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"Evaluation is a controversial and little-understood strategy of public governance, control, and decision making. As early as classical antiquity, scholars were summoned to court to counsel kings. Public policy and program evaluation is a recent addition to the great chain of attempts to use the brainpower of scholars and scientists to further the interests of the state. Evaluation scholars are asked to provide retrospective assessments of the implementation, output, and outcome of government measures in order to effect deeper understanding and well-grounded decisions on the part of those in charge of government operations. Evaluation is the process of distinguishing the worthwhile from the worthless, the precious from the useless; evaluation implies looking backward in order to be able to steer forward better.Written from a political science perspective, Public Policy and Program Evaluation provides an overview of the possibilities and limits of public sector evaluation. Evert Vedung examines evaluation as a mechanism for monitoring, systematizing, and grading government activities and their results so that public officials, in their future-oriented work, will be able to act as responsibly, creatively, and efficiently as possible. Topics discussed include: "Evaluation, Rationality, and Theories of Public Management"; "Models of Evaluation"; "Internal or External Evaluation"; "Impact Assessment as Tryout and Social Experimentation"; "Process Evaluation and Implementation Theory"; "The Eight-Problems Approach to Evaluation"; and "Uses and Users of Evaluation."All evaluation rests upon the idea that perceptions, opinions, intentions, judgments--in short, everything concerned with the world of human consciousness--play such interesting roles in political and administrative action that their functions are worth investigating. Through experience, humans may learn from past actions. The interventions of the modern state are so extensive, their execu"--Provided by publisher.

Public policy and program evaluation is a recent addition to a chain of attempts by governments to use the brain power of academics and scientists to further the interests of the state. Evaluation specialists are asked to provide retrospective assessments of the implementation, cost-effectiveness, and results of government measures in order to engage in self-reflection, deeper understanding, and soundly informed decisions by stakeholders. those responsible for the government. Good intentions are not enough. Good practices and solid results matter in evaluation. Evaluation involves looking back in order to better look forward. It is a mechanism to control, systematize and graduate government activities and their results to guide them to the future, and allow officials to be able to act in the most responsible, creative and efficient way possible. The interventions of the modern State are complex and their consequences are far-reaching, therefore, it is necessary for science and social research to guide the operations and determine the impacts. ; La política pública y la evaluación de programas es una incorporación reciente a una cadena de intentos por parte de los gobernantes de utilizar el poder mental de académicos y científicos para promover los intereses del Estado. A los especialistas en temas de evaluación se les pide que proporcionen valoraciones retrospectivas acerca de la aplicación, rentabilidad y resultados de medidas gubernamentales con el fin de llevar a cabo una autorreflexión, lograr una comprensión más profunda y adoptar decisiones sólidamente fundamentadas por parte de los responsables del gobierno. No bastan las buenas intenciones. En la evaluación importan las buenas prácticas y sólidos resultados. La evaluación implica mirar hacia atrás con el fin de poder mirar mejor hacia delante. Es un mecanismo para controlar, sistematizar y graduar las actividades gubernamentales y sus resultados para orientarlas al futuro, y permitir que los funcionarios sean capaces de actuar de la forma más responsable, creativa y eficiente posible. Las intervenciones del Estado moderno son complejas y sus consecuencias de largo alcance, por ello, hace falta que la ciencia y la investigación social orienten las operaciones y fijen los impactos

Poul Erik Mouritzen (red.), Livet i Magtens Rugekasse. Fortalt gennem fem generationer. Aarhus: Politica, 2020, 220 sider, 199 kr.

This article investigates the dissemination of evaluation as it appears from a Swedish and to a lesser extent an Atlantic vantage point since 1960. Four waves have deposited sediments, which form present-day evaluative activities. The scientific wave entailed that academics should test, through two-group experimentation, appropriate means to reach externally set, admittedly subjective, goals. Public decision-makers were then supposed to roll out the most effective means. Faith in scientific evaluation eroded in the early 1970s. It has since been argued that evaluation should be participatory and non-experimental, with information being elicited from users, operators, managers and other stakeholders through discussions. In this way, the dialogue-oriented wave entered the scene. Then the neo-liberal wave from around 1980 pushed for market orientation. Deregulation, privatization, contracting-out, efficiency and customer influence became key phrases. Evaluation as accountability, value for money and customer satisfaction was recommended. Under the slogan 'What matters is what works' the evidence-based wave implies a renaissance for scientific experimentation.

Perverse effects and ironies should be at the center of attention in academic public policy analysis. A 'perverse effect' is not any inadvertent result produced by a public measure but a result, inside or outside the target area, that is entirely opposite to the result intended. An 'irony', as defined here, is different from a perverse effect in that it designates any unintended and unexpected result whose causes are unknown or left without comment. The pronouncement 'this is an irony' means 'this is an unexpected result'; the statement 'this is a perverse effect' means 'this is an unexpected, diametrically opposite result at least partly produced by the intervention' (Vedung 1998a. Utvärdering i politik och förvaltning. Lund: Studentlitteratur, p. 62).The article deals with the ironic result of an economic policy instrument in Swedish national housing land policy, the Land Stipulation Requisite for State Housing Loans 1974–91. The purpose of the requisite was that the pertinent municipality (not a private landowner) must have allocated to the building commissioner the land for his planned residential development if he was to be granted state housing loans.The policy makers expected that the share of the total housing production taking place on land supplied by municipalities would increase. Yet between 1972 and 1990 the housing production on land supplied by municipal authorities decreased. This puzzling gap, referred to as the 'enigmatic irony' of the Land Stipulation Requisite, is explained. The explanation is phrased in the terminology of a general theory of public intervention results. The explanation may be summarized as 'exception as the rule'.

Perverse effects and ironies should be at the center of attention in academic public policy analysis. A 'perverse effect' is not any inadvertent result produced by a public measure but a result, inside or outside the target area, that is entirely opposite to the result intended. An 'irony', as defined here, is different from a perverse effect in that it designates any unintended and unexpected result whose causes are unknown or left without comment. The pronouncement 'this is an irony' means 'this is an unexpected result'; the statement 'this is a perverse effect' means 'this is an unexpected, diametrically opposite result at least partly produced by the intervention' (Vedung 1998a. Utvärdering i politik och förvaltning. Lund: Studentlitteratur, p. 62). The article deals with the ironic result of an economic policy instrument in Swedish national housing land policy, the Land Stipulation Requisite for State Housing Loans 1974–91. The purpose of the requisite was that the pertinent municipality (not a private landowner) must have allocated to the building commissioner the land for his planned residential development if he was to be granted state housing loans. The policy makers expected that the share of the total housing production taking place on land supplied by municipalities would increase. Yet between 1972 and 1990 the housing production on land supplied by municipal authorities decreased. This puzzling gap, referred to as the 'enigmatic irony' of the Land Stipulation Requisite, is explained. The explanation is phrased in the terminology of a general theory of public intervention results. The explanation may be summarized as 'exception as the rule'.