Evidence Becomes Dangerous: Why High-Legitimacy Institutions Resist Learning

Roshan Ghadamian
Additional contact information
Roshan Ghadamian: Institute for Regenerative Systems Architecture

IRSA Working Papers from Institute for Regenerative Systems Architecture

Abstract: Institutional learning failure is usually attributed to weak capacity, poor information or misaligned incentives. This paper identifies the opposite condition: institutions with high legitimacy, strong expertise and substantial public trust are structurally more prone to suppressing evidence than institutions with less to lose. We define dangerous learning as evidence that, if incorporated, would undermine an institution's foundational narrative, invalidate prior decisions made under its authority, or redistribute power and capital. In low-legitimacy institutions such evidence is tolerated, because authority is already weak. In high-legitimacy institutions it is actively suppressed, because legitimacy is the asset at risk and it is asymmetrically costly to lose. Drawing on Institutional Learning Architecture, we trace the mechanisms through which this occurs — evidence without authority, advisory containment, narrative pre-commitment, feedback penalisation and model rigidity under success — and show why reform efforts aimed at transparency and accountability intensify rather than relieve them. The argument implies an uncomfortable prediction: the institutions least able to update are those that have most earned the trust placed in them.

Keywords: learning failure; legitimacy; expertise; evidence suppression; narrative pre-commitment; high-trust institutions (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: D02 D73 D83 I18 O38 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
References: Add references at CitEc
Citations:

There are no downloads for this item, see the EconPapers FAQ for hints about obtaining it.

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:evk:wpaper:ila-ebd

Access Statistics for this paper

More papers in IRSA Working Papers from Institute for Regenerative Systems Architecture
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Roshan Ghadamian ().