Donors, Practitioners & Researchers: A New Model for Collaborative Research

Session Submission Type: Roundtable

Session Description

This roundtable brings together members of a unique tripartite collaboration between the donor (U.S. Department of State) a network of researchers (Evidence in Governance & Politics) and a consortium of eight leading international democracy assistance, human rights and labor organizations (the Fundamental Freedoms consortium) to develop and implement a common research, evaluation and learning agenda. The participants will discuss the successes and challenges of collaboratively developing a theory of change for rapid response programs in closed and closing political space; outlining a complementary set of evaluative research questions; using practitioner-led ex-post evaluations to generate hypotheses; and then commissioning experimental research to test hypotheses of interest to all partners. The tripartite model holds much promise for building a rigorous evidence-base for practitioners, designing and implementing actionable evaluations for policymakers and contributing timely research to the academic discourse on the political economy of foreign assistance in challenging environments.

Sub Unit

• DIVISION 12: Comparative Politics in Developing Countries

Cosponsor

• DIVISION 11: Comparative Politics

Chair

• Jessica Gottlieb Texas A&M University

Presenters

• Linda A. Stern National Democratic Institute

• Giovanni Dazzo Department of State

• Gareth Nellis University of California, San Diego