A strong grasp of a country’s political context is crucial if we are to combat poverty and insecurity in that country. This is a widely accepted principle, but applying it has proven difficult for development agencies and individuals in the development field.

The 2005 Paris Declaration on Aid Effectiveness demands that donor and recipient governments engage more substantively with their own citizens, but it does not mention the importance of understanding the political pro-cesses and incentives necessary to achieve effective development support. The extent to which development agencies can—and should—engage with domestic political processes is hotly debate.

This chapter - published in Developing Alternatives - discusses how politics shape development interventions and outcomes.