Politics Of Evaluation

Like any organized social practice, evaluation is unavoidably implicated in matters of politics. The ways in which politics and evaluation are interrelated are many. Consider, for example, the following sampling of topics addressed in the literature: evaluation [Page 320]as a political ritual, political participation in evaluation, the politics of identifying stakeholders, evaluation as a political activity in a political context, evaluation in the service of political rationality, the political morality of evaluation practice, the politics of applying methods in evaluation, the political accountability of evaluation. A not uncommon view is that even though evaluation results are surely implicated in the arena of politics, political concerns inevitably represent an intrusion into the conduct of evaluation. The inevitability of this state of affairs is owing to the ...