Week 2: Complexity and Systems
Thinking
DV455, Duncan Green and Tom Kirk
Announcements
• Ask an Activist: Mputa Ngalande, Zambia
National Coordinator, Fight Inequality Alliance.
Monday 14th, 6pm, Duncan's Zoom room
• DV445: Friday, 4-6 Old Theatre: Marsha Henry on the
Crisis of Peace Keeping
• Have you all had your project groups from Andrea?
• How’s the WhatsApp group going?
• Anything else?
This Lecture Will Cover
• Intro to Systems Thinking
• Implications for activism
• Learning Outcomes:
– Move from linear Theory of Change to ‘navigating
through the fog’.
– Understand diverse explanations for any given
change process.
– Understand relevance to activism
Real life is (mostly) Complex
What is a System: An
interconnected set of elements
coherently organized in a way that
achieves something. A is more
than the sum of its parts
What is Systems Thinking: A
set of synergistic analytic skills
used to improve the capability of
identifying and understanding
systems, predicting their
behaviors, and devising
modifications to them in order to
produce desired effects…
or…. “a discipline for seeing
wholes”
System are made up of:
Elements Interconnections
• Tangible (ministries, • Flows (resources, money,
organisations, security forces, armed information, people etc.)
groups I/NGOs, CSOs, associations
businesses, donors, religious
organisations, parks, resources, media • Relationships (allies, enemies,
etc.) governs, supports etc.)
• Intangible (social and moral
norms, ideologies, policies, laws etc.)
Issues, outcomes, status quos and behaviours in complex systems are emergent:
But what causes change?
• Multiple Feedback Loops
• Critical Junctures
– Large scale (famines,
wars, crises, scandals)
– Small scale (conflicts,
new leaders)
• Path dependence… means
change is context specific
• Uncertain causation
Complexity and Politics
• The State as a Complex system
• Harold MacMillan and ‘events dear boy’
• Donald Rumsfeld typology of events
• Della Porta on Critical Junctures → protests:
processes of cracking, vibrating, sedimenting.
• Naomi Klein, the Shock Doctrine, but can it be for
good?
China’s Rise and Complexity
• Crossing the River by Feeling
the Stones
• Yuen Yuen Ang:
– Evolution: Variation/Selection/
Amplification
– Directed Improvisation
– Listen to her on a podcast
Complexity and Economics
Complexity and Ecology
WHAT’S THE RELEVANCE TO
ACTIVISM AND AID?
A lot of influencing strategies and aid projects
look like this:
But ignoring complexity can lead to linear and unrealistic
influencing theories of change:
So linear is out, but we can still analyse, strategize and act?
Examples of linear thinking in Activism
• If we write a well-evidenced report about the food crisis in
the Sahel, decision makers will read it and act on the
recommendations
• If we raise awareness of the refugee crisis in Bangladesh,
donors will respond
• If women participate in politics, they will advance women’s
rights
• If we take diplomats to see the humanitarian impact they
will take action to lessen future incidents
• If we strengthen civil society organizations, they will
influence governments
Group Discussion:
Where have you seen examples
of cake thinking in aid/activism?
What were the consequences?
Start with the Wider Context
And others – Lots to know about Context!
• Is your proposed change likely to be opposed
or unopposed?
• What relevant national laws and regulations
exist – are they being implemented?
• Historical legacy
• Ideologies, religion, culture, and values
Coffee/Comfort Break
and think about
Reactions (what resonated),
questions, thoughts?
Five responses to Complexity
1. Be intentional, but
dance with the system
2. Seize moments
3. Look for Outliers
4. Nerd Out
5. Chill Out
1. Getting intentional: Defining the problem
“If I were given
one hour to save
the planet, I would
spend 59 minutes
defining the
problem and one
minute resolving
it.”
Top Tips on Defining the Problem
• Don’t do this alone – who might have additional insights (eg
people affected by the problem and/or colleagues from
other institutions)?
• Convert the problem into a Question and apply the 5Ys (‘why
does this happen?’)
• Don’t be satisfied with generic problems like ‘lack of political
will/leadership’ or ‘corruption’ – keep digging
• Stop when you are satisfied that you have a clear,
manageable problem with a likely point(s) of entry for
influencing
Unpacking the factors sustaining the issues, status
quos or behaviors you wish to change
An Ishikawa diagram can
help identify multiple
possible causes and
points of entry for
influencing.
One from East African humanitarian leaders in 2022:
Is the problem buried in a process?
If so, worth doing
some ‘Process
Mapping’ to identify
possible points of
entry for influencing…
Points of Entry –
Criteria for Identifying
• Is an influencing challenge, not a
development project
• Important to the change process
• Winnable now or in the future
• You / your organization have
credibility / leverage
• Or you have allies you can help
mobilise
Back to the earlier fishbone
Converting POEs to
Asks and Goals
• Turn your POEs into one or a few ‘Asks’ or
goals that are SMART
• They are generally things you want others to
do or do differently
“Change this policy”
“Step down from government”
“Provide more resources”
“Stop discriminating against…”
• They should describe how the would will look
if your influencing strategies are successful.
• They are likely to be connected to one
another and/or need to be achieved in a
logical order
2. Seizing Moments: aka Critical Junctures
Example: Rana Plaza
Group Discussion:
The Ukraine war as a
Critical Juncture
What could be the legacy of the conflict? Think about
politics, economy, but also ideas, norms, institutions
3. Looking for Outliers: Positive Deviance
Positive Deviance in Practice
• Iconic initial examples from Save the Children
in Vietnam (child nutrition)
• Others:
– Spotting PD in Kenyan primary schools
– Applying PD to PNG (Papua New Guinea)
– Researching PD within a big Oxfam Savings project
• So why hasn’t it caught on?
4. Nerding out. If life gives you
Afghanistans…
Don’t Panic…
Example: Kenya’s Digital ID System
https://kumu.io/CaribouDigital/ie-map-kenya
5. Chilling can also make sense
• Abandon need for control
– E.g. Solidarity, Core funding
• Think ecosystems not projects
– ‘Enabling environment’
approaches
• Get ready for the unexpected
and to respond to CJs
– Love the system
– Cultivate relationships
– Train
– Do research
– Raise awareness
And not all systems are complex
Key Messages
• The world is made up of complex systems
• But activism often thinks linearly
• Complexity offers radical insights into political
and economic change, including the role of
feedback loops, critical junctures, evolution
and positive deviance
• Activists must learn to ‘dance with the system’
• Feedback please!
Questions or Comments?
Coming Up Next:
Civil Society and Activism
