Books in the Comparative Policy Evaluation series

Knowledge grows as ideas are tested against each other. Agreement is not resolved simply by naming concepts but in the dialectical process of thesis, antithesis and synthesis. This book includes many echoes of these debates. It offers a comprehensive treatise on evidence based policy.

Great intellectual effort has gone into the development of sophisticated designs and methodologies to study individual policies, programs, and projects

Evaluation has come of age. Today most social and political observers would have difficulty imagining a society where evaluation is not a fixture of daily life, from individual programs to local authorities to parliamentary committees

Modern theorists and their ideas on war and peace are here presented, interpreted, and evaluated with scholarship and clarity of expression

The International Group for Policy and Program Evaluation (INTEVAL) serves as a forum for scholars and practitioners of public policy to discuss ideas and developments as a community dedicated to enhancing the contribution of evaluation to government

The literature on policy strategies, instruments, and styles is impressive

In Ethics for Evaluation diverse perspectives on ethical guidance in evaluation are untangled and ordered in a theoretical framework focusing on evaluations doing no harm, tackling bad and doing good.

Examines the contributions of non-public organisations, such as foundations, philanthropies, charities, non-governmental organisations, private businesses, and entrepreneurs to public goods and services. Doing Public Good? lays out key elements that need to be considered in evaluating the net results achieved by these private actors.

Presents a fundamentally different approach to the mainstream supply side discussion of evaluation quality, utilization, and learning. The contributors believe that a systematic focus on success will lead to increased awareness of evaluation and its findings, a more positive attitude, and a greater chance of actual evaluation use.

To understand local responsibilities and requirements, one must also understand the role that regional and national governmental agencies and administrations play. Politics and Practices of Intergovernmental Evaluation is a landmark work in the area of the evaluation of intergovernmental policies, programs, and projects. Comparative and cross-national in its perspective, the material presented here not only provides a systematic theoretical and empirical treatment of intergovernmental evaluation, but does so with case material from seven nations and the European Union. No other such comparative work exists on this topic. Politics and Practices of Intergovernmental Evaluation will be of interest to political theorists, policy-makers, and scholars and students of government and the evaluation community.

What is the role of evaluative information in the public arena? How, when, and under what circumstances does the actual use of evaluative information take place? By compiling and comparing international case studies, this book considers forces that make the information produced in evaluations increasing ""open to the public.

We are living in a cyber society. Mobile devices, social media, the Internet, crime cameras, and other diverse sources can be pulled together to form massive datasets, known as big data, which make it possible to learn things we could not begin to comprehend otherwise.

Recent developments in policy evaluation have focused on new notions of process and use or, notably, "influence

Examining the degree to which evaluators seek power for their own interests, this book asks questions such as: Can we really trust evaluation to be a force for the good? To what degree can we talk about self-interest in evaluation, and is this self-interest something that contradicts other interests such as ""the benefit of society""?

Information--regular, systematic, reliable--is the life-blood of democracy and the fuel of effective management

Based on experiences derived from comparative analysis in different countries, this work explains why there is interest in performance monitoring in a given setting, why it has failed or created uncertainties, and identifies criteria for improving its design and use. It is aimed at public managers, government officials, economists, and others.

Research on policy strategies, instruments, and styles incorporates a complex variety of theoretical and conceptual approaches and analytical tools. This work proposes a framework for the field, one that clearly shows how public policy instruments may be classified, packaged, and chosen.

Looks at the role of evaluation and of audit as key elements in democratic accountability processes. This book includes case studies and is aimed at serious people who think about trends in the use of evaluation and audit in seeking to hold governments accountable for their actions and performance.

Long Term Perspectives in Evaluation is the first book to advocate the virtues of a long-term perspective for policy evaluation as well as to show how evaluations can take a longer time perspective than they usually do.

Presents, interprets and evaluates modern theorists and their ideas on war and peace. This book allows the reader to better understand what the "clash of civilizations" is about. It provides an outline of both European and American twentieth century social philosophies as they relate to the issue of war and peace.