Handbook of Public Policy Evaluation: (Handbooks of Research on Public Policy series)

This comprehensive Handbook examines public policy evaluation in democracies. Focusing on the political dimension of the evaluation process, it argues that policy evaluation can be an emancipatory tool, reducing social inequalities and exclusion, and offers novel suggestions on how evaluations can be used to improve democratic policymaking. Laying out how evaluation relates to policy design, law-making, performance auditing and policy learning, this Handbook explores how policy evaluation can foster public participation, strengthen governance and enhance democracy. It uses experimental, constructivist and participatory approaches to analyse global case studies, offering epistemological, theoretical, methodological and normative insights. Contributors examine the institutionalisation of policy evaluation in national and international political systems, how to build evaluation capacity, the transformation of evaluation practice through digitalisation, and the challenges posed to evaluators by post-truth politics and artificial intelligence. This Handbook will be an invaluable resource for academic and professional policy evaluators seeking to deliver effective evaluation processes. It will also be essential reading for students and scholars of public policy, public administration and management, and political research methods.

Table of Contents:
Contents: Introduction: putting policy evaluation into its democratic context 1 Frédéric Varone, Steve Jacob and Pirmin Bundi PART I EVALUATION, ACCOUNTABILITY AND LEARNING IN THE POLICY PROCESS 1 Public policy evaluation: origins and evolution 16 Michael Quinn Patton 2 What role can social constructivism play in realist evaluation? The potentials and the limits 31 Jale Tosun, Fabrizio De Francesco and Valérie Pattyn 3 Realist evaluation in the policy design framework 47 Guillaume Fontaine 4 Policy evaluation in the legislative cycle 64 Alexandre Flückiger and Patricia Popelier 5 Policy learning and policy evaluation 76 Claire A. Dunlop and Claudio M. Radaelli 6 Same, same but different? The expansion of auditing and its consequences for policy evaluation 93 B. Guy Peters and Jon Pierre 7 The contribution of evaluation to accountability mechanisms 104 Yousueng Han PART II EVALUATION, PUBLIC PARTICIPATION AND DEMOCRACY 8 Evaluation and policy argumentation: a deliberative approach, with special reference to COVID 118 Frank Fischer 9 Participatory evaluation, deliberation and democracy 132 Lynda Rey and Alexandre Fortin 10 Policy evaluation and the reproduction of social inequalities 154 Roberto Pires and Gabriela Lotta 11 Transformative evaluation for equitable and inclusive public policy 169 Donna M. Mertens PART III INSTITUTIONALIZATION, PRACTICE AND PROFESSIONALIZATION OF POLICY EVALUATION 12 The institutionalization of evaluation around the globe: understanding the main drivers and effects over the past decades 187 Steve Jacob 13 Policy evaluation and parliaments 206 Pirmin Bundi 14 Evaluation of and in public administration 220 Sabine Kuhlmann and Sylvia Veit 15 Do courts use policy evaluation? 238 Simon St-Georges and Christine Rothmayr Allison 16 Relevance of evaluation findings in direct democracy decisions 253 Fritz Sager, Caroline Schlaufer and Iris Stucki 17 The role and functioning of evaluation in the European Union 266 Paul J. Stephenson and Jonas J. Schoenefeld 18 Policy evaluation and international organizations 285 Valentina Mele 19 Policy evaluation in the hands of philanthropists and NGOs: the politics of getting it right 299 David J. Gilchrist and Ben Perks 20 The emergence of evaluation systems in low- and middle-income countries 317 Ian Goldman, Thania de la Garza Navarrete, Asela Kalugampitiya, Alonso Miguel de Erice Dominguez, Edoé Djimitri Agbodjan, Takunda Chirau and Ayabulela Dlakavu 21 Evaluation professionalization 337 Benoît Gauthier and Simon N. Roy PART IV EVALUATION AND BEHAVIOURAL PUBLIC POLICY 22 Nudging and experimenting in a post-truth, post-COVID world 352 Peter John 23 How and when to use field experiments to evaluate public policies 366 Simon Calmar Andersen 24 Evaluation and digitalization: what are the key challenges for evaluation processes and evaluators? 375 Tereza Cahlikova and Omar Ballester 25 Bringing street-level bureaucrats’ behaviour into policy evaluation 391 Eva Thomann and Eva Lieberherr 26 Evaluation of the non-take-up of public services and social benefits 408 Pierre-Marc Daigneault Index 425

About the Author :
Edited by Frédéric Varone, Professor of Public Policy, Department of Political Science and International Relations, University of Geneva, Switzerland; and an elected member of the Geneva Court of Auditors, Steve Jacob, Professor of Political Science, Department of Political Science, Université Laval, Canada and Pirmin Bundi, Assistant Professor of Public Policy and Evaluation, Swiss Graduate School of Public Administration, University of Lausanne, Switzerland

Review :
‘The twenty-six papers comprising this volume highlight the challenges facing international policy evaluation in an era of misinformation, fake news, and conspiracy theories. The authors present an important reconceptualization of values and beliefs core to the evaluation function. You, the reader, are rewarded with innovative ideas and perspectives. This book is neither boring nor routine. The topical conceptualization is profound. The effort to read this book is well rewarded.’ ‘This book offers a panoramic and topical vista of the theoretical and practical dimensions of evaluation. Handbook of Public Policy Evaluation is more than a “handbook”; it is a reservoir of scholarship providing insights that range from technical and methodological issues on evaluation and evaluative thinking, to thoughtful explorations of evaluation’s relationship to our most fundamental democratic values and institutions.’ ‘In this Handbook, Varone, Jacob and Bundi do not simply propose a relevant overview of Policy Evaluation. Rather, they go beyond current academic controversies by viewing policy evaluation as a fundamental political activity. Specifically, they propose an original and stimulating perspective presented in 26 fascinating chapters which cover all the facets of this topic.’