Mapping the post-bureaucratic landscape: project managers’ perception of bureaucracy in European Union Cohesion policy projects
| Author | Isak Vento,Kanerva Kuokkanen |
| DOI | 10.1177/0020852320969801 |
| Published date | 01 June 2022 |
| Date | 01 June 2022 |
| Subject Matter | Articles |
Article
Mapping the
post-bureaucratic
landscape: project
managers’ perception
of bureaucracy in
European Union
Cohesion policy projects
Isak Vento
University of Helsinki, Finland
Kanerva Kuokkanen
University of Helsinki, Finland
Abstract
New post-bureaucratic organizational forms, such as projects, are increasingly used in
policy implementation. Their assumed benefits in decreasing bureaucracy and increasing
flexibility have, however, been questioned. It has been argued that public projects
increase red tape (or bureaucracy perceived as a nuisance) because of the formal
rules associated with them. Despite the topicality of the subject, we do not know
how public project bureaucracy is perceived by the actors involved. This article
explores the bureaucracy of public projects by analysing project managers’ perceptions
of them with data from European Union Cohesion policy projects in Finland. The data
consist of project register data and a survey to project managers (N¼728). The study
finds that when talking of the perception of bureaucracy, it is relevant to distinguish
between a general attitude towards bureaucracy and a specific perception of the task at
hand. The general attitude seems more negative than the specific perception of bureau-
cracy. We also show that project managers’ experience, institutional background and
share of administrative tasks in the project condition the extent to which bureaucracy
Corresponding author:
Isak Vento, University of Helsinki, Faculty of Social Science, Unioninkatu 37, PB 54, Finland.
Email: isak.vento@helsinki.fi
International Review of Administrative
Sciences
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DOI: 10.1177/0020852320969801
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2022, Vol. 88(2) 587–604
International
Review of
Administrative
Sciences
is perceived as red tape. To conclude, the findings are discussed in relation to previous
research on red tape in public administration.
Points for practitioners
Project organization connotes flexibility and innovation but involves also bureaucracy,
which can be received as red tape, especially for inexperienced managers. In general,
managers consider project bureaucracy as red tape, while in their own projects,
bureaucracy is seen as less burdensome. Public managers have an advantage over
managers from non-public organizations by perceiving public project bureaucracy as
less burdensome.
Keywords
bureaucracy, project management, public administration, public governance, public
management
Introduction
Since the 1980s, the public sector in Western welfare states has been reformed to
become less bureaucratic and more reflexive and effective (e.g. Christensen and
Laegreid, 2011; Lynn, 2006). Driven partly by the prevailing New Public
Management (NPM) doctrine and partly by economic constraints (Osborne and
Gaebler, 1992), hierarchical public administration has been dismantled and com-
plemented with new organizational forms, such as networks and projects. The new
organizations are assumed to be flexible and inclusive, and, consequently, effective
tools for public service delivery and policy implementation (du Gay, 2000; Lynn,
2011). However, public managers, who encounter these organizations in their daily
work, have questioned the de-bureaucratization measures as counterproductive
and raised concerns that the new processes in the old structures increase rather
than decrease bureaucracy (Moynihan, 2008). The shift is depicted by public
administration research as transformation in the form rather than degree of
bureaucracy (Hall, 2012; Hibou, 2015).
The discrepancy between optimistic post-bureaucratic assumptions regarding
flexibility and efficiency in public governance, and the bureaucratic reality of con-
temporary public managers, is perhaps embodied most strikingly in project-based
policy implementation (Sj€
oblom et al., 2013). The project, which connotes exper-
imentation and innovation in the military and technology fields, is in widespread
use in both the internal development of public administration and public policy
implementation at the local level (Grabher, 2004; Jacobsson et al., 2015). Projects
are the default organization for implementing the European Union’s (EU’s)
Cohesion policy (Bache, 2010), as well as other policies and programmes outside
Europe (Munck af Rosensch€
old and Wolf, 2017). However, public sector projects
operate in administrative structures that demand certain formality, such as funding
588 International Review of Administrative Sciences 88(2)
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