Interview with Graham Teskey by Lilian Lee. Originally published February 9, 2026 by the Land Portal Foundation as part of the Land Facility Decision Support Unit’s Ground Rules series. Republished from the original article under Creative Commons Attribution 4.0.
Related project: The Land Facility.
Ground Rules E03
Editorial note: This interview is the third blog of the ‘Ground Rules’ series—an initiative of the Land Facility Decision Support Unit (DSU) that explores how ‘thinking and working politically’ can support more adaptive and effective programming in land governance and beyond.
Political economy analysis (PEA) helps programmes identify the power dynamics and incentives that shape land governance, shedding light on why certain challenges persist—and what it takes to achieve lasting, effective reforms.
Quick read:
- At their core, Thinking and Working Politically (TWP) approaches are based on the understanding that development always involves change. Development work is ‘political.’
- ‘Thinking politically’ generally means understanding the political economies of the countries where development programmes are based; ‘working politically’ generally means being ready to adapt and change our investments in response to those political economies.
- The development community has rapidly adopted the rhetoric and language of TWP, but there are continued challenges (or is it reluctance?) to translate those ideas into practice. Governments that invest in international development require a high degree of ‘certainty’ that TWP approaches will have positive returns—’certainty’ that is hard to come by.
- Development practitioners may be hesitant to adopt TWP approaches because of the common over-emphasis on ‘thinking’ and under-emphasis on ‘working’ politically to identify and design practical solutions.
An interview with Graham Teskey by Lilian Lee
Land Portal: Can you briefly summarize the concept of ‘Thinking and Working Politically?’
Graham Teskey: At the heart of TWP lies a simple idea—one that has been known forever, but which the development community resisted for decades for the fear of upsetting anyone. The idea is that ‘development’ involves change, that all change generates winners and losers and that the losers will probably not like the change and may seek to do something about it. In short, all development work has political implications. It is political.
LP: How did the concept and term TWP emerge, historically?
It was the World Bank that first began to engage with the implications of TWP when it published the Berg Report on Accelerated development in Sub-Saharan Africa in 1981. However, the Bank is required by its Articles of Agreement not to interfere with the political affairs of any member. Over the next decade aid donors flirted with the idea of ‘governance.’ After all, it is much safer to talk about governance than politics. It sounds technical and was thus widely considered acceptable.
I had the privilege of being in the Overseas Development Administration (ODA) in the UK when it created the Governance and Institutions Department in 1996. After the change of the UK government in May 1997, ODA was replaced by the Department for International Development (DFID). Under Clare Short’s transformational leadership, the ‘governance agenda’ thrived. Sue Unsworth led the ‘Drivers of Change’ work in the early 2000s, and the work – and the phrase – gained international traction. The UK’s 2006 White Paper on development was entitled Making Governance Work for the Poor.
No one is quite sure where the term TWP originated. I think it was coined by a DFID governance adviser in or around 2009. In 2013, in New Delhi, India, a bunch of governance advisers established a loose Community of Practice (CoP). Its aim was to demystify TWP ideas and make them practical and operational. The CoP still exists today.
LP: You are one of the original group of people who developed the concept of TWP as a development approach and started the associated Community of Practice (COP). Looking back, what has surprised you most about the TWP journey?
One thing has surprised me, and one thing hasn’t.
I was surprised by the rapid take-up of the rhetoric and language of TWP. (I even wrote a paper in 2018 asking whether it had become a ‘second orthodoxy’). The idea seemed to resonate. When explained in simple terms, TWP approaches seem intuitive and obvious. The notion of a ‘second orthodoxy’ was—paradoxically—given a boost when many heretofore independent development agencies were absorbed into their foreign affairs counterparts. Diplomats, whose bread and butter is politics, said, “of course development is political! What took you so long to discover this?”
What has not surprised me is the continued challenges and reluctance to translate the ideas of TWP into practice. Senior officials, and especially ministers in foreign affairs agencies, continue to demand high degrees of certainty in proposed investments. This, I think, has been fuelled by two things. In his excellent 2010 paper for the Centre for Global Development, The Clash of the Counter-bureaucracy and Development, Andrew Natsios (ex-head of USAID) caught the zeitgeist of development in the 2010s; everything had to be specified, reported, recorded, and measured (he called this the “results frenzy”).
The second thing has been the steady – some would say precipitate – decline in public support for aid, which was never high anyway. Why spend money thousands of miles away when we have so many problems at home?
These two things have resulted in TWP being left somewhat stranded: we know that we need to understand the political economy of partner countries (the T bit of TWP), and therefore we need to be ready to adapt and change our investments as we go along (the W bit of TWP). It is however difficult to let go of prescriptive blueprint plans and admit that, as Stefan Dercon, now Professor at Oxford University and formerly Chief Economist in DFID, said a couple of years ago, “we are gambling on development.” Senior civil servants don’t like gambling, and ministers want surety and certainty. TWP does not give them that. Rather the opposite in fact. Investments in rich countries always involve risk – even more so in emerging economies.
In short, all development work has political implications. It is political. — Graham Teskey
It seems that TWP should be an instinctive part of working anywhere, but especially when implementing projects in countries other than your own. So, why do you think TWP has not been more enthusiastically embraced by development professionals?
TWP has been embraced by many development professionals but not by all. Again, I think the simplest explanation is the right one (Occam’s razor here!), that is: continued professional jealousies and silos. Other sector specialists may think, “TWP is not our thing. Please leave us alone to get on with our thing, which you don’t understand.” I am exaggerating to make the point, I admit. However, sector colleagues do have a valid criticism of political economy and TWP. This is that it emphasises why something may not succeed rather than why and how it can succeed. The application of these approaches often fails to identify potential avenues of success. I agree we could do better here.
What are some common misconceptions you have encountered when introducing TWP to specific sectors? What are the things people new to the approach get confused about?
I am not sure ‘misconceptions’ is the right word. I think most practitioners ‘get’ TWP. What is more difficult is to design an investment that operationalises the idea—the ‘W’ bit. But we are making progress. In the part of the world where I work, we are increasingly seeing flexible and adaptive logframes built into development programmes. Here, the ‘end-of-program outcomes’ are specified but broadly articulated. The precise nature and content of the investments needed to reach the ‘end-of-program outcomes’ are either only loosely defined or left blank altogether, to be identified once implementation starts. These are brave decisions.
TWP is articulated as an approach for development professionals. What are practical ‘baby steps’ for land practitioners to start taking more of a TWP approach?
As much as anything, TWP is a way of thinking about development. The first thing to do is to think of the interests and incentives that motivate all the key actors, be they individuals or organisations. “What is in it for them?” “Why do I think they will go along with what I am proposing?” They may agree with my proposal, but are they sufficiently powerful to make it happen? Who will oppose this and how powerful are they?
You may say this is an overtly cynical approach. If so, I agree and am delighted. As Julien Baggini, one of the UK’s leading popular philosophers, said in an article in The Guardian on 11 July 2023:
“But at its best, cynicism is a greater force for progress than optimism. The optimist underestimates how difficult it is to achieve real change, believing that anything is possible and it’s possible now. Only by confronting head-on the reality that all progress is going to be obstructed by vested interests and corrupted by human venality can we create realistic programmes that actually have a chance of success. Progress is more of a challenge for the cynic but also more important and urgent, since for the optimist, things aren’t that bad and are bound to get better anyway”
Bravo.
What message about TWP do you want to share with Land Portal visitors, of whom more than 70% are from the global south?
Think politically. Every day. Never take at face value what you are told. Understand incentives and interests.
Please give us your top two-three resources for people interested in Thinking and Working Politically to learn more.
- The FCDO has just published a three page guide to PEA.
- The Asia Foundation published a longer version here a few months ago: PEA in Practice: A Practical Guide to Political Economy Analysis – The Asia Foundation
- Abt’s approach to PEA and adaptive management is here.
About Graham Teskey
Graham Teskey is a member of the Land Facility’s Political Economy Advisory Group (PEAG). He leads Abt Global’s Global Governance practice out of Canberra, Australia. Graham has 40 years of experience in governance and international development. He has worked with (and for) for DFID, the World Bank, and Australia’s Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade. See his full bio here.
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This material has been funded by UK International Development from the UK government; however, the authors’ opinions in the ‘Ground Rules’ blog series do not necessarily represent the UK government’s official policies, nor the Land Facility programme’s view on political economy. Rather, these blogs are part of the Decision Support Unit’s mandate to facilitate global learning and knowledge exchange that can inform best practices across the land and development world.