Learning in complex public systems: the case of MINUSMA’s intelligence organization

Erik J. de Waard, Sebastiaan Rietjens, A Georges L. Romme and Paul C. van Fenema

Public Management Review, 2023, vol. 25, issue 6, 1039-1058

Abstract: Public systems are facing increasingly complex challenges such as poverty and terrorism. In this paper, we seek to demonstrate the theoretical as well as practical value of complexity science, by investigating how key characteristics of a Complex Adaptive System (CAS) work out in practice within the intelligence organization of the ongoing nation-building mission in Mali (MINUSMA). Our main finding is that the learning properties of the CAS suffer when its structural properties are not sufficiently developed. In MINUSMA, major improvements can especially be made in (re)developing the minimum specs – in which strategic and operational demands, ideally, converge.

Date: 2023
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DOI: 10.1080/14719037.2021.2003108

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