Suchergebnisse

Concerns about non-use of evaluations have plagued the profession since it emerged in the 1960s to guide government decision-making about social policies and programs. While there is a substantial body of empirical and theoretical literature about evaluation use, this literature does not identify the factors that are considered most important to facilitating evaluation use or the pathways to evaluation use. Additionally, much of the literature is from North America and Europe and there has been no large-scale study of evaluation use in Australia. This study aimed to identify Australasian Evaluation Society (AES) members' perceptions of the levels of use of evaluation and the factors associated with use, as well as how evaluators overcome barriers to use. It used a questionnaire of AES members and in-depth interviews with evaluators. The AES members who responded perceive both demand-side factors, particularly leadership commitment and individual receptiveness to evaluation, and supply-side factors, particularly involvement of stakeholders in identifying the evaluation purpose and effective communication of findings, as important to evaluation use. Evaluators employ a range of utilisation-focused strategies and have some success in negotiating the barriers they encounter to use. Evaluators' experience reflects that the factors that are most important to use and the pathways to use differ by context, suggesting that existing theoretical models of evaluation use could be strengthened through recognition of context-based pathways.

Klappentext: Over three decades after the Iranian Revolution reconfigured the strategic landscape in the Middle East, scholars are still trying to decipher its aftereffects. Suzanne Maloney provides the first comprehensive overview of Iran's political economy since the 1979 revolution and offers detailed examinations of two aspects of the Iranian economy of direct interest to scholars and non-specialist readers of Iran: the energy sector and the role of sanctions. Based on the author's research as both a scholar and government advisor, the book also features interviews with American and Iranian government officials. Moving chronologically from the early years under Khomeini, through the economic deprivations of the 1980s during the Iran-Iraq war, through liberalization under Khatami to the present, Maloney offers fascinating insights into Iran's domestic politics and how economic policies have affected ideology, leadership priorities, and foreign relations.