Handbook of Public Policy Evaluation

Edited by Frédéric Varone, Professor of Public Policy, Department of Political Science and International Relations, University of Geneva, Switzerland; and an elected member of the Geneva Court of Auditors, Steve Jacob, Professor of Political Science, Department of Political Science, Université Laval, Canada and Pirmin Bundi, Assistant Professor of Public Policy and Evaluation, Swiss Graduate School of Public Administration, University of Lausanne, Switzerland

Contents:

Introduction: putting policy evaluation into its democratic context 1
Frédéric Varone, Steve Jacob and Pirmin Bundi

PART I EVALUATION, ACCOUNTABILITY AND LEARNING IN
THE POLICY PROCESS
1 Public policy evaluation: origins and evolution 16
Michael Quinn Patton
2 What role can social constructivism play in realist evaluation?
The potentials and the limits 31
Jale Tosun, Fabrizio De Francesco and Valérie Pattyn
3 Realist evaluation in the policy design framework 47
Guillaume Fontaine
4 Policy evaluation in the legislative cycle 64
Alexandre Flückiger and Patricia Popelier
5 Policy learning and policy evaluation 76
Claire A. Dunlop and Claudio M. Radaelli
6 Same, same but different? The expansion of auditing and its
consequences for policy evaluation 93
B. Guy Peters and Jon Pierre
7 The contribution of evaluation to accountability mechanisms 104
Yousueng Han

PART II EVALUATION, PUBLIC PARTICIPATION AND DEMOCRACY
8 Evaluation and policy argumentation: a deliberative approach, with
special reference to COVID 118
Frank Fischer
9 Participatory evaluation, deliberation and democracy 132
Lynda Rey and Alexandre Fortin
10 Policy evaluation and the reproduction of social inequalities 154
Roberto Pires and Gabriela Lotta
11 Transformative evaluation for equitable and inclusive public policy 169
Donna M. Mertens

PART III INSTITUTIONALIZATION, PRACTICE AND
PROFESSIONALIZATION OF POLICY EVALUATION
12 The institutionalization of evaluation around the globe: understanding
the main drivers and effects over the past decades 187
Steve Jacob
13 Policy evaluation and parliaments 206
Pirmin Bundi
14 Evaluation of and in public administration 220
Sabine Kuhlmann and Sylvia Veit
15 Do courts use policy evaluation? 238
Simon St-Georges and Christine Rothmayr Allison
16 Relevance of evaluation findings in direct democracy decisions 253
Fritz Sager, Caroline Schlaufer and Iris Stucki
17 The role and functioning of evaluation in the European Union 266
Paul J. Stephenson and Jonas J. Schoenefeld
18 Policy evaluation and international organizations 285
Valentina Mele
19 Policy evaluation in the hands of philanthropists and NGOs: the politics
of getting it right 299
David J. Gilchrist and Ben Perks
20 The emergence of evaluation systems in low- and middle-income countries 317
Ian Goldman, Thania de la Garza Navarrete, Asela Kalugampitiya, Alonso
Miguel de Erice Dominguez, Edoé Djimitri Agbodjan, Takunda Chirau and
Ayabulela Dlakavu
21 Evaluation professionalization 337
Benoît Gauthier and Simon N. Roy

PART IV EVALUATION AND BEHAVIOURAL PUBLIC POLICY
22 Nudging and experimenting in a post-truth, post-COVID world 352
Peter John
23 How and when to use field experiments to evaluate public policies 366
Simon Calmar Andersen
24 Evaluation and digitalization: what are the key challenges for
evaluation processes and evaluators? 375
Tereza Cahlikova and Omar Ballester
25 Bringing street-level bureaucrats’ behaviour into policy evaluation 391
Eva Thomann and Eva Lieberherr
26 Evaluation of the non-take-up of public services and social benefits 408
Pierre-Marc Daigneault

Index 425