Four things to read on adaptive bureaucracies
An ‘adaptive bureaucracy’ sounds like an oxymoron. Bureaucracy, the system for governing large organisations, has become synonymous with red tape and burdensome processes.
Talk to those managing aid programmes aspiring to be more adaptive and you might get a similar impression. It’s a common refrain that programmes could be more adaptive if only it wasn’t for the restrictive bureaucracy of results frameworks, contract amendments, approval processes and so on.
Will adaptive practice always struggle against natural bureaucratic inertia? Or is it possible to have organisational processes that encourage adaptation?
In exploring these questions we’ve found much of the best examples of ‘adaptive bureaucracies’ beyond large aid bureaucracies.
Here’s four resources that stand out:
1) Collaboration in UK Local Authorities
Toby Lowe and Dawn Plimmer’s two reports explore how UK organisations can fund and commission for complex social issues. They argue that those who do it best take an approach that:
a. Is human-focused on individual relationships
b. Funds learning and adaptation rather than results
c. Acts as a steward of systems of actors
2) Centre for Public Impact on an enablement mindset
Alternatively titled: ‘how governments can achieve more by letting go’. The Centre for Public Impact suggests governments should embrace an enablement mindset, where they focus on creating the conditions for good outcomes to emerge, rather than a delivery mindset focused on purchasing service delivery outcomes.
They emphasise a principle of subsidiarity — devolving as much decision-making power as possible to those at the frontline of a system. In public bureaucracy terms this implies empowering the frontline bureaucrats in day-to-day contact with those they aim to serve.
3) Yuen Yuen Ang on ‘directing improvisation’ in China
Yuen Yuen Ang’s brilliant book puts ‘directed improvisation’ at the centre of the story of ‘How China Escaped the Poverty Trap’. Particularly interesting is the way in which Chinese leaders directed experimentation: using deliberately vague policy directives to permit bounded experimentation within certain policy domains.
4) Akshay Mangla on bureaucratic norms in India
Mangla compares education performance across two state bureaucracies. He finds that even though official rules, procedures and hierarchies are similar, informal bureaucratic norms make the difference. The more effective state had norms that encouraged bureaucrats to be more deliberative and participatory in how they worked, and in doing so effectively adapt policies.
Overall, we think there’s much those in the adaptive development community can learn from looking at similar challenges in bureaucracies more generally. Under the DFID Learn Adapt programme, we have much more to come. Later this year we will publish our review of adaptive bureaucracies globally and the potential implications for embedding adaptive practice within aid donors. If you can’t wait that long, sign-up to our webinar with apolitical on Wednesday!
Author: Samuel Sharp, Research Officer at the Overseas Development Institute, specialises in adaptive and politically-smart development programming, and how adaptive approaches interact with bureaucratic politics and processes.
