Evaluation in the Post-Truth World

Mita Marra is Associate Professor of Political Economy at the University of Naples in Italy. She also taught at the Trachtenberg School of Public Policy and Public Administration at the George Washington University (2016–2021), at Maastricht University (2006) and within the International Program of Development Evaluation (IPDET, 2016–2018). Mita Marra has a PhD in Public Policy from the George Washington University, an MA in International Relations at the School of Advanced International Studies of the Johns Hopkins University and a BA in Economics at the University of Naples Federico II, in Italy. Her current research interests revolve around public sector governance and policy evaluation in the field of regional development, innovation, and gender equality. Dr Marra has published extensively in peer-reviewed journals such as American Journal of Evaluation, Systems Research and Behavioral Science, and European Urban and Regional Studies. Dr Marra is Editor-in-Chief for the international peer-reviewed journal Evaluation and Program Planning (2015–present), past president of the Italian Evaluation Association (AIV, 2013–2017), and a current member of the Board of the European Evaluation Society, and the Council of the International Evaluation Academy.Karol Olejniczak is Associate Professor of Public Policy at SWPS University, Warsaw, Poland, and co-founder of the Polish policy research company, Evaluation for Government Organizations (EGO s.c.). He was an Ostrom Policy Analysis Workshop fellow (2006), Kosciuszko Foundation fellow (2012), and Fulbright fellow (2021). Dr. Olejniczak’s work focuses on the intersection of policy design and evaluation, and the use of evidence in decision-making. In his research and teaching, he utilizes games, experiments, and behavioral design. He has published the six-volume series Ministerstwa Uczace Sie (Learning Ministries), and articles in scientific journals such as the American Journal of Evaluation, Policy Design and Practice, and Policy & Politics.Arne Paulson pursued a career in international development, working as an economist in a number of international organizations, including the World Bank, UNCTAD (Geneva), the International Energy Agency (Paris), and the Inter-American Development Bank (IDB), from which he retired in 2007. At the IDB, he worked in all aspects of evaluation, including ex-ante economic evaluation, ongoing monitoring of projects in execution, and ex-post evaluation of completed projects financed by the IDB. At the corporate level, he reported on the overall development effectiveness of IDB operations to the bank’s board of directors and at international conferences.

This book profoundly faces the tension between social science/evaluation and the world of lies, distortions, and un-truths. Whether addressing Brexit or Trump, this book does not shy away from the confrontation of these two forces playing out in countries across the globe. As the editors see it, we are now in the midst of "the death of expertise" as emotions lure people and politicians more than facts and evidence do. One of the brilliantly addressed tensions in the book is that between knowledge and power. The tensions are manageable, especially if there are safeguards erected by democratic institutions. But when these safeguards are challenged or eroded, as in the times we are presently experiencing, democracy becomes more fragile and frail. The ten chapters in this volume focus on democratic countries and their public policy decision-making for two reasons: First, the democratic environment is the most common arena for the evaluative function; and second, the post-truth phenomenon is most visible in the democratic space.Ray C. Rist, Former Senior Advisor (Retired), The World BankLike many others, I have been puzzled by the increasing tension between the discrediting of science and expertise on the one hand, and the pressure for evidence-based policymaking, on the other hand. This tension is the focus of this book, which has been initiated and written during the last turbulent years with Trump, COVID and the Ukraine war. The aim of the book is to raise awareness and provoke reflections on the factors that influence evaluations and policy-related work in such challenging environments. The first part deals with the relationship between policy problems and evaluation, the second with the relationship between politics and expertise, and the third with the complexity of evaluation in the institutional and political systems. The underlying conviction is that for an evaluating society to flourish, citizens and professionals have to develop a capacity to be inquisitive, systematic in their inquiry, judicious in their claims, truth seeking, analytical, intellectually humble, sympathetic to opposing points of view, self-critical, and open-minded— not simply open-minded in the sense of being tolerant of other points of view, but open-minded in the sense of recognizing the challenges to one’s own way of seeing things that arise from others’ ways of making distinctions of worth.Per Oyvind Bastøe, International Evaluation Adviser, Formerly Evaluation Director and Chair of OECD/DAC Evaluation Network

• ForewordIntroductionMita Marra, Karol Olejniczak, and Arne Paulson1. Co-creating Evaluation for Policy Relevance: The Challenges of the Post-Truth WorldMita Marra2. Free Trade, Populism, and Post-Truth – An Evaluation PerspectiveR. Pablo Guerrero O.3. Evidence as Enlightenment versus Evidence as Certainty: Appropriate Uses of Evaluative Information to Inform Policy in a Post-Truth WorldRichard Boyle and Sean Redmond4. Lies and Politics: Until Death Do Us Part …Steve Jacob and Jeanne Milot-Poulin5. Heuristics and Biases in the nPost-Truth Era—A Piece of Advice for Policy-MakersJakub Krawiec and Paweł Śliwowski6. In Search of Effective Communication with Decision-Makers for the Post-Truth Era: Discourse Strategies from Pre-Imperial ChinaKarol Olejniczak and Marcin Jacoby7. Do Citizens even want to hear the truth?: Public Attitudes toward Evidence-Informed PolicymakingPirmin Bundi and Valérie Pattyn8. Sustaining Momentum for Evidence-Informed Policymaking: The Case of the US GovernmentNicholas Hart and Kathryn Newcomer9. Participatory Budgeting, Evaluation, and the Post-Truth World: Where Are We, and Where Do We Go from Here?Yaerin Park10. Evidence Use in a Post-Truth World: A Unique Opportunity for Evaluators?Steffen Bohni Nielsen and Sebastian LemireConclusions: Some suggestions for evaluators’ daily work in a post-truth world Karol Olejniczak, Mita Marra, and Arne Paulson