Framework for exploring the interplay of governance and evaluation

Abstract

The article develops a conceptual framework for the interplay between evaluation and governance and explores key functions of evaluation in democratic governance, mainly the accountability and improvement function. Using this framework contributes to knowledge of how governance affects evaluation and evaluation systems, and how evaluation may contribute to policy or governance change. Functions of evaluation are explored as effects of evaluative information produced by different evaluations on the one hand, and as evaluation system effects on the other. The framework can be used to map out and explore the interplay between evaluation and governance in different policy sectors. Program theory methodology is used to unpack the assumptions underlying evaluation in the state and network models of governance. The program theories can be used to illuminate and discuss how evaluation should work in different models of democratic governance, as well as for empirical research of the interplay between governance and evaluation.