Research Agenda for Evaluation

Edited by Peter Dahler-Larsen, Professor, Department of Political Science, University of Copenhagen, Denmark

‘Editor Peter Dahler-Larsen has assembled a worthy multi-faceted volume, A Research Agenda for Evaluation, conveyed through the varied lenses of an exceptional international group of evaluation scholars. These lenses feature philosophical, socio-political, and cultural facets of evaluation. Among the key concepts and values included are the importance of cultural wisdom, overcoming the ‘‘bureaucratic capture of evaluation‘‘ and the persistent practice of ‘‘governing by numbers,‘‘ the contributions of ‘‘collaborative‘‘ and ‘‘feminist‘‘ evaluation traditions, and replacing evaluative ‘‘tools of control‘‘ with ‘‘tools of emancipation.‘‘‘

• Contents:1 Introduction to A Research Agenda for Evaluation:inspirational themes 1Peter Dahler-Larsen2 We do not start anything until everybody is there:an interview with Fileberto Reynaldo Lopez 15Peter Dahler-Larsen3 The thickening modern: developing a researchagenda beyond intensifying rationalism 21Jaakko Kauko and Mika K. T. Pajunen4 What if less were more? Exploring new pathwaysfor the institutionalization of evaluation ininternational organizations 43Estelle Raimondo5 Fabricating “non-knowledge”: internationalorganizations and the numerical construction ofan evaluative world 63Sotiria Grek6 Beyond programs: toward a fuller picture ofbeneficiaries in nonprofit evaluation 81Lehn M. Benjamin7 Evaluation people and real people in home–schoolcooperation 105Maria Ørskov Akselvoll and Peter Dahler-Larsen8 Mapping the ecology of knowledge incollaborative practice: a look toward future possibilities 129Jill Anne Chouinard9 Is feminist policy evaluation possible?Methodological and theoretical considerations 147Emily St. Denny10 Designing indicators for opening up evaluation:insights from research assessment 165Ismael Ràfols and Andy Stirling11 Victims or accomplices? Our strange appetite forevaluation 195Bénédicte Vidaillet12 Rhetorical power in evaluations: tracing theconstruction of value-measurement links indebates on societal impact 209Felicitas Hesselmann and Cornelia Schendzielorz13 The future of evaluation: notes for the engagedevaluation researcher 225Peter Dahler-LarsenIndex 233