Coordination in practice or performance? The political economy of refugee aid coordination in Jordan

Abstract

Abstract Political economy literature on the incentives of international actors during humanitarian crises has cast international aid coordination inefficiencies during humanitarian crises as a product of vertical principal–agent problems with informational asymmetries, divergent interests, and inter-agent competition. However, horizontal coordination between international actors represents an important and understudied dimension of the political economy of international aid during refugee responses. Horizontal coordination structures, while offering a potential solution to the principal–agent problem of humanitarian responses, can either result in coordination in practice or coordination in performance. I argue that the incentives of coordinating actors, the level of donor monitoring, and the risk of elimination of some organizations or material opportunities as a result of effective coordination all factor into international organization and international non-governmental organization coordination behaviour. I examine the relationships between stakeholders during the Syrian refugee response in Jordan and the differential take-up of coordination technologies to test my theory with policy implications.