Program Evaluation and the Management of Government: Patterns and Prospects across Eight Nations (Comparative Policy Evaluation)

This book appears at an opportune time in the history of evaluation. Its detailed and up-to-date account of the organization and use of evaluation in eight Western, democratic countries―Canada, Germany, United Kingdom, United States, Denmark, Holland, Norway, and Switzerland―shows how evaluation functions at different levels of development. Focusing on the national or federal level of government, this volume presents a systematic and comparative view of eight nations at different stages of the development, institutionalization, and utilization of evaluations. All of these original contributions have been written by academics and government officials involved in the production and use of evaluation findings. Each shows how their respective country has moved to institutionalize evaluation at the federal level, and each explores the reasons for that institutionalization. Among them are managerial accountability, the increased complexity of the decisions facing policymakers, federally sponsored social change that needs to be tracked and assessed, and the increasing recognition that political power comes to those who possess such information. Program Evaluation and the Management of Government is tightly integrated. The contributions share coherence, a common analytic framework and use of key terms, resulting from the authors’ three-year dialogue as members of the Working Group on Policy and Program Evaluation sponsored by the International Institute for Administrative Sciences located in Belgium. Their shared commitment to working together has given us the first systematic effort to assess evaluation across such a large number of countries. It will be of interest to applied social scientists and policymakers, especially those interested in comparative research.

Ray C. Rist is Director of Operations for the General Government Division, United States General Accounting Office. Dr. Rist earned his Ph.D. in sociology and anthropology in 1970 from Washington University (St. Louis). His list of book and article publications is extensive.