Implementation Under Spontaneity: Bureaucratic Coping and Moral Persuasion in India’s Demonetisation

ABSTRACT Governments sometimes announce policies without adequate administrative planning, forcing implementers to improvise under uncertainty. This paper examines how bureaucrats navigate such spontaneous policies through the case study of India’s 2016 demonetisation. Drawing on street‐level and institutional perspectives on policy implementation, the study finds that reluctant implementers managed operational breakdowns through emergency procedures, informal coordination, and iterative problem‐solving. Simultaneously, policymakers framed hardship as moral sacrifice for a formalised economy, offering implementers a justification for effort they were in any case obliged to expend—though the resonance was uneven, with sentiments ranging from trust to scepticism. The paper conceptualises grudging implementation as an adaptive behavioural mode sustained by both extrinsic procedures and intrinsic moral appeal, extending implementation theory to the context of politically spontaneous reforms.