Power and Politics: Why Your Logframe Keeps Crashing Against Reality

by

Edward Addai


Why does a meticulously designed education reform, complete with teacher training modules, new textbooks, and performance targets, often fail to move the needle on literacy rates? And why does a health system that knows exactly how to save a child’s life continue to lose them to preventable diseases? The answer lies not in a lack of data or good intentions, but in the invisible forces of a system’s physics and the misapplication of its politics. This is the central dilemma facing every social sector manager: we are trained as architects and engineers, but we operate in ecosystems governed by relentless structural gravity and a complex political climate that cares little for our blueprints.

The Physics: The Unseen Gravity of Institutional Path Dependence

The physics of managing for results is the tangible, structural weight of the system itself. It is the force exerted by decades of institutional habits, bureaucratic rules, and entrenched power structures that make certain outcomes almost inevitable and others nearly impossible. This phenomenon, known in institutional economics as path dependence, is a far more accurate metaphor than any logframe. As North (1990) articulated, institutions are the "rules of the game”, both formal laws and informal norms, that structure human interaction. Once established, these rules create self-reinforcing feedback loops. A system's current trajectory is powerfully dictated by its past, making radical change less about a new plan and more about overcoming immense inertia (Friedman, 2021). Consider the education sector across much of sub-Saharan Africa. A deeply rooted path of centralized curriculum development, rote memorization pedagogies, and high-stakes examination systems creates a powerful gravity that pulls any reform, like attempts to introduce project-based learning, back toward the status quo. The system's physics makes results path-dependent.

The Politics: From Engineering a Solution to Stewarding a System

If the physics is the gravity, the politics is how we choose to navigate it. The fatal error is to treat this complex, dynamic system as a simple machine requiring an engineer with a wrench. In environments where "what may appear formally to be functional planning...are used informally but deliberately to create rent-seeking opportunities" (Teskey & Tyrrel, 2020, p. 3), a purely technical approach is naive. The alternative is not to become a cynical political operative, but a systems steward. A steward understands they are not a neutral technician but an active participant in the system, working to shift its dynamics rather than trying to replace its engine. In health, for example, a problem-driven political economy analysis in Kenya, Malawi, and Uganda revealed that local decision-making is heavily influenced by informal networks and patronage, not just technical data (Rodríguez et al., 2023). A systems steward uses this insight not to abandon evidence, but to build coalitions and navigate the political currents that determine whether a new health policy will be implemented or ignored.

From Dilemma to Action: A Both-And Operating System

This is not a choice between physics or politics; it is the craft of navigating both-and. The effective manager becomes bilingual: fluent in the language of data and evidence, and also in the language of power, politics, culture, and relationships. The goal is to find the leverage points within the system’s gravity to gently, but persistently, redirect its path.

How does this look in practice? In child protection in Uganda, a project to reduce violence in refugee settlements did not just parachute in a new case management system. Instead, it focused on stewarding the existing system of actors by strengthening the relationships and capacities of "trained parasocial workers, a well-equipped social welfare workforce, multisectoral child protection and wellbeing committees and an informed police force" (Muzungu, 2024). They worked with the institutional gravity, not against it.

For the social sector manager, this demands a new set of practical actions:

1.       Map the System, Not Just the Gaps. Before designing a new intervention, conduct a political economy analysis to map the informal rules, power dynamics, and path dependencies that will determine your project's fate. Understand the system's physics.

2.       Design for Iteration, Not Perfection. Adopt a Problem-Driven Iterative Adaptation approach. As Andrews et al. (2017) argue, in complex systems, progress is made by taking small, localized steps, learning from each, and adjusting the course. The logframe is a compass, not a train track.

3.       Nurture Coalitions, Not Just Compliance. Act as a systems steward by identifying and connecting "pockets of pro-reform" (Teskey & Tyrrel, 2020, p. 4) within the system. Build networks of change agents who can exert a collective, positive pull against the institutional inertia. You are not commanding the ship; you are helping to shape the currents and the crew.

The true measure of a leader is not how elegant their results framework looks on paper, but how skillfully they can read the room and navigate the river.

References

Andrews, M., Pritchett, L., & Woolcock, M. (2017). Building state capability: Evidence, analysis, action. Oxford University Press.

Friedman, S. (2021). Path dependence: What it means and how it explains South Africa. In Prisoners of the past: South African democracy and the legacy of minority rule (pp. 25–50). Wits University Press.

Muzungu, H. M. E. (2024, October 7). It takes a village to protect a child. UNICEF Uganda. https://www.unicef.org/uganda/stories/it-takes-village-protect-child

North, D. C. (1990). Institutions, institutional change and economic performance. Cambridge University Press.

Rodríguez, D. C., et al. (2023). Problem-driven political economy analysis to understand decision-making for primary health care in Kenya, Malawi and Uganda. Health Policy and Planning, 38(5), 552–566.

Teskey, G., & Tyrrel, L. (2020). Applying political economy thinking to sector programming. Abt Associates Governance Soapbox Briefing Note, 5.

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