“Lerende overheid, intelligent beleid” or “Learning government, intelligent policy” was the title of my PhD thesis, on which I received my doctorate at Erasmus University Rotterdam on March 13, 1997.
The central question was to what extent policy evaluation and policy advice can contribute to the government’s ability to learn. Specifically, the analysis focussed on the work of the European Court of Audit and its lessons for the EU’s structural policies (regional and social funds).
The answer is surprising and positive: a lot of real learning takes place during the evaluation processes and in the months after after critical reports have been published, ‘in the lee’, so to speak, of formal management responses and harsh media attention. Still, there are many barriers that can stand in the way of policy-oriented learning.
For many, the added value of policy evaluation mainly consists of rational analysis. The pursuit of reliable information and ’true knowledge’ is central to this. Others emphasise the interactive nature of policy development and evaluation as an ‘argumentative process’. It is about being heard, persuasiveness and the ‘social construction’ of policy.
This book examines the various contributions of policy evaluation and policy advice from a constructivist perspective. Based on three ideal-typical learning models, it is argued that intelligent policy requires both rational analysis and argumentation. The research sheds new light on the effect of evaluations and advice in documents and policies: after initial resistance, both conceptual innovations and substantive adjustments are clearly recognisable in new proposals.
You can request a ‘vintage copy’ of the thesis viapetervanderknaap@hotmail.com
- The value of ‘learning’ as an concept in public administration and evaluation consists mainly of the inevitability of a certain belief in progress.
- The substantiated and convincing making of claims on ‘objective facts’ and ’true knowledge’ strengthens the position of policy evaluation in a policy-oriented dialogue. By forcing policy makers to make a reflective response, an evaluator may make a useful contribution to the government’s ability to learn.
- Although it is true that ’the truth’ does not exist, the statement that there is no truth is not true.
- The paradoxical thing about the government is that on the one hand it offers indispensable solutions to complex social problems but that its fragmented nature at the same time leads to partial definition of those problems.
- Policymakers learn from rather than from evaluators and advisors.
- The process of European integration is too important to be jeopardised by the imperfections of the institutions of the European Union. Among politicians, this insight unfortunately leads to indifference rather than to initiatives to correct these imperfections.
- The principle of co-financing means that a guilder from Brussels is in practice worth less than two quarters.
- Naming an administrative issue as ‘complex’ and ‘dynamic’ has the same news value as the remark that grass is green.
- Leafing through a book from back to front does no justice to the author’s purpose.
- Burning a wood stove contributes to the good atmosphere in a parental home.
- It is more efficient to only provide traffic information on routes where there are no traffic jams.
- The habit of writing a lot of things to do with the European Union in Capital Letters not only promotes The Unreadability, but also leads to the Firm Conviction that we are dealing with Winnie the Pooh here.