From Longman Dictionary of Contemporary Englishthe dead hand of somethingthe dead hand of somethingsomething which stops or slows your progress, especially a strong influence the dead hand of local government bureaucracy → dead
Examples from the Corpus
the dead hand of something• the dead hand of bureaucracy• The main problem is the dead hand of local authorities, which keep tens of thousands of properties empty.• Then there was Marta from Spartanburg, who was fleeing the dead hand of middle-class rectitude.• State legislatures and Congress are no longer gripped as they once were by the dead hand of privilege.• Such a move would reimpose the dead hand of state control and political interference.• The core of the neoliberal argument is the need to free enterprise and initiative from the dead hand of the state.• It isn't about the dead hand of the past, the unsettled guilt-edged accounts of history returning to haunt the present. 