A three-fold theory of social change: Implications for practice, planning, monitoring and evaluation

Doug Reeler’s theory of social change is proposed through this paper as one small contribution to a larger body of theorising. This paper can be seen as an observational map to help practitioners, whether field practitioners or donors, including the people they are attempting to assist, to read and thus navigate processes of social change. In the different sections of this paper, Reeler reviews different theories of social change (emergent, transformative and projectable change) and seeks to bring them together into something that is more integrated, recognising the diversity of social change. He makes the leading ideas, values and purposes behind his thinking explicit and reflects upon the challenges of reading change processes. At the end, the implications of different approaches on social change for development practices as well as for PME&R systems are given attention.