James Copestake
Biographic Data
| ID | 980473 |
|---|---|
| NAME | James Copestake |
| GIVEN NAMES | James |
| FAMILY NAME | Copestake |
| SIGNATURE | COPESTAKE J |
| AFFILIATIONS | University of Bath |
| ORCID | 0000-0001-5658-2597 |
| VERIFIED | Yes |
| TOTAL WORKS | 27 |
| TOTAL CITATIONS | 79 |
| AUTHOR COUNT | 26 |
| EDITOR COUNT | 1 |
| FIRST PUBLICATION YEAR | 1993 |
| LATEST PUBLICATION YEAR | 2026 |
| H-INDEX | 4 |
The Shifting Political Economy of Tobacco Production in Malawi
This paper examines the shifting political economy of tobacco production in Malawi, focusing on regional restructuring of the sector. Drawing on primary fieldwork conducted in Central and Southern Malawi, complemented by secondary data and document analysis, we explore how tobacco production has become increasingly concentrated in Central Region while declining in Southern Region. Integrating insights from Global Value Chain (GVC) analysis and Ev…
Anticipatory evaluation
Starting with the Australian Evaluation Society International Conference 2024 theme of ‘wayfinding’, the article reflects on how evaluators navigate time as well as space, with particular reference to how they incorporate qualitative approaches to ‘futures thinking’ into their evaluative practice. The article takes a reflexive case study approach, drawing on a simple model of evaluative practice to review the role of futures thinking in evaluatio…
Causal mapping for evaluators
Evaluators are interested in capturing how things causally influence one another. They are also interested in capturing how stakeholders think things causally influence one another. Causal mapping – the collection, coding and visualisation of interconnected causal claims – has been used widely for several decades across many disciplines for this purpose. It makes the provenance or source of such claims explicit and provides tools for gathering an…
The Samagra anti‐poverty programme in Madhya Pradesh: Integrating household data, overcoming silo‐problems and leaving nobody behind
Friend or Patron? Social Relations Across the National NGO–Donor Divide in Ghana
The article examines the institutions governing relations between grant using national NGOs and grant giving international donors in three regions of Ghana (Upper West, Northern and Greater Accra Region). Formal procedural rules and professional norms can be viewed as necessary to minimise opportunities for informal patronage, rent-seeking and corruption made possible by the unequal access to resources. However, semi-structured interviews, life h…
Case selection for robust generalisation: Lessons from QuIP impact evaluation studies
What wider lessons can be drawn from a single impact evaluation study? This article examines how case study and source selection contribute to useful generalisation. Practical suggestions for making these decisions are drawn from a set of qualitative impact studies. Generalising about impact is a deliberative process of building, testing and refining useful theories about how change happens. To serve this goal, purposive selection can support mor…
Managing relationships in qualitative impact evaluation of international development: QuIP choreography as a case study
Who does what and when during an impact evaluation has an important influence on the credibility and usefulness of the evidence generated. We explore such choreography from technical, political and ethical perspectives by reflecting on a case study that entailed collaborative design of a qualitative impact evaluation protocol (‘the QuIP’) and its pilot use in Ethiopia and Malawi. Double blind interviewing was employed to reduce project-specific c…
Towards a plural history of microfinance
This article reviews different ways of telling the history of microfinance. We first contrast a mainstream and mostly positive narrative with a radical critique, illustrating differences with reference to India. We then argue for a more inductive and plural account, drawing on a set of doctoral research studies to illustrate variation in microfinance experience according to social relations among users, organisational culture of suppliers and the…
Sustainability and wellbeing. Human-scale development in practice
"Sustainability and wellbeing. Human-scale development in practice." Development in Practice, 26(4), pp. 522–523
Whither development studies? Reflections on its relationship with social policy
This paper contributes to an ongoing conversation between development studies (DS) and social policy (SP) as academic fields, particularly in the UK. Using Andrew Abbott's analysis of the social sciences as an evolving system of knowledge lineages (KLs), it reflects on the status of DS and its relationship with SP. Defining DS as a distinctive KL centred on critical analysis of ideas and projects for advancing human well-being, I suggest that it …
The Future of Development: A Radical Manifesto, by Gustavo Esteva
I. Is development a term now rendered meaningless through over-use, or does it still provide a discursive space within which to explore ideas about how our wellbeing can be improved? The authors of
Credible impact evaluation in complex contexts: Confirmatory and exploratory approaches
Debate continues over how best international development agencies can evaluate the impact of actions intended to reduce poverty, insecurity and vulnerability in diverse and complex contexts. There are strong ethical grounds for simply asking those intended to benefit what happened to them, but it is not obvious how to do so in a way that is sufficiently free from bias in favour of confirming what is expected. This article considers scope for addr…
Well-Being in Development: Comparing Global Designs with Local Views in Peru
Multiple Dimensions of Social Assistance: The Case of Peru's ‘Glass of Milk' Programme
Social assistance has attracted renewed interest in countries where economic growth is doing too little on its own to address high levels of income inequality and poverty. Research into the material effects of such programmes is important but can be misleading if it fails to capture their full meaning to intended beneficiaries and other stakeholders. This is illustrated by a case study of Peru's ‘glass of milk’ programme, drawing on mostly qualit…
Wellbeing and Development in Peru: Local and Universal Views Confronted
This book presents findings of systematic research into the contested meanings of development and wellbeing from a country, Peru, which has recently experienced both rapid economic growth and deep soc
Mainstreaming Microfinance: Social Performance Management or Mission Drift
Money with a Mission (Volume 2): Managing the Social Performance of Microfinance
Money with a Mission (Volume 1): Microfinance and Poverty Reduction
Universal and Local Understanding of Poverty in Peru
The purpose of this survey of the literature on poverty in Peru is to contribute to universal and interdisciplinary understanding, while at the same time giving due weight to discipline-specific contributions. The first three sections review relevant literature on Peru by economists, social anthropologists and sociologists. The strict positivism of much economic literature renders it susceptible to neglect power relations and assume a benign and …
Part II: Institutionalising Social Performance 5. Simple Standards or Burgeoning Benchmarks? Institutionalising Social Performance Monitoring, Assessment and Auditing of Microfinance
Practical Notes
Assessing the Impact of Microcredit: A Zambian Case Study
Expectations are high, but evidence of the impact of microcredit remains in short supply. This article estimates the impact of an urban credit programme in Zambia on business performance and on a range of indicators of wellbeing. Borrowers who obtained a second loan experienced significantly higher average growth in business profits and household income. Inflexible group enforcement of loan obligations resulted in some borrowers, especially among…
Integrating impact monitoring and assessment of microfinance
This paper is concerned with the requirements of microfinance organisations (MFOs) that seek both to reduce poverty and to become increasingly financially self-reliant. They need information on their impact in order to improve the services they offer. But impact assessment (IA) work has generally been carried out primarily to comply with the accountability requirements of their financial sponsors. This Note advocates re-orienting IA towards the M…
Agriculture on the road to industrialization
New Approaches to Poverty Analysis and Policy, Volume I: The Poverty Agenda and the ILO, Issues for Research and Action. New Approaches to Poverty analysis and Policy, Volume II: Reducing Poverty Thro…
Journal Article New Approaches to Poverty Analysis and Policy, Volume I: The Poverty Agenda and the ILO, Issues for Research and Action. New Approaches to Poverty analysis and Policy, Volume II: Reducing Poverty Through Labour Market Policies. New Approaches to Poverty Analysis and Poverty, Volume III: The Poverty Agenda: Trends and Policy Options. Public Spending and the Poor: Theory and Evidence. Non-Governmental Organizations and Rural Poverty…
Mainstreaming Microfinance: Social Performance Management or Mission Drift
Managing relationships in qualitative impact evaluation of international development: QuIP choreography as a case study
Who does what and when during an impact evaluation has an important influence on the credibility and usefulness of the evidence generated. We explore such choreography from technical, political and ethical perspectives by reflecting on a case study that entailed collaborative design of a qualitative impact evaluation protocol (‘the QuIP’) and its pilot use in Ethiopia and Malawi. Double blind interviewing was employed to reduce project-specific c…
Towards a plural history of microfinance
This article reviews different ways of telling the history of microfinance. We first contrast a mainstream and mostly positive narrative with a radical critique, illustrating differences with reference to India. We then argue for a more inductive and plural account, drawing on a set of doctoral research studies to illustrate variation in microfinance experience according to social relations among users, organisational culture of suppliers and the…
Whither development studies? Reflections on its relationship with social policy
This paper contributes to an ongoing conversation between development studies (DS) and social policy (SP) as academic fields, particularly in the UK. Using Andrew Abbott's analysis of the social sciences as an evolving system of knowledge lineages (KLs), it reflects on the status of DS and its relationship with SP. Defining DS as a distinctive KL centred on critical analysis of ideas and projects for advancing human well-being, I suggest that it …
Causal mapping for evaluators
Evaluators are interested in capturing how things causally influence one another. They are also interested in capturing how stakeholders think things causally influence one another. Causal mapping – the collection, coding and visualisation of interconnected causal claims – has been used widely for several decades across many disciplines for this purpose. It makes the provenance or source of such claims explicit and provides tools for gathering an…
Friend or Patron? Social Relations Across the National NGO–Donor Divide in Ghana
The article examines the institutions governing relations between grant using national NGOs and grant giving international donors in three regions of Ghana (Upper West, Northern and Greater Accra Region). Formal procedural rules and professional norms can be viewed as necessary to minimise opportunities for informal patronage, rent-seeking and corruption made possible by the unequal access to resources. However, semi-structured interviews, life h…
Credible impact evaluation in complex contexts: Confirmatory and exploratory approaches
Debate continues over how best international development agencies can evaluate the impact of actions intended to reduce poverty, insecurity and vulnerability in diverse and complex contexts. There are strong ethical grounds for simply asking those intended to benefit what happened to them, but it is not obvious how to do so in a way that is sufficiently free from bias in favour of confirming what is expected. This article considers scope for addr…
Well-Being in Development: Comparing Global Designs with Local Views in Peru
Universal and Local Understanding of Poverty in Peru
The purpose of this survey of the literature on poverty in Peru is to contribute to universal and interdisciplinary understanding, while at the same time giving due weight to discipline-specific contributions. The first three sections review relevant literature on Peru by economists, social anthropologists and sociologists. The strict positivism of much economic literature renders it susceptible to neglect power relations and assume a benign and …
Part II: Institutionalising Social Performance 5. Simple Standards or Burgeoning Benchmarks? Institutionalising Social Performance Monitoring, Assessment and Auditing of Microfinance
Agriculture on the road to industrialization
The green revolution reconsidered
Anticipatory evaluation
Starting with the Australian Evaluation Society International Conference 2024 theme of ‘wayfinding’, the article reflects on how evaluators navigate time as well as space, with particular reference to how they incorporate qualitative approaches to ‘futures thinking’ into their evaluative practice. The article takes a reflexive case study approach, drawing on a simple model of evaluative practice to review the role of futures thinking in evaluatio…
The green revolution reconsidered
Finance against poverty
This article does not have a description. This article is hosted by our co-publisher Taylor & Francis
Agriculture on the road to industrialization
New Approaches to Poverty Analysis and Policy, Volume I: The Poverty Agenda and the ILO, Issues for Research and Action. New Approaches to Poverty analysis and Policy, Volume II: Reducing Poverty Thro…
Journal Article New Approaches to Poverty Analysis and Policy, Volume I: The Poverty Agenda and the ILO, Issues for Research and Action. New Approaches to Poverty analysis and Policy, Volume II: Reducing Poverty Through Labour Market Policies. New Approaches to Poverty Analysis and Poverty, Volume III: The Poverty Agenda: Trends and Policy Options. Public Spending and the Poor: Theory and Evidence. Non-Governmental Organizations and Rural Poverty…
Integrating impact monitoring and assessment of microfinance
This paper is concerned with the requirements of microfinance organisations (MFOs) that seek both to reduce poverty and to become increasingly financially self-reliant. They need information on their impact in order to improve the services they offer. But impact assessment (IA) work has generally been carried out primarily to comply with the accountability requirements of their financial sponsors. This Note advocates re-orienting IA towards the M…
Assessing the Impact of Microcredit: A Zambian Case Study
Expectations are high, but evidence of the impact of microcredit remains in short supply. This article estimates the impact of an urban credit programme in Zambia on business performance and on a range of indicators of wellbeing. Borrowers who obtained a second loan experienced significantly higher average growth in business profits and household income. Inflexible group enforcement of loan obligations resulted in some borrowers, especially among…
Part II: Institutionalising Social Performance 5. Simple Standards or Burgeoning Benchmarks? Institutionalising Social Performance Monitoring, Assessment and Auditing of Microfinance
Practical Notes
Universal and Local Understanding of Poverty in Peru
The purpose of this survey of the literature on poverty in Peru is to contribute to universal and interdisciplinary understanding, while at the same time giving due weight to discipline-specific contributions. The first three sections review relevant literature on Peru by economists, social anthropologists and sociologists. The strict positivism of much economic literature renders it susceptible to neglect power relations and assume a benign and …
Money with a Mission (Volume 2): Managing the Social Performance of Microfinance
Money with a Mission (Volume 1): Microfinance and Poverty Reduction
Mainstreaming Microfinance: Social Performance Management or Mission Drift
Multiple Dimensions of Social Assistance: The Case of Peru's ‘Glass of Milk' Programme
Social assistance has attracted renewed interest in countries where economic growth is doing too little on its own to address high levels of income inequality and poverty. Research into the material effects of such programmes is important but can be misleading if it fails to capture their full meaning to intended beneficiaries and other stakeholders. This is illustrated by a case study of Peru's ‘glass of milk’ programme, drawing on mostly qualit…
Wellbeing and Development in Peru: Local and Universal Views Confronted
This book presents findings of systematic research into the contested meanings of development and wellbeing from a country, Peru, which has recently experienced both rapid economic growth and deep soc
Well-Being in Development: Comparing Global Designs with Local Views in Peru
The Future of Development: A Radical Manifesto, by Gustavo Esteva
I. Is development a term now rendered meaningless through over-use, or does it still provide a discursive space within which to explore ideas about how our wellbeing can be improved? The authors of
Credible impact evaluation in complex contexts: Confirmatory and exploratory approaches
Debate continues over how best international development agencies can evaluate the impact of actions intended to reduce poverty, insecurity and vulnerability in diverse and complex contexts. There are strong ethical grounds for simply asking those intended to benefit what happened to them, but it is not obvious how to do so in a way that is sufficiently free from bias in favour of confirming what is expected. This article considers scope for addr…
Whither development studies? Reflections on its relationship with social policy
This paper contributes to an ongoing conversation between development studies (DS) and social policy (SP) as academic fields, particularly in the UK. Using Andrew Abbott's analysis of the social sciences as an evolving system of knowledge lineages (KLs), it reflects on the status of DS and its relationship with SP. Defining DS as a distinctive KL centred on critical analysis of ideas and projects for advancing human well-being, I suggest that it …
Towards a plural history of microfinance
This article reviews different ways of telling the history of microfinance. We first contrast a mainstream and mostly positive narrative with a radical critique, illustrating differences with reference to India. We then argue for a more inductive and plural account, drawing on a set of doctoral research studies to illustrate variation in microfinance experience according to social relations among users, organisational culture of suppliers and the…
Sustainability and wellbeing. Human-scale development in practice
"Sustainability and wellbeing. Human-scale development in practice." Development in Practice, 26(4), pp. 522–523
Managing relationships in qualitative impact evaluation of international development: QuIP choreography as a case study
Who does what and when during an impact evaluation has an important influence on the credibility and usefulness of the evidence generated. We explore such choreography from technical, political and ethical perspectives by reflecting on a case study that entailed collaborative design of a qualitative impact evaluation protocol (‘the QuIP’) and its pilot use in Ethiopia and Malawi. Double blind interviewing was employed to reduce project-specific c…
The Samagra anti‐poverty programme in Madhya Pradesh: Integrating household data, overcoming silo‐problems and leaving nobody behind
Friend or Patron? Social Relations Across the National NGO–Donor Divide in Ghana
The article examines the institutions governing relations between grant using national NGOs and grant giving international donors in three regions of Ghana (Upper West, Northern and Greater Accra Region). Formal procedural rules and professional norms can be viewed as necessary to minimise opportunities for informal patronage, rent-seeking and corruption made possible by the unequal access to resources. However, semi-structured interviews, life h…
Case selection for robust generalisation: Lessons from QuIP impact evaluation studies
What wider lessons can be drawn from a single impact evaluation study? This article examines how case study and source selection contribute to useful generalisation. Practical suggestions for making these decisions are drawn from a set of qualitative impact studies. Generalising about impact is a deliberative process of building, testing and refining useful theories about how change happens. To serve this goal, purposive selection can support mor…
Causal mapping for evaluators
Evaluators are interested in capturing how things causally influence one another. They are also interested in capturing how stakeholders think things causally influence one another. Causal mapping – the collection, coding and visualisation of interconnected causal claims – has been used widely for several decades across many disciplines for this purpose. It makes the provenance or source of such claims explicit and provides tools for gathering an…
Political science (19 works) · Economics (15 works) · Sociology (12 works) · Economic growth (10 works) · Poverty (10 works) · Business (8 works) · Computer Science (7 works) · Income, Poverty, and Inequality (7 works) · Community Development and Social Impact (6 works) · Microfinance and Financial Inclusion (6 works)