Suchergebnisse

This article reflects on an evaluation commissioned by the Centre for International Forestry Research, an international research centre working on tropical forests. In the Congo basin, it took from 10 to 20 years for research works to influence the sustainability of forest management through a complex web of interactions between timber companies, national governments, international organizations, development agencies, NGOs, and consultancies. By applying the contribution analysis approach, the evaluation was able to trace several causal pathways which percolated through this web of interactions and resulted in a number of contributions always indirect and marginal but sometimes necessary. The article discusses how contribution claims were inferred from evidence, what the underlying logic of causal arguments was, how some contributions could be qualified as necessary ones, and how far the evaluation went on the way to generalization. The discussion bridges contribution analysis with process tracing and realist evaluation.

Contribution analysis (CA) has been advocated and discussed more than it has been applied. This article draws on five evaluations applying CA in the context of EU policies in the areas of development aid, agriculture, employment, and governance. Over the last five years, the authors have developed their capacity to implement the six steps of CA and especially to draft contribution stories and to make contribution claims. These practical efforts have, in turn, caused them to explore the foundations of the approach and refine and operationalize key concepts such as contribution claim, causal mechanism, and strength of evidence.

« Modernisation of Public Action » (MAP) was an initiative to make evaluation the main instrument of reform for public policies at State level in France: 80 evaluations were launched between 2012 and 2017. MAP is the late child of both « evaluation à la française » (a 1990s attempt to make evaluation a way to reinvent democracy) and RGPP (a policy review aimed at cost-cutting under President Sarkozy). We explain how this strange combination set the expectations for the MAP. We undertook a metaevaluation to assess the quality of the evaluations, which put a very high emphasis on use, but were initially lacking some basic features such as evaluation questions or an intervention logic. However they improved over time. Finally, using contribution analysis and Process Tracing, we subject 8 evaluation processes to 10 empirical tests to assess their use. We show the diversity of impact pathways leading to reform (or lack thereof), some of which are unexpected, stressing the importance of context and attitude of stakeholders in the impacts that can be expected.

Résumé Quelle place pour la sociologie dans l'évaluation des politiques publiques en France ? Une étude de la commande publique met en évidence l'absence de demande explicite pour des évaluations sociologiques, mais le besoin pour une démarche explicative approfondie est plus que jamais présent. Or, le processus d'évaluation « à la française » offre potentiellement les espaces de liberté permettant à une démarche sociologique de s'épanouir. Surtout, alors que la demande pour des évaluations rigoureuses se fait plus pressante ces dernières années, les sociologues peuvent avoir un apport précieux pour contribuer à la diversité des approches dans le champ des politiques publiques.