Context Before Conclusions: A Diagnostic Framework for Contextual Validity in Policy Transfer

Purpose: This paper explores why evidence-based policies that appear effective in one context frequently produce uneven outcomes, exclusion, or legitimacy challenges when transferred across policy and governance contexts. It introduces the Contextual Research Validity Index (CRVI) as a diagnostic framework for evaluating whether the contextual conditions necessary for policy validity remain aligned across settings. Methodology: The study develops a conceptual and diagnostic framework that assesses contextual validity across four dimensions: epistemic alignment, institutional fit, cultural resonance, and operational feasibility. The framework is illustrated through an interpretive analysis of India’s Aadhaar digital identification system, drawing on secondary literature, policy reports, and institutional evidence. Limitation: The paper is conceptual and illustrative rather than predictive or causal. The CRVI scoring approach is heuristic and based on qualitative interpretation rather than statistical modelling or original empirical data collection. Findings: The analysis demonstrates that policy effectiveness cannot be separated from contextual conditions. The Aadhaar case shows that interventions regarded as technically successful may still generate exclusion, legitimacy disputes, and uneven outcomes when epistemic assumptions, institutional safeguards, cultural expectations, and operational realities are misaligned. Practical Implications: The CRVI provides policymakers and evaluators with a structured tool for assessing transfer readiness, contextual risk, and governance vulnerabilities before scaling or replicating interventions across settings. Social Implications: The framework supports more accountable and context-sensitive policymaking by helping reduce exclusion, governance failures, and legitimacy erosion in large-scale policy interventions, particularly in digital public infrastructure. Originality: The paper contributes to the policy evaluation and governance literature by reframing policy failure as a problem of contextual misalignment rather than of insufficient evidence alone, and by operationalising contextual validity through a transferable diagnostic framework.