Engaging with complexity in a public programme implementation

The heuristic device of a complexity-based lens is applied to the local implementation of a public programme to understand the possible misalignment of its outcomes with the central planners’ goals. The authors supersede the dominant use in complexity theory of simplifying or ambiguous metaphors to focus, instead, on the core concepts of emergence, co-evolution, and self-organization. The paper reinterprets extant literature and analyses an exemplary case, concluding that policy implementation must be approached pragmatically as a self-organizing system and that the public managers need to strategically engage with complexity in a manner that is consistent with such a pragmatic understanding.