Ambiguity as Method

Ambiguity has ceased to be a flaw and has become a deliberate practice. The regulation that states without defining, the strategic plan that announces objectives “to be reviewed in due course”, and the rule that imposes duties yet establishes no time horizon are all expressions of a subtle method: deciding without truly deciding.

Ambiguity as method preserves formal power but dissolves real legitimacy.

The effects are visible in Portugal and across other European health systems: programmes that announce investments yet never establish a timetable, reforms that promise reorganisation while leaving criteria undefined, technical opinions that multiply interpretations without clarifying responsibility. In such cases, ambiguity is not an accident; it is embedded in the very architecture of the decision.

International scholarship confirms this logic. James March and Johan Olsen, in Ambiguity and Choice in Organizations (Universitetsforlaget, 1976), demonstrated how uncertainty can be instrumentalised to preserve formal consensus, even at the expense of clarity, an analysis that remains central to the study of decision-making. Michel Crozier, in Le phénomène bureaucratique (Seuil, 1964), described ambiguity as a vital resource of bureaucracies, showing how vague rules expand room for manoeuvre and shield those responsible for interpreting them. Mary Douglas, in How Institutions Think (Syracuse University Press, 1986), added that indeterminacy is also cultural, sustaining narratives that legitimise institutions while avoiding the exposure of their fragilities. Nikolaos Zahariadis, in his work on Ambiguity and Multiple Streams Theory (Theories of the Policy Process, 2007; 2014), further demonstrated that ambiguity remains an active instrument in public policy precisely because it allows multiple interpretations until the moment of political legitimation.

In the immediate term, ambiguity disguises itself as prudence, suspending conflict and allowing each actor to claim legitimacy. Over time, however, it turns into paralysis and opacity.

Ambiguity as method preserves formal authority but dissolves real legitimacy, turning governance into the administration of hesitation.