Suchergebnisse

Although previous studies have examined U.S. public support for the use of military force in particular historical cases, and have even made limited comparisons among cases, a full comparison of a large number of historical episodes in which the United States contemplated, threatened, or actually used military force has been missing. An analysis of U.S. public support for the use of military force in twenty-two historical episodes from the early 1980s through the Iraq war and occupation (2003-05) underscores the continuing relevance of Bruce Jentleson's principal policy objectives framework: the objective for which military force is used is an important determinant of the base level of public support. The U.S. public supports restraining aggressive adversaries, but it is leery of involvement in civil-war situations. Although the objective of the mission strongly conditions this base level of support, the public is also sensitive to the relative risk of different military actions; to the prospect of civilian or military casualties; to multilateral participation in the mission; and to the likelihood of success or failure of the mission. These results suggest that support for U.S. military involvement in Iraq is unlikely to increase; indeed, given the ongoing civil strife in Iraq, continuing casualties, and substantial disagreement about the prospects for success, the public's support is likely to remain low or even decline.

In Collapse: How Societies Choose to Fail or Succeed, Jared Diamond claims that several societies in times past collapsed in part for environmental reasons and that these cases bear lessons for today. By and large, Diamond has got his history right. But the application of lessons derived from these historical cases to today's environmental problems will leave many readers unconvinced. Scaling up from diminutive, isolated, and low-technology examples such as precontact Easter Island or the Greenland Norse to the contemporary world is fraught with conceptual difficulties, not all of which Diamond can dispel. Diamond's arguments, whether one finds them convincing or not, raise some timely questions. Are we indeed at serious risk of environmental collapse? And how do some current trends—the rise of China, the coming transition to a new energy regime, and the slowing of population growth—affect the chances of environmental collapse?

This article presents a comprehensive theory-based evaluation of Japan's Foreign Student Policy towards Thailand between the years of 1954 and 2001, utilizing a logical framework: the Policy Evaluation Matrix (PEM). Two logical frameworks were created, based on the policy objectives of Japan's Foreign Student Policy, namely human resource development (the policy objective which is related to the development of recipient countries) and fostering pro-Japanese leaders (the policy objective which is related to national interest). The collected data are analysed on the two PEMs to measure the effectiveness, impact, efficiency and relevance of the policy. The attainment of the policy objective (i.e. effectiveness) is estimated to be 75 percent in terms of human resource development and 87.5 percent in terms of fostering pro-Japanese leaders. The result is plotted on a three-dimensional graph for ODA (Official Development Assistance) evaluation to show the relationship between inputs and impact on development and impact on national interest.

This article builds on an earlier experiment in applying Realist Evaluation (RE) techniques to a set of Best Value Reviews (BVRs) undertaken in a single English local authority. That experiment used a range of assumptions regarding context (C), mechanisms (M) and outcomes (O) that restricted the possible pathways in the resulting CMO causal loop. They were 'heroic' in nature and left largely implicit. The article subjects those assumptions to rigorous criticism. Five hypotheses are tested concerning the nature of the context within which the BVRs occurred; the potentially skewed nature of the review mechanisms chosen; the impact of process outcomes and goals-setting problems on BVR outcomes; the scope for strong linkages to be formed between context, mechanism and outcomes, such that deterministic effects ensue; and the need to define the boundaries of the evaluand (the BVR). Realist evaluations have typically focused on individual services or programmes. It is contended that RE methods need to be adapted to address cumulative impacts on policy and organizational culture that are inherently political in nature.

This article examines the institutionalization of policy evaluation in Belgium. In comparison to other western democracies, policy evaluation is an underdeveloped tool of Belgian public governance. Among the explanatory factors of the laggard situation of Belgium, we focus on the all-pervasive phenomenon of partitocracy, on the relative weakness of Parliament vis-à-vis the government, and on the federalization process that is characteristic of the recent institutional evolution of the country. These three peculiarities of the Belgian polity and politics jeopardize the development of a mature evaluation culture. Finally, the empirical evidence for the Belgian case also calls into question several of the theoretical hypotheses that have been formulated to explain the diffusion of policy evaluation in various democracies.

This article focuses on an evaluation of the pilot implementation of the UK 'Early Excellence' programme, designed to improve Early Years services and achieve national impact. As with other 'New Labour' programmes, the evaluation approach was based on addressing the relationship between 'context, process and outcome'; to facilitate this, nationally defined indicators were adopted through collaboration between a national evaluation team, local evaluators and local practitioners. This approach left considerable scope for interpretation and participation by local evaluators and practitioners, as they engaged in data collection and analysis. However, two major shifts later undermined the original scope: first, a shift from evaluation to performance management, and second, a shift from central practitioner participation to marginal practitioner involvement. In conclusion, we note the parallels and contrasts between this experience and others in UK public services, and propose some general learning points for similar evaluation initiatives.

A challenge for all formative evaluators is how to communicate advice and 'get through' to the evaluand in order to bring about improvements. This case study of an evaluation of a Norwegian business development program analyses three different attempts at intervention by evaluators. Based on this, the article identifies four critical challenges in formative evaluation. First, stakeholders must clearly express their expectations when hiring evaluators. Second, the evaluator and the evaluand must represent different perspectives, thus together creating diversity as a basis for innovation. Third, diversity provides a challenge in terms of communication, and creates a need for a good form of communication. Fourth, we found that the best form of communication was to construct the arguments for change in terms of the functionality (does it work?) of the program. We called this functional argumentation, as opposed to normative argumentation.