Evaluating public management reforms: An international perspective

Abstract

With an assembly of articles written by internationally renowned scholars and experts, Evaluation in Public-Sector Reform is unique in its broad geographical range. It explores countries such as Australia, New Zealand, Norway, Sweden and the USA, as well as categorically addressing countries which have so far remained conspicuously neglected in the international debate, including: the Netherlands, Germany and Italy as Continental European countries, and Japan and Latin America. This unusually broad focus brings to the fore the double function which evaluation has typically acquired in the context of public-sector reforms: its twofold mission is, on the one hand, to create transparency – promoting internal tools and procedures in public administration – and on the other, to produce external evaluative information, analyses and research on the processes and results of public-sector reforms. So, evaluation is experiencing a new (‘third’) wave, which is explicitly shown in this book.