LAUSR

ABSTRACT Policy scholarship has largely studied implementation as performed by government bureaucracies in advanced democracies where a specific configuration of power dominates, thus shaping frontline workers’ policy improvisations. By exploring how development policy is implemented at an Indian-run non-governmental organization (NGO), this article reveals how differently improvisation may unfold when the distribution of power changes. In this NGO, the targets of development policy – village residents participating in NGO projects – were not dependent on fieldworkers (the implementation agents) for access to valued resources. As neighbors, relatives, and friends, fieldworkers and project participants were mutually dependent on one another for daily survival. This gave project participants more influence over implementation than the clients of government bureaucracies. However, power was more imbalanced in the relationship between NGO fieldworkers and the organization’s leaders, who designed policy. The status differences between the wealthy, educated urban Indians in charge of the NGO and the poorer, rural residents employed as fieldworkers made open communication between these groups difficult. This pushed fieldworkers to conceal the improvisations they made to development policy so that it fit better with villagers’ goals. Understanding the broader context within which organizations operate is crucial to explaining how improvisation in policy implementation unfolds.