This paper critically reviews evidence on "thinking and working politically" in development. Scholars and practitioners … politically informed ways of thinking and working. The literature does not yet constitute a strong evidence base to link these … efforts to more effective aid programming: much evidence is anecdotal, does not meet high standards of robustness, is not …

evidence at the centre of their decision-making. For evidence “optimists”, this is a much-needed corrective to past practice … whether evidence shapes policymaking, but into how it does so, and whose evidence matters most. The paper seeks to address … these questions through an analytical framework that highlights the process of contestation between evidence agendas against …