Research has identified a wide range of factors that affect evaluation use but continues to be inconclusive as to their relative importance. This article addresses the complex phenomenon of evaluation use in three ways: first, it draws on recent conceptual developments to delimitate the examined form of use; second, it aims at identifying conditions that are necessary but not necessarily sufficient for evaluation use; third, it combines mechanisms of evaluation use, context conditions, and actor perceptions. The study reported here examines the use of 11 program and project evaluations by the Swiss Agency for Development and Cooperation (SDC). The article makes use of qualitative comparative analysis (QCA), a method that is well suited to the study of context-bound necessity. It is concluded that the analysis of conditions that are necessary to trigger mechanisms of evaluation use in certain contexts is challenging, but promising to face the complexity of the phenomenon.
This article presents an innovative evaluation design which was used to evaluate the Swiss Environmental Impact Assessment. The design is new in that it amalgamates the realistic approach to evaluation with the method of Qualitative Comparative Analysis (QCA), the two of which are conspicuously similar. They share a complex view of causality, a generative perspective, a theory-driven approach to empirical observation and a limited claim to generalization. These conceptual parallels, as derived from the literature, are described in the first section, after a short introduction to realistic evaluation and the method of QCA. The following empirical section exemplifies their joint application and tackles the problems encountered. Based on this experience, the initial theoretical parallels are then reviewed. The article concludes that, under certain conditions, realistic evaluation and QCA provide a powerful tandem to produce empirically well-grounded context-sensitive evidence on policy instruments.
Der Evidence-Based Policy-Ansatz hat international Reformen ausgel€ ost und Studien zum Verh€ altnis von Wissen und Politik angestossen, wobei ein klares Verst€ andnis von "Evidenz" nach wie vor fehlt. In diesem Artikel wird eine Typologie politikrelevanter Wissensarten entwickelt, die zwischen systematischer Evidenz und personengebundener Expertise sowie zwischen den Politikdimensionen Policy, Politics und Polity unterscheidet. Auf dieser konzeptionellen Grundlage wird empirisch erfasst, welches Wissen die Verwaltung und externe Experten w€ ahrend der bisher kaum untersuchten Fr€ uhphase von Gesetzgebungsverfahren auf Bundesebene beitragen. Es zeigt sich, dass die federf€ uhrenden Verwaltungsakteure kaum € uber Expertise verf€ ugen, die f€ ur den Gesetzgebungsprozess relevant w€ are, doch versuchen sie, ihre Wissensl€ ucken je nach Dimension unterschiedlich zu kompensieren. Externe Experten leisten einen bescheidenen Wissensbeitrag, weshalb ihre Beteiligung prim€ ar als Mittel f€ ur die politische Kompromissfindung verstanden werden muss. Dies er€ offnet aus demokratietheoretischer Sicht Diskussionsbedarf.
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