Embracing dynamic tensions: Peacekeeping as a balancing act of complexity

• 成果类型: Article
• 署名作者: Paananen, Soili; Puustinen, Alisa; Raisio, Harri; Jalonen, Harri
• 署名单位: University of Vaasa
• 刊物名称: PUBLIC ADMINISTRATION REVIEW
• ISSN/ISSBN: 0033-3352
• DOI: 10.1111/puar.13535
• 发表日期: 2022
• 页码: 1168-1178
• 关键词: leadership theory; resilience; ORGANIZATIONS; CRISIS; work

摘要

The article examines how military leaders serving as peacekeepers navigate complexity and adapt to it. The theoretical underpinnings of the study are linked to adaptive peacebuilding and Complexity Leadership Theory, and specifically to how enabling leadership through adaptive space helps to work with the local conflict dynamics and change to sustain peace. The findings are based on 29 interviews with military leaders with command experience in peacekeeping operations. The findings introduce five dimensions that unpack complexity into structural, functional, security-related, professional, and steering-related complexity and provide empirical evidence on balancing actions relating to complexity in a peacekeeping context. The article develops an analytical framework for peacekeeping. It also contributes to Complexity Leadership Theory by unpacking the complexity into dimensions, unpacking the actors into groups and communities with commitments, and addressing power relations and the dark side of their emergence. Evidence for Practice Unpacking complexity into dimensions advances leaders' understanding of their environment and enables them to avoid taking simplistic actions to address complex issues. The dimensions of complexity and its inherent tensions and actions advance the development of leadership processes and practices. Leaders' balancing actions are always enabled, restricted, and co-evolved in political, historical, economic, and temporal contexts.