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There is growing pressure on development organizations to improve their evaluation systems and capacities. This presents considerable challenges for time- and resource-poor organizations in developing countries. Evaluation capacity development (ECD) approaches are needed that are appropriate and effective for such organizations. We argue that this requires a long-term, holistic, participatory, learning-centred approach that aims to develop learning organizations and build the capacity of whole organizations and their stakeholders. It also needs to incorporate local knowledge and ideas and ongoing meta-evaluation of ECD activities. We describe this approach and how it was applied in a four-year action research project with a non-governmental organization in Nepal. Drawing on findings from this project and various follow up activities, we suggest some principles and strategies for designing and implementing an effective and sustainable approach to ECD that can help to address the many challenges and issues we have identified.

Where two or more persons from different professions meet to discuss a shared project, a dialogic 'third space' is opened up. Such dialogues (or multilogues) can be problematic for reasons which are well attested to in the literature. Third spaces can be sites of hostility and defensiveness, or of creativity and learning. This article explores the nature and management of the third space, noting that existing advice and guidance for evaluators – while important – is of necessity abstract. Interaction, on the other hand, is always embedded, shaped by unique contextual contingencies. Operating successfully in the third space therefore requires expertise which is difficult to codify. However, the authors argue that some sorts of dialogue (the Socratic, and audit) are generally inappropriate to the establishment of good relationships, that expertise in paying attention to contextual aspects of a situation is of the essence, and that learning how to improvise in an appropriate manner has to be learnt in order to bring about productive and ethically sound dialogue. The first part of the article presents a theoretical discussion of these issues; the second part analyses two episodes where the interaction had become unproductive. These are drawn from a recent responsive evaluation project conducted by the authors.

Ever since Thaler and Sunstein published their influential book Nudge, the book and the theory it presents have received great praise and opposition. Nudge theory, and more particularly, nudging may be considered an additional strategy providing some novel instruments to the already rich governance toolbox. But what is its value? The current debates on Nudge theory are often highly normative or ideologically driven and pay limited attention to more practical aspects of the theory. Is nudging evaluable as a theory and a practice, and if so how? Is there solid evidence available of nudge success over other governance interventions? What is to be considered a nudge success? What data and evaluative techniques may assist in evaluating nudging beyond individual cases? The current article seeks to explore these questions.

In England, 'policy experiments' are largely synonymous with the use of randomized controlled trials (RCTs) to test whether one policy 'works' better than another. While advocacy of the use of RCTs in public policy presents this as relatively straightforward, even common sense, the reality is different, as shown through analysis of three high profile policy pilots and their evaluations undertaken in health and social care in England in the mid/late 2000s. The RCTs were expected to confirm the direction of policy by resolving any remaining uncertainty about the effectiveness of the chosen path and their existence was used largely as instruments of persuasion. The findings from the analysis of the three pilots confirm the continuing relevance of Campbell's 1969 insight that governments struggle to experiment in the scientific sense and explain the limited effect of these policy experiments on policy decisions.

This research demonstrates the relevance of the evaluative cycle and its diverse methodological designs in small and medium enterprise (SME) policy. We structure our arguments based on the most common phases of the cycle, namely policy justification, needs, policy theory, implementation, impact and efficiency assessments. We use an in-depth case study of public assistance to an SME to illustrate how findings from these phases go beyond the results of the additionality practice in SME policy. We employ the findings as starting points to discuss several methodological designs for the evaluation of entire programmes, policies and systems.

This article draws on neo-institutional theoretical ideas to empirically examine the institutionalization of evaluation in the national government of Finland. The results indicate ambiguity in the basic institutionalization of Finnish evaluation, and imprecision in the agency of the actors that carry out or commission evaluations or utilize the evaluation results. Some Finnish institutional practices of evaluation enhance formal rationality such as efficiency and effectiveness, some support legitimation, and others do both in combination. The strength of coupling of evaluation to decision-making varies greatly. For future research, the article suggests studies on the institutionalization of evaluation in other countries. For evaluation practice, the results highlight the position of evaluation along the rationality-legitimation axis, and the variable linkages of evaluation to decision-making.