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Note: This paper was accepted for publication in Journal of Cooperation and Conflict
on 1st Feb 2014, for publication online in Summer 2014 and hardcopy 2015.
An exploration of the limitations of bureaucratic organizations in
implementing contemporary peacebuilding
Andrew P Williams, Berhanu Mengistu
Department of Urban Studies and Public Administration, Old Dominion University,
United States
Corresponding author
Andrew P Williams, Department of Urban Studies and Public Administration, 2084
Constant Hall, Old Dominion University, Norfolk, VA 23529. Email: awill123@odu.edu
Author Note
Andrew Williams is a Ph.D. candidate in the Department of Urban Studies and Public
Administration at Old Dominion University, Norfolk, Virginia, and is employed full time
as an analyst for an international organization. His research interests include:
organizational collaboration, peacebuilding, program evaluation and policy theory.
Berhanu Mengistu is a Professor in the Department of Urban Studies and Public
Administration at Old Dominion University. His research interests include alternative
dispute resolution and peace-making, privatization, public finance and budgeting and
state capture and public corruptions.
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An exploration of the limitations of bureaucratic organizations in
implementing contemporary peacebuilding
Abstract
This article seeks to unpack the implications of contemporary peacebuilding for
bureaucratic organizational forms. It argues that if the contemporary peacebuilding
literature is taken as given, fundamental alterations are required in predominately
Western peacebuilding systems—specifically in the structure and function of
bureaucratic organizations that typically fund, manage and execute peacebuilding
interventions. The analysis proceeds by matching five “peacebuilding principles” derived
from contemporary literature, with an organizational framework that highlights key
structural and functional aspects of bureaucracies, thus allowing organizational
deficiencies to be identified. The article argues that current peacebuilding scholarship
would benefit from theoretically guided organizational research on the various
organizations and systems involved in peacebuilding implementation. It concludes that
peacebuilding scholars can be informed by the significant body of knowledge in the
fields of public administration and policy, which bring a rich history of studying
implementation situations that parallel in many ways complex peacebuilding
interventions.
Keywords
Peacebuilding, organizational requirements, theory development, public administration,
policy, implementation, planning, evaluation
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Introduction
Peacebuilding literature has evolved considerably since its inception and has drawn from
and informed many predominately Western interventions in conflicts and the diverse spectrum of
peacebuilding approaches implemented. Yet even given this significant body of knowledge and
expertise, many interventions can hardly be considered a universal success. Research indicates
that 25% to 50% of peace processes fail within five years (Suhrke and Samset, 2007), and that
out of the 18 United Nations (UN) attempts at democratization since the Cold War, 13 have since
suffered some form of authoritarian regime (Call and Cook, 2003). While the peacebuilding and
conflict literatures have examined the sources of failure via a variety of macro-comparative,
institutional, political, economic and cultural lenses, a small body of recent work identifies the
technocratic aspects of peacebuilding as a potential challenge for practice. This is partly in
reaction to the “technocratic turn” (Mac Ginty, 2012: 293, 289) in institutional responses to
complex interventions, referring to “the systems and behaviors that prioritize bureaucratic
rationality” embedded in the institutional fabric of Western aid, development, and military
organizations.
This issue is critical given that peacebuilding is largely implemented via bureaucratic
organizations and systems, a fact unlikely to change in the near future. While many international
organizations, development agencies and NGOs continually adapt their peacebuilding approach
in response to both academic work and policy-led practitioner involvement, policymakers may
be unaware of the unintentional pathologies that arise from the intrinsic nature of bureaucratic
structure (Barnett and Finnemore, 1999). Only a few studies have focused on the implications of
technocracy for the overall conduct of peacebuilding (Donais, 2009; Goetschel and Hagmann,
2009; Krieger, 2006). Many case studies have analyzed peacebuilding interventions and made
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organizational recommendations (Bensahel et al., 2009; Dijkstra, 2011; Junk, 2012; Piiparinen,
2007; Rathmell, 2009; Simon, 2010), but few have incorporated an organizational framework of
analysis (some exceptions are Herrhausen, 2007; Lipson, 2007, 2012). Peacebuilding studies
generally treat an intervention or conflict as a single unit of analysis and employ narrative or
descriptive analyses that mix together variables such as organizational mission, goals, structures,
policies, culture, historical factors and conflict actors. In some respects, this approach is
understandable given the contextual nature and long duration of interventions, and the large
number of possible variables active in a single case study.
We argue, however, that to understand comprehensively the myriad factors affecting
peacebuilding interventions requires theoretically-informed organizational research on the
various organizations implementing the intervention. The fields of public administration and
policy bring ample examples of implementation situations that parallel in many ways complex
peacebuilding interventions, albeit with major differences. This literature has breached some of
the challenges of researching complex organizational implementation, which generally features a
multitude of important variables, actors, relationships and networks (Hill and Hupe, 2009).
This study aims to shed light on key questions of implementation: to what extent can
bureaucratic organizations implement the strategies for successful peacebuilding identified in the
current body of peacebuilding literature, and what changes in structure and function may be
required? In analyzing these questions, we aim to bridge a gap in peacebuilding literature by
suggesting organizational frames of analysis, while encouraging cross-pollination of ideas from
public administration, policy, and organizational science to the study of peacebuilding.
The general approach is as follows. First, by drawing from recent literature in “third
generation” contemporary peacebuilding, we develop a set of “peacebuilding principles,” which,
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from the position of the third generation literature, are relatively invariant to context and
assumed to be fundamental for intervention success. Second, we define a framework of analysis
using standard approaches from the administrative sciences, in order to prioritize and organize
key variables of importance in bureaucracies. Third, for each variable in the framework, we
analyze how it operates in bureaucracies assuming the peacebuilding principles as given.
Structural and functional deficiencies in organizations are identified. Finally, broad conclusions
about the implementation of peacebuilding by bureaucracies are drawn and a future research
agenda is suggested.
In many ways, our approach reverses the standard way of thinking about the technocracy
problem. Rather than considering the implications of technocracy for peacebuilding as recent
work has done (Mac Ginty, 2012, 2013), this article questions the implications of peacebuilding
for technocracy. In other words, rather than viewing peacebuilding through the lens of
bureaucracy, we view bureaucracy through the lens of peacebuilding. The set of peacebuilding
principles developed in this article are considered as independent variables; while the
technocratic aspects and the implications on organizational structure and function are the
dependent variables. Given the immaturity of organization science-informed peacebuilding
research, this approach is primarily an exercise at conceptual scoping. Consequently, this article
outlines tentative ideas that can stimulate further research on the matter. This approach is a
“reverse” way to critique the current international system of peacebuilding by showing how far
our institutions are from being able to meet the requirements clearly specified in the conflict
literature.
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Peacebuilding principles
We begin by defining peacebuilding and developing a set of peacebuilding principles.
We assume that from the perspective of third generation literature, these principles are general to
any context and that, in totality, they represent an overall strategy for proceeding in
peacebuilding interventions to establish peace. While there are multiple definitions of
peacebuilding (Goetschel and Hagmann, 2009), we assume the broad conception taken by many
scholars, which incorporates parallel elements of transformative conflict resolution to overcome
structural and cultural violence, conflict settlement peacemaking, and conflict containment
peacekeeping (Pugh et al., 2008; Ramsbotham et al., 2011; Richmond, 2010). Activities such as
post-conflict stabilization, reconstruction, and state building, are considered as “tasks” within
peacebuilding rather than as ends in themselves.
The debates between liberal, local or “bottom-up,” and “hybrid” third generation
peacebuilding are ongoing in the literature. These three ontologically different approaches
conceive the process of peacebuilding and the end state of peace in fundamentally different
ways, contingent upon the particular assumptions in each approach. For the purposes of
proceeding, this article assumes the third generation, “local-liberal hybrid” approach of
peacebuilding as a given. Hybrid peacebuilding combines the essential characteristics of
modernization, with elements of a critical paradigm rooted in liberation from sources of
domination and attainment of social justice, and a transformative paradigm that emphasizes
cosmopolitanism, discursive rationality, and transcendence of differences (Mac Ginty, 2008,
2010; Ramsbotham et al., 2011; Richmond, 2010). This approach attempts to move beyond state-
centric solutions in response to conflict, envisioning instead “an emancipatory form of peace that
reflects the interests, identities, and needs of all actors, state and non-state, and aims at the
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creation of a discursive framework of mutual accommodation and social justice which
recognizes difference” (Richmond, 2010: 26). The challenge will be to connect new liberal
political orders and institutions with traditional economies, cultures and values, while
maintaining the core ideas of transformative conflict resolution (Lederach, 2003).
This choice could be a major point of contention given the ongoing debate and valid
objections and criticisms to the recent body of literature. From a theoretical perspective, the third
generation literature has not yet merged basic political theories concerning rights and self-
determination, with the strategies required for conflict management, resolution and
transformation, which may involve temporary suspension of self-determined politics, and elite-
international biases towards certain groups. Furthermore, aside from the organizational
implications addressed in this article, there are deep practical issues with the third generation
literature.
We sidestep these major debates for the purposes of proceeding. We see this as a
necessary route to cumulative development of a discipline: holding certain concepts and theories
as given, thus allowing closer scrutinizing of others and a retrospective look at the concepts held
as given. For this reason it is unhelpful to attempt to address the faults with the third generation
literature, while simultaneously examining the organizational question. Therefore, our analysis
does not enter into this discussion and focuses its investigation into the limitations of
bureaucratic organizations in implementing third-generation peacebuilding.
We turn now to the peacebuilding principles. Space considerations do not permit a full
analytical derivation from the literature, however, a brief explanation of the methodology
demonstrates that the peacebuilding principles rest on solid foundations of research and are
representative of key elements of third generation scholarship. First, two main bodies of
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literature were reviewed: research from critical and post-structuralist traditions, conflict
transformation, and liberal-local hybridity; and research on organizational aspects of
peacebuilding. This initial review quickly revealed a scarcity of organizational approaches to
studying peacebuilding, which provided further impetus to conduct this work.
Second, now focusing on the peacebuilding literature and following initial sorting and
reviewing, a theoretical coding iteratively identified and refined key themes (Patton, 2002) until
a typology with nine elements was reached (understanding peace as a process and end-state,
cultural knowledge, knowledge generation, local-international relationships, local-local
relationships, locally-adaptive implementation, locally-tailored mission objectives, locally-
sequenced tasks, political economy). Articles were grouped according to these themes, with
priority placed on review articles and edited books, which typically summarize literature in the
opening or concluding chapters. Articles were cross-checked against these themes, and
redundancies and duplications of concepts identified. By identifying the most common themes, a
further iteration generated a typology of five elements (knowledge of peace, knowledge
generation, relationships, implementation, mission objectives and tasks), which subsequently
became the five principles.
We now capture the latest research on third generation peacebuilding in these five
principles that are postulated to hybridize the liberal and transformative traditions. They should
not be thought of as specific prescriptions, but as outlining general “peacebuilding requirements”
relatively invariant to a particular context. These principles are the basis against which
organizational requirements can be derived, assuming the principles as given.
Principle 1: Peacebuilding requires a deep understanding of peace
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Peacebuilding requires a deep understanding of peace outside of liberal state mechanisms
(Richmond, 2009, 2010), and recognition that the absence of a state does not mean absence of
political power, take for example, Somalia (Chesterman, 2004). There are many sources of peace
in society and the existence of liberal order does not guarantee the resolution or transformation
of century’s old conflict. Moreover, societies should not be “pathologized,” which “fixes
culpability for war on societies in question, rendering the domestic populations dysfunctional
while casting international rescue interventions as functional” (Hughes and Pupavac, 2005: 873).
Consequently, rather than viewing peacebuilding as state-building to fix “failed states” (Ghani
and Lockhart, 2009), it must be thought of as an emancipatory endeavor that hybridizes political
and institutional order with local concerns by developing a social contract between society and
the polity (Richmond, 2010). Peace must be understood in a holistic manner and constructed by
all parties rather than framed or owned by external agencies that may unintentionally reinforce
neoliberal prescriptions or be insensible to the overall impact of global capitalism or other forces
(Pugh et al., 2008).
Principle 2: Peacebuilding requires significant understanding of how knowledge is generated in
society
Peacebuilding requires an exceptional understanding of objective societal components
such as organization and structure, local culture, tradition, and history, but also an understanding
of events from multiple perspectives. Peacebuilders must develop “privileged” knowledge from
analysis of complex dynamics and causal relationships that drive conflict, but be able to
distinguish their perspective from local perspectives. Peacebuilders should understand how
knowledge is generated in societies through social construction of narratives. The notion of
“fact” should be replaced by a “fact-value continuum” in which empirical statements are always
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contextual, and values are both emergent and determinable by reasoned processes (Frederickson
et al., 2012; House and Howe, 1999). Peacebuilders should be self-reflective by considering how
interventions are perceived by locals, and should develop the capacity for “double-loop” learning
in which contextual knowledge leads to modification of an organization’s underlying norms and
mission goals, rather than incremental changes in methods or tools (Argyris and Schön, 1989;
Campbell, 2008).
Principle 3: Peacebuilding is fundamentally about relationships and must involve all actors
A deep and permanent peace requires a normalization process in relationships between
conflict parties, which allows inequalities and differences to be addressed, and closer social
integration (Kriesberg, 2007). While much literature focuses on ways to bring conflict parties
together constructively, often the relationships between the interveners and the conflict parties
themselves are often forgotten. Peacebuilding requires significant external intervention and
interference in a conflict, thus the relationship between the interveners and the conflict parties is
equally important as that between the conflict parties, especially in the case of asymmetric and
“serious power imbalances between outsiders and insiders” (Donais, 2009: 15).
Consequently, principle three calls for a social and psychological contract between
international peacebuilders and local actors that reflects the social contract within the polity.
Practically, this means that while international guidance is offered on, for example, technical
aspects of governance and institution building, it is done so without introducing “hegemony,
inequality, conditionality, or dependency” (Richmond, 2010: 33). Clear objectives are needed
with regard to the relationship between local and international actors and its dynamic over the
duration of mission (Chesterman, 2004). Finally, peacebuilding must consider the relationships
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with the funders, especially of governmental origin: political will and sustainability is needed in
donor and intervening countries (Menon and Welsh, 2011; Williams, 2011).
Principle 4: Implementation should be locally adaptive and sensitive to the tensions and
dilemmas of peacebuilding
Peacebuilders should endeavor to secure quick transfer of responsibilities and power in
all areas to local actors (Pugh et al., 2008) such that ownership of peace processes is
reconceptualized from international-local elite to local-local, where the “geometry of
power…(is)…in local community structures, which enable a constant feedback of local needs to
decision making” (Pugh et al., 2008: 393). Local decision making processes should therefore
determine basic political, economic, and social norms to be institutionalized in any type of
centralized state (Richmond, 2010). Yet this process must be tempered by serious consideration
of political economy issues generated by constitutional distribution of power, especially where
centralized states are supported by foreign interveners (Myerson, 2011).
Awareness is needed of the fundamental contradictions of peacebuilding, which lead to a
set of policy dilemmas in implementation. Paris and Sisk summarize the contradictions well:
outside intervention and international control is required for self-government and local
ownership; universal values are roughly applied to myriad of local cultures; statebuilding
requires a clean slate of political order, yet must reaffirm historical cultural identities; and short
term imperatives like peacekeeping often conflict with longer term objectives like conflict
resolution (Paris and Sisk, 2009: 305-306). A key tension in implementation is between past and
future: peacebuilding should balance forward looking aspects of political and economic power in
a future peace, with backward looking issues of reparation for injustice, reconciliation processes,
and reaffirmation of historical cultural identities (Sandole et al., 2009).
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These contradictions and tensions lead to various policy dilemmas of finding balance
between: a heavy international footprint to achieve security or reconstruction versus a light
footprint to allow unencumbered development and self-equilibrium of local society; a short term
presence to avoid the “occupation” syndrome of irritating local population, versus long term
presence to see through the lengthy process of statebuilding; and a peace process that involves
and legitimizes former combatant parties and factional groups versus one that involves the whole
population and does not placate warlords by offering them positions of power. The policy
decisions made around these dilemmas can create a range of dependencies where political and
economic patterns in society are greatly distorted by international peacebuilders (Paris and Sisk,
2009: 307-308).
Principle 5: Objectives and tasks of peacebuilding missions should be tailored to fit local
requirements, not international priorities
The objectives and tasks of peacebuilding missions should be planned from the outset by
incorporating local political and economic priorities and focusing on the most marginalized
groups (Pugh et al., 2008). Any free-market reform or assistance offered from international
peacebuilders should be by local consensus and knowledge rather than “expert” or elite input,
which limits democratic potential by undermining the social contract and leading to a counter-
productive class systems. Economic development should be coupled with careful establishment
of a social-economic safety net that supports citizens. Privatization programs stipulated by many
large international donors should be reframed to local geometry to include public, socially owned
and community property that is protected from dispossession by private accumulation (Mengistu
and Vogel, 2009; Richmond, 2010). Rather than only “security force assistance” projects
(Rathmell, 2010), peacebuilders should recognize security as “an intricate, almost unconscious,
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network of voluntary controls and standards among the people themselves, and enforced by the
people themselves” (Jacobs, 1961: 31) and establish multiple and overlapping community
structures that offer redundancy and balance (Kilcullen, 2010).
Organizational framework of analysis
The five principles (P1 to P5 hereafter) endeavor to capture the essence of contemporary
conflict resolution and peacebuilding literature, yet say little about their practical realization.
This article’s purpose is to examine one key aspect of practice: peacebuilding interventions using
bureaucratic organizations. Drawing from principles in administrative and organizational
science, we now describe a framework of analysis to highlight variables important to how
bureaucratic organizations function in executing peacebuilding interventions.
Although it is challenging to define the parameters of a distinct sample for study, the
arguments in this research focus primarily on bureaucratic organizations, which constitute the
vast majority of government agencies, international and large nongovernmental organizations
(Mac Ginty, 2012). As a result of their bureaucratic template, these organizations have several
characteristics in common: a hierarchical structure in which departmentalization of functions
such as planning, implementation and evaluation occurs; levels of command with clearly defined
responsibilities and authority; a formalized set of legal rules and procedures; a formal process for
the appointment and retention of staff based on competence; and requirements for specialized
expertise (Weber, 1947). This Weberian “rational-legal” bureaucratic form was created to
achieve efficiency and is the prevalent form of organization in Western society. The
specialization of knowledge, planning, evaluation and production functions is a consequence of
the technical rationality of this way of organizing (Scott, 2003). It should be noted, however, that
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bureaucracies only function well and achieve the intended efficiencies where organizational
activities and missions are stable and clearly defined (Perrow, 1972).
While compositional elements vary widely across different mission types and
organizational size, most organizations conduct a core set of functions independent of mission
and size (Mintzberg, 1979). Our framework of analysis considers the following organizational
functions that are almost universal in rational bureaucracies: Knowledge, Planning,
Implementation, and Evaluation. These functions are chosen because of their centrality to design
and conduct of an organization’s mission in any peacebuilding intervention (Allard, 2005;
Wentz, 1998, 2002). These categories are also widely identified in general the public and private
management literature as standard functions (Mintzberg, 1979; Rainey, 2003).
Exploring the organizational requirements for peacebuilding
Having established the peacebuilding principles and the organizational framework of
analysis, the research question of this article is now addressed: how might technocratic-
orientated organizations need to change in order to meet the requirements of the peacebuilding
principles? By matching peacebuilding principles to the organizational typology of knowledge,
planning, implementation, and evaluation, we generate conclusions and tentative research ideas
for future studies. We acknowledge immediately that there are obvious political and practical
difficulties in the various recommendations, but for the purposes of not constraining thinking we
consider the full range of possibilities rather than only the practicable.
Knowledge requirements for peacebuilding organizations
Technocracies typically use formalized knowledge systems and resident or contracted
experts who possess objective factual information and much tacit experience. Government and
military organizations often develop vast databases on conflict areas. Many international
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organizations conduct elaborate conflict assessments to understand conflict drivers or societal
needs before any intervention starts (UN, 2007, 2012), for which there is a large system of
private “civilian experts” and companies (de Coning, 2011). These observations reflect the fact
that complex peacebuilding interventions generate high organizational requirements for
knowledge. While organizations have the intent of following peacebuilding principles one and
two, which call for a deep understanding of the final “end” of peace and significant knowledge
as the “means,” the operationalization of this requirement seems to have generated increasing
specialization, bureaucratization, and treatment of knowledge as a “resource” rather than process.
Rationalized bureaucracies are forced, by their intrinsic nature, to create categories and
classification schemes, which serve to make the transfer of organizational knowledge efficient
and simple. Labels such as “locals,” “powerbrokers” or “key leaders” created for management
plans and knowledge databases often lose their original meaning or begin to mask situational
complexities and socially constructed meanings (Stone, 2002). The key question is how can
organizations translate temporary, localized, mission-based knowledge into both intrinsic tacit
knowledge and formalized explicit knowledge in a manner accordant with the principles?
Based on an appreciation of the nature of wicked problems, complexity, and
interdependent systems (Li et al., 2012; Rittel and Webber, 1973), organizations must develop
new structural responses to knowledge requirements. One such response is to abandon
formalized “engineering-style” mission planning for an evolutionary, adaptive approach that
seeks generation of knowledge, rather than using a-priori knowledge at the start of missions
(Watkins and Mohr, 2001). Another response is to consider personnel deployment durations and
the ways in which an organization captures mission-based knowledge. In the military and other
government departments, for example, personnel deploy for periods of up to one year, yet the
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transition time between deployments is disruptive to peacebuilding, as contextual and time-
sensitive mission based knowledge is lost (Rathmell, 2009). Although an unpopular concept and
one that stretches the boundary between diplomatic service and development functions,
governments may have consider extended multi-year deployment periods.
Structurally, the importance of incorporating dynamic local needs and perspectives into
all aspects of decision-making, planning and implementation as specified by P4 and P5, require
that organizations have mechanisms and resources to incorporate local views before, or in the
early phases of a mission. This entails radical changes in organizational knowledge management
and control. For example, knowledge systems must receive input from a wide variety of sources
to encourage alternative and contradictory perspectives, yet this conflicts with basic operative
principles of bureaucracy: that complex task specialization rests upon specialized knowledge of
personnel (Perrow, 1972). Given that bureaucracies tend to evolve to control information, a
strong organizational culture of sharing is required (Zelizer, 2013).
To meet requirements for P3, understanding of peace must be framed through multiple
lenses including justice, reconciliation, and relationship building, rather than absence of
violence. High levels of expertise and knowledge on various techniques of conflict resolution
must be present. Knowledge systems (e.g. reference databases) required for mission planning
that contain objective facts should also consider interests, needs and perceptions of conflict
parties. Furthermore, knowledge systems should incorporate systems analysis that considers
conflict environments as a holistic, multi-level system, linking to wider regional or global
contexts (Ropers, 2008). Practically, this redefines the “success” of knowledge systems by
utilization and increased understanding of all stakeholders, rather than accumulation of “facts” or
data per se. Peacebuilding organizations must encourage constant personal learning, the ability to
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see other perspectives, and continual questioning of assumptions to meet the knowledge
requirements specified in P1 and P2. Leadership must prioritize understanding of the
complexities of conflict situations over making quick decisions, and recognize that knowledge of
a complex system is inherently limited.
Planning requirements for peacebuilding organizations
Planning in a bureaucracy serves to reduce complexity, rationalize decision making
through formulation of clear goals based on assumed objective knowledge, and identify the
means and ways to achieve goals (March and Simon, 1993). A core criticism of technocratic
planning has been that its underlying rationale, when based on supposedly objective knowledge,
is control—and domination—of a situation or environment from a singular perspective; and that
the process is not supportive of inclusive or participatory logics, especially given the chain of
decision-making in complex bureaucracies (Allmendinger, 2002). This criticism is especially
relevant in the context of peacebuilding, as highlighted by P3 and P4.
At this stage it is pertinent to raise the subject of “rationality,” meaning the normative
conception of reasoning employed at an individual level of analysis. Technocracy assumes
“instrumental” rationality, in which individuals are conceived as reasoning on the basis of
objective information to attain clear goals, and “true” knowledge is defined by that which
permits prediction and thus control (Fay, 1975). The implication of this conception of rationality
for peacebuilding organizations is the prioritization of scientific empirical knowledge over other
forms, the notion of “expertise” as an accumulation of factual knowledge and experience, and the
tendency to create the impression that “solutions” can be engineered or discovered and thus
“planned” in order to solve social conflict.
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Yet other types of rationality are possible. Many scholars have investigated interpretive
rationality: a mode of reasoning based on continual social construction of meaning among
involved actors in which the very definition of knowledge is that which causes increased
communication. Increased communication between actors opens up the possibility of increased
understanding of each person’s reflective viewpoint of the shared constitutive meanings and thus
the possibility of changing one’s viewpoint (Bevir, 2010; Fay, 1975; Stone, 2002). Others have
expanded Habermas’ (1981) communicative rationality, in which rational reasoning is conceived
as a discursive process to uncover realities hidden by socially constructed understandings, thus
rationality is defined by process rather than knowledge outcome. In their landmark text on urban
planning, Innes and Booher (2010) argue for “collaborative rationality,” which like Habermas’
theory is defined by process conditions of a diversity of participants with interdependent interests
engaging in authentic dialogue to develop shared meanings and “heuristic” solutions (Innes and
Booher, 2010: 35). It is relevant to note that collaborative rationality is foundational to many
conflict resolution strategies important in peacebuilding, such as Alternative Dispute Resolution,
in which the dialogue proceeds around discussion of underlying interests rather than instrumental
positions, in order to develop mutual gain solutions (Fisher et al., 1991).
Any type of planning in any paradigmatic lens assumes an intention to change something
in the world; yet P2, P4, and P5 require that this change is determined primarily by affected local
actors rather than by external agents. Consequently, peacebuilding organizations must ensure
that mission plans are framed against “locally-owned” conflict theories that describe underlying
conflict drivers. The process of planning involves moving from a picture of the current situation,
to an intended future situation by employing instrumental organizational tools. Bureaucracies
often plan using “impact” models, which identify causal assumptions between planned
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interventions and change. P2, P4, and P5 require that impact models are constructed with wide
stakeholder participation.
The capacity to undertake this, however, involves a move from the instrumental and
systems rationality of bureaucracy, to the collaborative rationality described by Fisher and
Forester (1993); Forester (1981), and Innes and Booher (2010). Planners and analysts move from
operating within the existing system of power structures and one-sided communications, to
changing the existing system through collaborative planning, questioning and focusing attention.
The danger of impact models, even if based on broad stakeholder impact, is that they merely
represent “pragmatism without principles”—a form of incrementalism (Lindblom, 2010).
Instead, impact models should “pattern attention selectively to meaningful parts of (the) world”
and bring together the ways of knowing and ways of deciding to correct distorted
communications about the problem, and the solutions (Forester, 1981: 167).
This requires organizations to have an institutional, explicit understanding of their
particular fundamental paradigmatic orientation (e.g. realism, pluralism etc.), which determines
the particular planning strategy adopted by an organization (Jantzi and Jantzi, 2009;
Ramsbotham et al., 2011). For example, military planners are explicitly realist: although recent
doctrine mentions peacebuilding and local ownership (NATO, 2011), the underlying assumption
remains that external intervention can manipulate society through “instruments of power”
(Hunter et al., 2008). To adopt the peacebuilding principles presented in this article,
organizations require a paradigm of “transformative learning” that emphasizes externally
supported creation of new understandings in interventions, rather than the assumption that
societal change can be driven by external forces (Affolter et al., 2009).
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Bureaucracies do not cope well with rapid change and uncertain inputs and outputs
(Perrow, 1972). P1 calls for the final goal of peace to be clearly operationalized via a process
involving wide participation from all stakeholders, yet P3 and P4 indicate that both
understandings and context will change as situations and conflict parties’ understandings evolve.
Organizationally, this requires that goals, underlying planning assumptions, and conflict theories
are continually reassessed and adapted, and may not even be specified before the start of a
mission. Mission planning should be conducted via an evolutionary approach, where goals are
adapted and refined as peacebuilders gain on the ground experience, rather than in a linear
engineering approach (Clement and Smith, 2009; Rittel and Webber, 1973).
P3 requires that peacebuilding organizations place relationships with local actors at a
focal point of all activity. Consequently, planning should be framed from the perspective of a
social contract with local actors, rather than Western governments or donors. Organizations
should plan their relationships with conflict parties at all levels and consider how they might or
should evolve over the duration of a mission. Consequently, mission planning should incorporate
strategies of conflict transformation, based on dynamic construction of different perspectives
amongst stakeholders (Lederach, 2003; Zelizer, 2013).
Given the strong emphasis on locally sourced knowledge and local involvement in all the
peacebuilding principles, it is evident that mission knowledge, theories of conflict, and theories
of change require an open and transparent development process with the ability to identify where
management, leadership, or donors have had influence. In this vein, strategic, budgetary and
management planning should be responsive to mission contexts and evaluation knowledge,
rather than vice versa. Organization budget processes must be flexible and not based on fixed
annual allocations or mission success. Political or high level decision-making must be not
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decoupled from mission-based planning, implying adaptability to changes in goals or mission
scope. These factors require a fundamental shift from traditional bureaucratic structure:
specializations of fixed departments must yield to a flexible, networked-based organization in
which short term mission-based expertise is balanced against long term management experience,
which focuses on organizational priorities over immediate mission concerns.
P3 further calls for consideration of relationships and coordination with other
peacebuilding organizations. This is important to achieve both for overall policy coherence
between actors (OECD, 2003) and to ensure operational coordination and appropriate division of
labor and responsibility between actors (de Coning, 2008, 2009). The implications for planning
are significant. First, organizations must establish the extent to which their operations are
impacted by other organizations. Second, planning must involve a process of interorganizational
communication and decision-making, which vastly complexifies the process, making the dangers
of instrumental planning harder to avoid with the increase in actors.
A common response to the coherence and coordination challenge is a centralized
approach such as the UN integrated mission concept and the Peacebuilding Commission. Yet
participation in these systems by peacebuilding organizations comes at a high price: forging
comprehensive working relationships with a variety of actors represents a formidable
administrative task of unparalleled complexity; and traditional bureaucratic principles are subtly
altered as organizational boundaries are blurred and questions of legal-rational authority,
responsibility and accountability arise (Williams, 2010). In a hierarchical bureaucratic structure,
ability to plan and take ownership of goals usually implies authority to commit resources towards
that goal. For organizations to develop coordinated impact models with classical means-end
project plans requires that the level of organization engaging in coordination has the authority to
22
commit resources. Yet the typical place of coordination—on the ground in a mission—is not
where senior level staff with authority operates. Consequently, high level planning authority may
need to be decentralized to ground level units, which generates challenging administrative issues
concerning accountability and responsibility (Provan and Kenis, 2007).
A final issue for strategic and budgetary planners—to meet the requirements of P3—is to
establish organizational sustainability by securing long term commitments from donors, owners
and taxpayers to support interventions of years or decades. This requires organizations to assume
significant amounts of risk when planning resources and budgets.
Implementation requirements for peacebuilding organizations
Implementation means the execution of an organization’s mission, or as Ferman (1990:
39) describes, “what happens between policy expectations and (perceived) policy results.” A
challenge of implementation is the balance between “top-down” controls over an organization’s
activities versus “bottom-up” adaptation. A “top-down” perspective assumes that plans identify
goals against which performance can be measured and appropriate organizational tools selected.
An “implementation chain” (Pressman and Wildavsky, 1984) then moves from planned goals to
actual impacts, via inputs and outputs. If the plan fails, it is due to implementation failure
resulting from lack of resources, lack of commitment, or lack of ability of the “top” to control the
process (Mazmanian and Sabatier, 1983). Top-down control is necessary for accountability,
financial control, or to meet the instrumental rationality that governs an organization, which is
especially prevalent in military and government agencies (Caforio, 2006). Conversely, a
“bottom-up” perspective assumes adaptation to local conditions during plan implementation.
Missions and goals are seen as ambiguous and often conflicting with goals of other of
organizations involved in implementation. Depending on the context, staff “on the ground”
23
interpret the meaning of goals in different ways, or realize that they are no longer relevant or
appropriate, thus implementation is a series of continual compromises, conflicts and adaptation.
A fundamental tension exists between the top-down need for control, and the contextual needs of
the mission for adaptation and flexibility (Frederickson et al., 2012).
The implications of this challenge when viewed through the peacebuilding principles are
significant. P1 and P2 call for both a deep understanding of peace and a broad knowledge of the
conflict environment. Yet considering the theme developed so far in this discussion, knowledge
is evolving continually, thus organizations require significant resource commitment to
knowledge development during implementation. To meet P3 and P5, decisions and plans have to
be synchronized on the basis of local decision-making, and an organization’s knowledge may be
in conflict with locally generated perspectives. This requires exceptional flexibility in decision-
making. Bureaucracies tend to desire clear and objective policy goals and plans, yet as P4 shows,
defining a clear strategy is challenging given the various peacebuilding policy dilemmas.
Implementation takes place in the context of active or latent conflict, which requires that
regardless of the particular mission of the organization (aid, development, security etc.) all
activities must be conducted around a framework of conflict resolution (USIP, 2010).
The source of these issues lies in the inherent “wickedness” of conflict problems.
Experience has shown that wicked problems are solved by evolution rather than engineering, and
bureaucracies are ill-matched for the localized adaptation required. De Coning notes that
“peacebuilding should not be understood as an activity that generates a specific outcome, but as
an activity that facilitates and stimulates the processes that enable local self-organisation to
emerge” (de Coning, 2012: 293). In terms of implementation, peacebuilding is squarely in the
“bottom-up” perspective. Therefore, top-down control should facilitate resources and expand
24
political space, rather than enforce fixed visions about achievement of specific, externally
defined goals.
Peacebuilding organizations operate in a complex system with high interdependence with
other organizations (de Coning, 2008). Defining boundaries of responsibility for achievement of
goals is challenging when no one organization has the capability to achieve them independently,
thus collaboration is important (Kettl, 2006). The implications of multiorganizational
collaboration are extensively addressed in public administration, public policy, and management
literature (Ansel and Gash, 2007), but receives little attention peacebuilding and conflict
resolution studies—a peculiar fact considering the repeated observation of the importance of
coherence and collaboration (de Coning, 2008, 2009; OECD, 2003; Paris and Sisk, 2009). There
are several key implications that occur with increasing organizational collaboration.
First, to achieve high levels of coherence, organizations must align overarching mission
goals, and increase coordination throughout the structure. This requires allowing lower level staff
more flexibility in defining outputs and goals and the appropriate authority and knowledge to
make decisions about building relationships with local actors (Chisholm, 1992). A tension exists,
however, between the level of collaboration and organisational independence. As the shift from
hierarchical to more flexible network based structures occurs, some organizational autonomy
must be conceded and risk assumed. Accountability dilemmas become more complex with closer
integration between organizations (Thomson et al., 2009). Furthermore, hybrid decision making
structures—committees, meetings and management boards—must be set up to implement the
coordination between organizations (McNamara, 2012).
Second, organizations require extra resources devoted to the task of coordination.
Huxham and Vangen (2005: 37) were clear on this subject: “Don’t do it unless you have to! Joint
25
working with other organizations is inherently difficult and resource consuming” (p.37). Thus in
addition to considering the various peacebuilding dilemmas of P4, leadership and management
have another dilemma in deciding the level of cooperation with interdependent organizations.
Evaluation requirements for peacebuilding organizations
Evaluation has gained in importance in recent decades with the increasing call for
transparency and accountability in international interventions (Picciotto, 2003). Many
international aid and development organizations have independent departments to manage,
conduct or contract out evaluations (OECD, 2010), while military organizations generally have
their own personnel in “operations assessment” departments. From the many purposes for
evaluations, this analysis focuses on “summative” evaluations that monitor inputs and outputs to
determine program improvement, and “knowledge generation” evaluations for organizational
lessons (Patton, 1997).
Evaluation systems in major international and governmental organizations generally
assume the form of “rational” input/output monitoring, with focused post-facto impact
assessment (Williams and Morris, 2009). While intended uses vary, evaluations tend to feed
bureaucratic systems for purposes of accountability, mission knowledge, or progress
measurement (Mac Ginty, 2013). The implications of the peacebuilding principles for evaluation
in peacebuilding organizations are similar to those of planning. Evaluations of peacebuilding
interventions must continue focus on impacts, but their planning must involve participatory
designs to reduce the likelihood that evaluations are framed with an instrumental logic.
Participatory designs emphasize local ownership of evaluation methods, development of
findings, and utilization of results, to give those who are often powerless a voice in both
26
evaluation process and program implementation (Cousins and Earl, 1992). The organizational
implications are profound.
Evaluations in “rational” results-based management systems focus on objective evidence-
based adjustments to plans; in the scientific logic of bureaucracy these functions are technical
specializations that can be departmentalized and separated by time (Williams and Morris, 2009).
Indeed, every development agency of OECD member states has a centralized evaluation unit that
conducts independent evaluations, separated from program implementation (OECD, 2010).
Participatory evaluations invoke an entirely different logic and require a blurring of the planning
and evaluation roles, in direct conflict with the traditional notions of evaluation independence
and accountability. Furthermore, organizational units responsible for evaluations must be highly
coordinated or merged with organizational units generating knowledge for conflict analysis and
planning.
Rational evaluation systems also rely on stable goals and objectives against which
progress can be measured, yet the reality of peacebuilding interventions, and even the
implementation of many government projects, shows that fixed objectives are notoriously hard to
achieve. Peacebuilding organizations locally adapt as needed and respond to constraints and
opportunities as they arise, thus many aspects of missions cannot be planned in advance. This
adaptivity coupled with the typical departmentalization of organizations in mission contributes to
a situation where objectives are either continuously interpreted or retrospectively reconstructed
in evaluations (Brusset, 2012). Thus objectives and end-states are “informal” and socially
constructed, with views not equally shared by all stakeholders. In response to this situation, the
evaluation scholars and practitioners have developed “goal-free” or “developmental”
evaluations, which avoid rationalistic template approaches (Patton, 2011; Scriven, 1991)
27
Conclusions
This article developed a set of peacebuilding principles drawn from recent work on
“hybrid” peacebuilding and transformative conflict resolution, and considered which aspects of
bureaucratically-structured peacebuilding organizations would need to change, assuming the
peacebuilding principles as given. The tentative results indicate that profound changes in
bureaucratic structures and functions would be required. Implementation of these conclusions is
an obvious challenge; a consistent lesson from organizational change literature is that traditional
structures do not easily yield to new ones (Lawler and Worley, 2006).
First, hierarchical structures in organizations need considerable flattening, or conversely,
authority needs to be more horizontally distributed rather than vertically. This would change the
operating controlling mechanism to a collaborative system of power where organizational
direction is achieved by understanding the competing requirements of different departments
though a process of continuous debate, rather than through centralized command system where
orders are transmitted downwards. The traditional bureaucratic impartial system of staffing based
on experience rather than patronage may be hard to implement; however, an organizational
culture that valued long term field experience above all may provide counterbalance.
Second, the idea of rational, organized knowledge “databases” that can be accessed when
required needs considerable modification, replaced instead with a system of continual knowledge
generation and the abandonment of objective truth. The underlying operating assumption of
privileged externalized knowledge, especially prevalent in militaries, must be abandoned to a
culture of assuming incomplete knowledge as a starting point, and the idea that knowledge only
can exist when it is co-created with all stakeholders affected by an organization’s actions.
28
Third, the “classical engineering” approach to planning and implementation needs
rethinking to give organizations considerable flexibility. Most decision-making processes assume
a linear stream of events, in which plans are formed, then approved and then executed, with
senior decision makers reviewing and approving as necessary as implementation proceeds.
Decision making would instead need to accommodate simultaneous processes of goal planning,
activity planning, and implementation, and much higher coordination with other related
peacebuilding organizations. This is challenging in governmental organizations, which require
certainty about mission scope and resource commitments due to budgetary cycles and
accountability requirements.
Finally, organizations need to consider the concepts of accountability and legitimacy in
all aspects of their operations. The peacebuilding principles clearly require organizations to
reframe their operations from the perspective of locally-derived justice, fairness and equity.
There is an implicit criticism of other peacebuilding generations—especially the modernist
liberal generation—that this was lacking. Organizations need to continuously evaluate their
accountability to all stakeholders affected by their actions, and take measures to establish
legitimacy, ideally through a framework involving regional compacts (Brown, 2008; Williams
and Taylor, 2013). This is fundamentally about the question of “what to do” in peacebuilding,
rather than the means used, as described in this article; however, this issue is likely to reduce
significantly the “efficiency” of peacebuilding organizations, given the high resource and time
requirements for deliberative discourse.
In addition to the structural and functional aspects of organizations, this analysis hints
that hybrid peacebuilding is hard to operationalize, raising several challenging questions about
whether the peacebuilding principles can realistically be met. Peacebuilding runs into the same
29
foundational questions found in political science, or even urban planning: how to establish
political legitimacy following conflict; how to establish legitimacy of intervention without some
anchor of legitimate power in the region of operation; how to achieve transformation in the mind
of an entire population rather than just leadership and elites; how to scale up local approaches to
regions and nations without a national government? In this vein, peacebuilding scholars should
review analogous debates about participatory local approaches versus instrumental external
means in the fields of urban planning and public administration.
A limitation to this analysis and a broader implication for the study of peacebuilding is
the potential bias that stems from attempting to “fix” the identified issues with bureaucracies.
While this explicitly was not the aim of this article, we must acknowledge the potential biases
that may result from our Western-orientated training in organizational science and peacebuilding,
and our normative assumptions about the wider role of Western institutions in peacebuilding.
Future researchers would be well-advised to consider seriously the question that even genuine
attempts to reform organizations based on recommendations from third generation literature may
unintentionally blind us to the fact that we are still operating from within the liberal disciplinary
matrix of assumptions and beliefs, and even worse, that these attempts may serve to
unintentionally reinforce the systems from which we are trying to break free.
This article intentionally steered away from these wider debates in peacebuilding,
focusing instead on the more objective features of peacebuilding organizations. Yet even within
this scope, the analysis was limited. The coverage of each organizational function could easily
deserve an entire article, and the analytical framework was simplistic and didn’t consider a
holistic view of how organizations operate; however, research on these topics was limited. A
major empirical project is needed on the organizational structures of peacebuilding to allow close
30
scrutiny of operating problems, principles, and structures. With these ideas in mind, the closing
recommendation is that peacebuilding scholars should consider partnerships with researchers in
organizational science, public administration and urban planning as a worthy endeavor.
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