The limits of administration's ideas showing how things are (4)

I believe the answer is:

asis

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'things are' is the definition.
I don't know anything about this answer so I can't tell whether it can be defined by this definition.

'the limits of administration's ideas showing' is the wordplay.
'the limits of' means to remove the middle letters.
'ideas showing' becomes 'is' (this might be a standard abbreviation which I don't know about).
'administrations' with its centre taken out is 'as'.
'as'+'is'='ASIS'

'how' acts as a link.

Can you help me to learn more?

(Other definitions for asis that I've seen before include "Unaltered" , "Unchanged" .)

I've seen this clue in The Irish Times.

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