01/06/2026
Conformity in governance is not a marginal phenomenon but a structural mechanism. In "Conformity: The Power of Social Influences (2019)", Cass Sunstein shows how people adjust their judgments on the basis of what others think and do. This happens not only in order to “belong”, but also because we assume that the group sees things more clearly than we do ourselves: if several colleagues appear certain of something, the reflex is quickly “I must be missing something”. In a governance context, this means that tension, doubt and alternative scenarios often disappear long before they become visible in decisions or documents.
This lens makes administrative mediocrity visible as the outcome of processes in which particular problem definitions, values and courses of action systematically fall away. Groupthink describes how the drive for harmony reduces the range of viewpoints. Deliberative practices, adaptive governance and public value thinking, by contrast, show how you can organise plurality and multiple futures: through fixed roles for dissent, serious alternative pathways alongside the preferred line, and experimental trajectories in which different assumptions are tested in parallel.
Within this line, play takes on a specific function. Serious games and simulations create a temporarily different decision‑making framework, with shifted roles, hierarchy and time pressure. Precisely in that artificial but carefully designed setting, conformity, self‑censorship and implicit assumptions become visible at an accelerated pace.
https://ministerievanonderstroom.substack.com/p/conformity-mediocrity-and-governance
Reflections on Cass Sunstein’s Conformity in governance practice
