Policing for development outcomes: complexity in program management and monitoring and evaluation

Abstract

This thesis begins by establishing an understanding how capacity is conceptualised, developed, managed, monitored and evaluated in the field of international development. I then use this understanding to assess how it might inform program management monitoring & evaluation (PMM&E) in international police capacity development operations. I do this through exploring the literature surrounding the conceptualisation of capacity development (CD) and its implementation as well as considering conventional approaches to program management and monitoring and evaluation (M&E) before applying the findings of this literature review to the case of police capacity development in Solomon Islands. Through this exploration I consider the value of complexity theory in understanding such police capacity development environments. I then utilise complexity understandings to develop a framework for PMM&E in police CD operations that is more able to manage and monitor the complex realities of a CD environment as well as harness the manner in which capacity emerges.The case study chapters focus on the institutional CD of the Royal Solomon Islands Police Force (RSIPF) and the experienced realities of police practitioners. The chapters are broken into two separate but related stages of analysis. The initial analysis of this data is concerned with understanding if and how the conceptualisation of capacity, CD and PMM&E in the field of international development is relevant to the case of police CD in the Solomon Islands and what it might be able to tell us about how best to design a framework for program management inclusive of M&E (Program Management M&E [PMM&E]) appropriate for police CD operations. The emergent themes suggest a dramatically different approach to PMM&E is required to fully account for the processes and environment. Given the strong and consistent themes in the data surrounding issues to do with the interconnectedness and interdependence of systems and subsystems, the importance of individual agency and how different and complex cultural and knowledge systems shape, inform and limit such agency, the unequivocal centrality of emergence and the unpredictable nature of CD in this case leads me to consider the relevance, and explanatory power, of systems thinking and complexity theory.The first stage of data analysis suggests a need to return to the literature to explore complexity theory in international development. This literature informs stage two of the data analysis. The findings of this second stage of analysis demonstrate there are a number of component complexity concepts that appear to be highly instructive in understanding the case of police CD. Accordingly the concepts are grouped together into themes and the data is reanalysed against these new insights. The case study findings present a strong argument for the utility of complexity theory in the PMM&E of police CD as well as a range of practice based lessons to be incorporated into the design of a program management framework.The dissertation draws on the above findings regarding the relevance of complexity theory and other practical lessons for improving practice in CD PMM&E and further unpacks these concepts to draw out the practical implications for designing a PMM&E framework in an international police CD operation. Based on the demonstrated centrality of complexity theory concepts, I propose a framework for PMM&E in international police CD operations incorporating both the theoretical and the practical findings generated by the preceding literature reviews and case study analysis.