Legal Clarity and Impartiality: A Global Experimental Study of Consistency in Bureaucratic Decision Making

Abstract

The language used in legal texts is often ambiguous, hindering bureaucrats’ ability to understand, interpret, and apply the law consistently, and thereby threatening impartiality. While the Quality of Government (QoG) literature emphasizes the importance of impartiality, it overlooks how the clarity of legal language shapes this principle in practice. This paper bridges two bodies of scholarship: the QoG literature and legal studies that highlight the role of language clarity in law comprehension but haven’t considered its implica tions for bureaucratic decision-making. We advance the argument that language clarity fosters impartiality by enabling more consistent application of the law. To test this claim, we conducted an online survey ex periment with 900 current and former government officials from 33 countries. Participants were randomly assigned to resolve a case – based on a real-life scenario – in which the legal provision was presented in either ambiguous or clearer language. The results show that exposure to ambiguous wording reduced con sistently in the application of the law, whereas clear language fostered greater judgment consistency. These results call for a revision of the prevailing conceptualization of high QoG – from a mere absence of factors not “stipulated in the policy or the law” to also include the clarity with which laws are formulated. The paper underscores the practical significance of legal drafting for public sector performance.