Hardback
Handbook of Public Policy Evaluation
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.
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Critical Acclaim
More Information
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.
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.
Critical Acclaim
‘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.’
– Ray C. Rist, World Bank, US
‘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.’
– Pearl Eliadis, McGill University, Canada
‘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.’
– Philippe Zittoun, University of Lyon, France
– Ray C. Rist, World Bank, US
‘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.’
– Pearl Eliadis, McGill University, Canada
‘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.’
– Philippe Zittoun, University of Lyon, France
