Engaging with complexity in a public programme implementation
本文运用复杂性视角分析公共项目地方执行中结果与中央目标错位的原因，强调政策执行应被视为自组织系统，管理者需以务实态度应对复杂性。
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.