Navigating for results in complex environments – in search of pragmatic bureaucracy

This project is funded by the Folke Bernadotte Academy – Swedish agency for peace, security and development (FBA), and focuses on how FBA staff members navigate the demands for results reporting and measurement while at the same time stay relevant to the core purpose of the agency.

The project is motivated by the strong demands to deliver clear, visible and measurable ‘results’ that FBA and most other international development cooperation agencies face. However, a common challenge with results-based management (RBM) practices for organizations working in complex settings is a general difficulty in measuring and managing for outcomes and establishing a clear link between input and impact.

Previous research emphasizes that RBM practices can easily become counterproductive and tend to oscillate between hyper-bureaucracy and hyper-pragmatism. Through a single-case study of FBA, this project is designed to expand our theoretical and empirical understanding of what has been defined by Vähämäki and Alexius as pragmatic bureaucracy — “the sweet spot between the extremes of bureaucracy and pragmatism, where bureaucracy is used rationally when possible, and pragmatically when needed”.

Why FBA is selected as a case

FBA as a case is selected for two major reasons. First, FBA is operating within peace-building, a field which we know relatively little about in terms of results-management and where we are faced with diverging theoretical expectations.

Second, the fact that FBA is both an expert agency and executing agency enable us to circumvent the complexity and uncertainty associated with longer aid chains and instead assess how short distance to field operations and direct relationships between aid providers and recipients influence pragmatic bureaucracy.