Training bureaucrats to question authority

A tailor-made simulation game was created for Master’s of Public Administration students at the Berlin School of Economics and Law, which aimed to develop the competency of resistance in times of democratic backsliding. Students who typically have at least one year of professional experience in Germany’s public administration thus get the opportunity to reflect on their professional competencies and to complement their capabilities with actions unfamiliar in a bureaucracy. That is, they should learn to take initiative and overcome risk aversion in order to challenge orders that contradict their professional conscience and ethos.