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This article focuses on methodological challenges in evaluating complex program aid interventions like budget support. We show that recent innovations in process-tracing methodology can help solve the identified challenges and increase the strength of causal inference made when using case studies in demanding settings. For the specific task of evaluating the governance effectiveness of budget support interventions, we developed a more fine-grained causal mechanism for a subset of the comprehensive program theory of budget support. Moreover, based on the informal use of Bayesian logic, we have elaborated on how to increase the conclusiveness of empirical evidence for one part of the theorized causal mechanism. We argue that by establishing an explicit theorized mechanism prior to empirical research and by critically judging our evidence according to an informal Bayesian logic we can remedy some of the problems at hand in much case-study research and increase the inferential leverage in complex within-case evaluation studies.

Process tracing is a research method for tracing causal mechanisms using detailed, within-case empirical analysis of how a causal process plays out in an actual case. Process tracing can be used both for case studies that aim to gain a greater understanding of the causal dynamics that produced the outcome of a particular historical case and to shed light on generalizable causal mechanisms linking causes and outcomes within a population of causally similar cases. This article breaks down process tracing as a method into its three core components: theorization about causal mechanisms linking causes and outcomes; the analysis of the observable empirical manifestations of the operation of theorized mechanisms; and the complementary use of comparative methods to enable generalizations of findings from single case studies to other causally similar cases. Three distinct variants of process tracing are developed, illustrated by examples from the literature.