Realistic Evaluation shows how programme evaluation needs to be, and can be, bettered. It presents a profound yet highly readable critique of current evaluation practice, and introduces a `manifesto' and `handbook' for a fresh approach.

Looking at the spread of evidence-based policy making across the Western world, this book examines the methodological assumptions that lie behind this drive for government departments, academic research projects and NGOs to adopt an 'evidence-based' approach, when so little has been done to ask what works in an evidence-based context.