The governing instruments for resilience in the neo‐Weberian state: The challenge of integrating Ukrainian war refugees

Abstract

The unsettling conditions of contemporary society, marked by recurrent transboundary crises and turbulence, stimulate discussions about the resilience of different governing models. Public bureaucracy and its governing instruments are confronted with the virtues and vices of models dominated by markets and networks. We present a case study demonstrating how the governing instruments within a system resembling a neo‐Weberian state model with a reformed and modernized bureaucracy effectively facilitated the seamless integration of Ukrainian war refugees arriving unexpectedly in 2022. The findings show that the model's short‐term resilience is rooted in a combined and adaptive utilization of legal and financial provisions, expertise embedded within existing bureaucratic structures, ad hoc coordinative organizational structures, and active collaboration with and support from civil society. These findings support arguments on the relative virtues and the resilience of the neo‐Weberian state model. Normative caveats, however, indicate several long‐term challenges.