just go somewhere it is not:

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/NIMBY

Vetocracy and NIMBY under the same conceptual umbrella? I need to think about it, I see the semantic fields have non-intersecting areas that can be contradicting. E.g. how saying no to externalising pollutants to rural areas is a vetocracy?

I suspect this is true but not necessarily for the reasons you suspect; that a person who is asking what to do is often not the type of person who does, and the second type is really what you need to get things moving.