Clarifying the role of belief-motive explanations in multi-stakeholder realist evaluation

In realist evaluation, where researchers aim to make program theories explicit, they can encounter competing explanations as to how programs work. Managing explanatory tensions from different sources of evidence in multi-stakeholder projects can challenge external evaluators, especially when access to pertinent data, like client records, is mediated by program stakeholders. In this article, we consider two central questions: how can program stakeholder motives shape a realist evaluation project; and how might realist evaluators respond to stakeholders’ belief-motive explanations, including those about program effectiveness, based on factors such as supererogatory commitment or trying together in good faith? Drawing on our realist evaluation of a service reform initiative involving multiple agencies, we describe stakeholder motives at key phases, highlighting a need for tactics and skills that help to manage explanatory tensions. In conclusion, the relevance of stakeholders’ belief-motive explanations (‘we believe the program works’) in realist evaluation is clarified and discussed.     

Innovations to Make Markets More Inclusive for the Poor

Market failures, government failures and some of the characteristics of both the poor and business actors as well as their environment can act as barriers preventing the poor from participating more actively in markets, both as consumers and as producers. Private actors ‐ including for‐profit and not‐for‐profit entities, often in partnership with the public sector ‐ have been able to mitigate some of these constraints through innovations that have helped to make markets more inclusive for the poor, enabling them not just to gain access, but also to participate in ways that enhance their economic empowerment and human development. This article identifies the strategies and innovations used and devises a possible typology for them.     

Emotion Language and Social Power: Homosexuality and Narratives of Pain in Church

This paper examines the narratives of pain in two religious groups to explore how the everyday concept of emotional pain can work to obscure differences between opposing sides. It shows how these narratives can effectively help to reproduce social hierarchies, even as actors seek to challenge them. Specifically, by examining church debates about homosexuality, it shows how putatively heterosexual actors on both sides use languages of pain to justify welcoming gays into the church, albeit on very different terms, while creating particular feeling rules for gay men and lesbians (Hochschild 1979, 1983). By comparing these two sides we see how narratives of pain (and the shared assumptions behind them) effectively help to reproduce the sexual hierarchy some members seek to subvert.     

EVALUATING SOCIAL LEARNING POTENTIALS GENERATED BY EU STRUCTURAL FUNDING PROGRAMMES

The EU structural funding programmes affect the circumstances in which people and organizations are to take part in regional development. The evaluation of this institutional impact poses a challenge to policy analysis. This paper suggests that the evolution of participation conditions can be evaluated by focusing on the social learning potential generated by the practices of programme implementation. Following Bourdieu, the context of social learning is described as a field; the crucial quality of a field is its level of autonomy. The analysis of the regional implementation of two Objective 5b programmes shows that the logic of structural funding restricts participation in many crucial ways. At the same time the constitution of social learning potential depends on the quality of the fields for which the programmes provide symbolic capital. However, policy implementation is non-linear by nature. The initiatives of civil actors and ‘reflexive practitioners’ can, for example, make a difference.     

Livelihoods in Conflict: The Pursuit of Livelihoods by Refugees and the Impact on the Human Security of Host Communities

This paper explores how long–term refugees pursue livelihoods, the impact this pursuit has on the human security of conflict–affected communities, and the ways in which international assistance can help. Refugees' pursuit of livelihoods can increase human security because economic activities help to recreate social and economic interdependence within and between communities, and can restore social networks based on the exchange of labour, assets and food. When refugees are allowed to gain access to resources and freedom of movement, and can work alongside their hosts to pursue productive lives, they would be less dependent on aid and better able to overcome the sources of tension and conflict in their host communities.
The paper identifies how humanitarian programmes working with national governments can increase economic security and shore up the respective rights of both refugees and their host communities. Today, relief interventions are no longer expected solely to save lives in the short term, but also to lay the foundation for future development and to promote conflict resolution.     

Educating children with special needs: An interorganizational perspective on policy implementation

Educating handicapped children is dependent upon the relations among organizational and agency implementors. In this paper, factors influencing successful policy implementation are examined relative to the implementation of Massachusetts Special Education Law, Chapter 766. Case exploration suggests several possible strategic points of intervention for other states faced with implementing a later, but similar law, The Education for All Handicapped Children Act (P.L. 94–142). Seen within the larger context of degree of change required by a policy and consensus on policy goals, recommendations at the guideline development, resource distribution, and oversight stages can affect such implementation problems as organizational capability, dispositional conflicts of key actors, and interorganizational communications. The paper supports early analysis and feasibility estimates of policy implementation to enhance the needed interorganizational coordination for the education of handicapped children in the least restrictive environment.     

How can occupational health services in Sweden contribute to work ability?

Occupational health service in Sweden is often described as an important and strategic resource to reduce work-related diseases, improve work ability and successfully assess improvement of the workplace. However, not much research has been done on how OHS contribute to reduced absence due to work-related illness or improvement of the work ability of employees. In our study, the ambition has been to describe how OHS can contribute and give effects in client companies. Fifteen companies considered to be good examples were selected in cooperation with the social partners. Semi-structured interviews were carried out with representatives of the company and OHS. The results show that efficient collaboration depend strongly on the relationship between the OHS and the company, and were highly correlated with a continuously dialogue and contact. Good occupational safety and health management at company level was a key factor for effective use of OHS. The strategic collaborations also often led to that OHSs contribution was gradually shifted from a reactive or medical focus to a more proactive approach. Several of the interviewed OHSs also held this strategy to work more with prevention, and focusing on "treating the organization", not the individual, leaving the executive measures to the company.     

Accounting for success and failure in policy implementation: The role of commitment in India's MGNREGA

Commitment or political will is often notable by its absence. While lack of commitment is a key factor in policy failure, it has been challenging to identify and operationalize how commitment can shape successful implementation. This article applies Brinkerhoff's (2000) framework of expressions of commitment to explain how commitment of policy elites shape policy implementation processes. Evidence for five characteristics of commitment traces these expressions from two types of policy elites — politicians and bureaucrats. Primary data from four Indian states were used—Chhatisgarh, Assam, Bihar and Andhra Pradesh—to examine the case of the Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Act (MGNREGA). The data were collected through interviews with state‐level elites, supplemented by secondary data on the political economy of these states. In explaining how successes and failures of the MGNREGA are attributable to the commitment of these actors, the article considers the politics of policy implementation. It argues that commitment is critical at the sub‐national level in India, and explains the different outcomes of MGNREGA in the four states. The article considers how to strengthen policy implementation, and demonstrates that this can be done through capitalizing on positive feedback loops between different strands of commitment, as well as between commitment of administrative elites and political party leaders. The paper concludes that commitment and capacity feed off each other, improving implementation of social policies.     

Occupational health and safety professionals strategies to improve working environment and their self-assessed impact

Research suggests that Occupational Health and Safety (OHS) practitioners have difficulty influencing the decision-making process because they are placed on the sidelines in the organisation. This paper analyses the strategies that OHS practitioners use to fulfill their job role and the impact they have on the working environment and OHS management systems. Semi-structured interviews were conducted with ten New Zealand OHS practitioners from mainly large private and public organisations about their job role, OHS tasks, strategies and their impact. The interviews were tape recorded, transcribed, entered into a qualitative data management programme and analysed thematically in relation to their strategies, barriers and their impact on the OHS management system and working environment. The analysis revealed that these OHS practitioners used multiple strategies - chosen in relation to the situation, the stakeholders and their own resources. They saw themselves as change agents or facilitators. They preferred to use a knowledge strategy, supported by an audit strategy. Their last resort was a regulation strategy. All of the practitioners had a positive impact on stakeholders' knowledge, attitude and behavior and on OHS management systems. Some practitioners improved the working environment but few were involved in introduction of new technology.     

Leading the debate for the business case for gender equality,perilous for whom?

This research examines how the framing of the business case for gender equality (BCGE) in the European Union (EU) translates in the Irish national context and how different actors have engaged with this framing exercise. A central concern is how gender knowledge is mobilized by different actors as they compete to shape discourse, policy and practice on gender equality. We draw upon theoretical work that has interrogated the relationship between neoliberalism, gender inequality and feminist mobilization before reviewing critical assessments of the BCGE. The primary focus of this paper, having mapped this theoretical debate, is to analyse the role different Irish actors and organizations play in reproducing key frames and to examine the ambiguous or ambivalent engagement of different interest groups with this agenda. In turn, we assess the degree to which the agenda enables or disables structural change in access to power. We explore three case studies through which the BCGE in the EU was reinforced, adapted, resisted and rejected in our discussions, and draw out the constraints, opportunities and outcomes in each. Our first case study, which sets the national context for the following case studies, reviews how the Irish state interacts with the EU to frame gender equality and how it partners with key actors (state feminism and femocrats, private actors and feminist actors) to advance the BCGE. The second case study examines the role of the leading Irish feminist civil society organization (CSO) in the Women on Boards campaign that reinforces the dominant instrumental discourse associated with EU and national framing of gender parity on boards, and the ambiguity of feminists about this campaign. The third case study examines how Irish financial elites symbolically engage with gender parity on boards while simultaneously seeking to veto the implementation of gender representation targets proposed in the EU Capital Directive. It is clear that a degree of instrumentality informs most actors’ framing of BCGE. We also find evidence of how power actors and financial elites, while rhetorically engaging in BCGE and employing it when relevant to develop reputational capital, will seek ultimately to protect the status quo rejecting the governance benefits implied in BCGE. Ultimately, our cases illustrate the potential of the BCGE to support the inclusion of women in governance structures yet demonstrate that engaging with BCGE is perilous for some.     

Involving Service Users in a Problem Based Model of Teaching and Learning

Since the introduction of the new degree in social work in the UK, programmes have been developing ways to involve service users, using differing models. This paper will explore how service users can enhance the inquiry based model of teaching and learning while at the same time emphasising the belief that process and content in teaching and learning cannot be separated. It will also show how this approach, by involving service users as consultants, creates expertise and can provide a ‘legitimate constituency’ and thus allow for meaningful participation of service users at all levels of social work education.     

The pursuit of political will: decision makers’ incentives and gender policy implementation in the Western Balkans

In the Western Balkans, just as in newly democratized countries in other regions, failures in gender policy implementation are often attributed to lack of “political will.” There is however a surprising lack of specificity concerning what is meant by it and how to measure its influence on the observed implementation gaps. To help to begin filling this research gap this article examines the extent to which Western Balkans countries might be failing in the implementation of their adopted gender policies and the reasons why decision makers seem to lack the political will to implement them. To allow for a more in-depth perspective, the analysis will concentrate on the case of the implementation of Gender Responsive Budgeting (GRB) on the municipal level in the three countries in its focus: Bosnia and Hercegovina; Macedonia; and Serbia. The empirical material used for it consists of primary data from telephone surveys, in-depth interviews with actors involved in GRB policy processes and official documents.     

Looking beneath the surface of a preceptor-training programme through a realist evaluation

South Africa’s department of health devoted themselves to the clinical nursing education and training model, which indorses preceptors as essential stakeholders to promote competence in students. A preceptor-training programme was developed that build on this model and implemented through an intervention. The initial programme theory hypothesised that trained preceptors would promote support and develop competence in students in comparison to untrained preceptors. Results showed a poor outcome because few preceptors participated and a high student attrition rates. The authors then posed the question “Why did the preceptorship training programme not work?” This article offers insight into the context, mechanism, and outcome of the preceptor-training programme through a realist evaluation. Reflective field notes, gathered during the intervention, were used and gave insight regarding how, for whom, and under which circumstances the programme could work and offered a refined programme theory for preceptorship. The main conclusion drawn showed that a preceptor-training programme alone is not the sole determining factor to ensure preceptors’ motivation to transfer their learning; a systems approach, ensuring the effectiveness of the programme, should be followed. Reflection on findings indicated the implementation context as a major determining factor of the training programme.     

Scale shift in international tax justice: comparing the UK and Australia from 2008 to 2016

ABSTRACT

International tax justice issues, such as corporate tax avoidance, have gained particular salience over the past decade in an environment of financial instability and government austerity. Civil society involvement has ranged from trade unions and NGOs calling for parliamentary inquiries to civil disobedience by less established actors. Since the international financial crisis, how have levels of contentious collective action around these issues waxed and waned? Is contentiousness associated most with domestic politics or global media events like the Panama Papers? This paper uses an original hand-coded dataset from five national newspapers in the United Kingdom and Australia between 2008 and 2016. Political claims analysis (PCA) was used to collect all instances of claims around international tax justice and compare the types of actions and the different frames used by civil society actors. In both countries, mobilising grievances are generated most strongly in the period after domestic austerity policies are introduced. The qualitative coding provides evidence of accompanying frame alignment in these periods, as international taxation is problematized in terms of national revenue, demonstrating scale shift from the global to the national political stage.     

Evaluating work and training within an intercommunicating process of change: reflections drawn from a case study on a chemicals industrial company in Portugal

The new challenges in the field of Health and Safety at Work require the implementation of more comprehensive and participatory interventions, in order to have a real impact on the working conditions. Matriosca Model has sought over the years to involve workers in the construction of new working conditions, promoting transformation through training and recreating training from the transformation. This article seeks to present some of the results of the implementation of the Matriosca Model on a chemicals industrial company regarding the many changes that it promoted, how these changes have evolved through time, how the dimensions of training and transformation interact and what the participants' perception of the intervention was. The conclusions drawn allow a richer evaluation of the process, which can enhance the intercommunicating nature between training and transformation, and what impact this has on the actual work.     

Framing the results agenda in Swedish development co‐operation

The demand for results within international development co‐operation has increased over recent decades. Although many development actors agree on the necessity of improving their reporting on results, there is no general definition of what a result is or what the so‐called results agenda entails. With examples from Swedish development co‐operation and Swedish development relations with Uganda, this article explores how development actors are framing the results agenda. The findings, drawn from document analysis and interviews with stakeholders in Sweden and Uganda, reveal that Swedish development actors have different ways of describing the problem they intend to address with the results agenda, leading to misunderstandings over the implementation of the agenda and the effectiveness of the development co‐operation.     

“We believe in you,like really believe in you”: Initiating a realist study of (re)engagement initiatives for youth not in employment,education or training with experiences from northern Sweden

Due to a scarcity of rigorous evaluations and to commence a realist study addressing the lack of knowledge about the workings of interventions directed towards "NEET" youth, this research aimed to understand how and under what circumstances (re)engagement initiatives are expected to facilitate the social integration of young people who are in a situation that prevents them from entering into studies or work. By conducting the first phase in realist evaluation, qualitative interviews with five managerial stakeholders from two northern Swedish initiatives and reviews of documents were carried out for data collection. Using thematic analysis and retroductive reasoning, an intervention-context-actors-mechanisms-outcomes configuration was developed to elicit an initial programme theory that explained how the initiatives were presumed to operate and under what contextual contingencies. The results indicate that the intervention is expected to improve the youths’ wellbeing and engage them in work or studies by strengthening their competence and confidence in a caring and collaborative context. To incorporate the diverse voices and heterogeneous experiences of youth themselves, and ascertain whether the intervention works as intended, for whom, in what conditions and why, the results now need to be tested in selected cases and refined in subsequent phases of evaluation research.     

Where do IPBES delegates in Europe see challenges,needs, gaps and opportunities in policy uptake of “Nature’s contributions to people”?

This research note illustrates how European national delegates to the Intergovernmental Platform on Biodiversity and Ecosystem Services (IPBES) perceive the challenges, needs, gaps and opportunities related to the policy implementation of “Nature’s contributions to people (NCP)” in their nation. Until now, only little information has been available on how IPBES delegations perceive national policy-uptake and the implementation of the IPBES core concept of NCP. Based on an online survey with IPBES delegates, we aim to provide a stock-take of how IPBES delegations see NCP currently being incorporated in national government policies in Europe and how these policies are being implemented through programmes. Survey results show IPBES delegates consider a lack of relevant data and methodologies for NCP assessments to be a major obstacle to the uptake and implementation of NCP concepts in Europe. We wonder if availability of data and methodologies are the most prominent challenges to make IPBES a success, and consider the need for policy uptake and implementation to be more prominently addressed within the IPBES process.     

Scalar properties of the transnational field of human rights: Field effects and human rights in Bahrain

Whilst a body of work exists that has engaged with and conceptualised transnational fields, and in particular for this paper, the transnational field of human rights, more work needs to be done to elaborate on the effects of transnational fields, at the national level. Using Bourdieu's field theory, and more recent scholarship that focuses on scalar aspects of fields, this research focuses on a human rights field at the national level in Bahrain. The paper addresses two levels/dimensions of the transnational field of human rights: the transnational level and the national level, focussing on the field's vertical autonomy. Based upon nineteen in-depth interviews, the research retrieves the biographical trajectories of Bahraini human rights activists and activists from iNGOs with a specific remit that includes Bahrain. The paper argues that the vertical autonomy of the transnational field of human rights has demonstrable field effects at the national level, and that this has a number of implications. First, where transnational fields have greater vertical autonomy, the national level can operate with varying hierarchies, with actors adopting practices that diverge from those acting transnationally. Second, as a result of these scalar differences and the vertical autonomy of the transnational field, actors at the national level may have to adapt their practices, others can be side-lined as a result of ‘symbolic pollution.’ Third, in order for local actors to engage with transnational advocacy networks, they must be the right type of actor.     

A review of enabling factors in support intervention programmes for early school leavers: What are the implications for Sub-Saharan Africa?

One of the major problems facing education systems in Sub-Saharan Africa is the phenomenon of young people who leave school before completion. Research has shown that this phenomenon disadvantages young people and exposes them to various forms of social exclusion. Accordingly, there have been increasing calls for the scaling up of support intervention programmes for young people who leave school early. This paper analyses literature on support intervention programmes for early school leavers (ESLs) to identify enabling factors that can be promoted in future or in current less effective interventions. The review revealed that programmes that address the multiple disadvantages and needs of young people through flexible, holistic and intensive support approaches tend to be more attractive and beneficial to the participants. The findings from this review are crucial to policy makers and teachers working in support intervention programmes for ESLs.