ABSTRACT
It is difficult to assess how policy change comes about, due to the number of actors and factors involved, the time required to bring about policy change, and policy change's frequently nonlinear path. This is echoed in Delahais’ essay, which examines the role of theories of change in evaluating interventions in complex settings. Contribution analysis—a theory-based impact evaluation approach developed by John Mayne and discussed by Delahais in his essay—is one approach that addresses these challenges. Using it, evaluators develop detailed and credible stories about how a change came about, taking into account all relevant perspectives. Underlying these stories are robust theories of change with carefully tested causal links and assumptions. However, using contribution analysis in policy change contexts can be difficult because advocates’ and policymakers’ theories of change exist but are rarely documented. This essay offers guidance about how to address this challenge, so that those implicit theories of change can be used to assess causal linkages between an advocacy initiative and a policy outcome, making it possible to apply contribution analysis in a policy context.
