International Atlas of Evaluation by Jan-Eric Furubo & Ray C. Rist & Rolf Sandahl

Author:Jan-Eric Furubo & Ray C. Rist & Rolf Sandahl [Furubo, Jan-Eric & Rist, Ray C. & Sandahl, Rolf]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Education, Public Policy, Public Affairs & Administration, Political Science, Reference, Evaluation & Assessment, General
ISBN: 9780765800954
Google: QKIHngEACAAJ
Goodreads: 6179840
Publisher: Routledge
Published: 2002-01-15T10:14:24+00:00

Evaluation, Did You Say Evaluation?

Although the EU Treaty itself (in the Nice version) did not mention OMCs as such, its articles 128 to 130 provided for an assessment by the EC of the measures taken and implemented by the Member states in the area of employment. In a note circulated by the Presidency at the Lisbon Summit (13.6.2000, see Larsson, 2002:19), benchmarking was presented as the main technique, but it was said that “monitoring and evaluation should mainly focus on progressions or relative achievements”; additionally, “monitoring and evaluation should take the national context into account in a systematic approach.” The Presidency conclusions10 in their item 37 provided what was to become the “canonical” definition of the OMC: “This method, which is designed to help Member States to progressively develop their own policies, involves: (1) fixing guidelines for the Union combined with specific timetables for achieving the goals which they set in the short, medium and long terms; (2) establishing, where appropriate, quantitative and qualitative indicators and benchmarks against the best in the world and tailored to the needs of different Member States and sectors as a means of comparing best practice; (3) translating these European guidelines into national and regional policies by setting specific targets and adopting measures, taking into account national and regional differences; (4) periodic monitoring, evaluation and peer review organized as mutual learning processes.” In a nutshell, evaluation, monitoring and peer reviews were deemed to constitute the fourth pillar of the formal OMC.

However, when one empirically researches the actual EES and not only the formal one, one discovers a rarely mentioned double paradox: (1) within the time frame of the first EES assessment, the sort of evaluation that was conducted was never able to escape the traps mentioned above, i.e., being captured by one of the actors and being cut off from the democratic process; (2) far from providing “neutral” data and facilitating the democratic process, the evaluation process was constantly politicized, in the sense that findings eventually published were always the result of political compromises between Member states and the EC. We think that this structural situation tended to preclude an evaluation practice that abided by mainstream ethical guidelines existing in the international evaluation community. If no traditional program evaluation is performed or even feasible, and if the documents passing for evaluations are also submitted to horse-trading and politicization of another sort, how can the evaluation community handle such an awkward situation?

One of the difficult points is the ambiguous status of documents circulated in the Brussels political arena. Up to 2003, a veritable sea of documents concerning the various OMCs was constantly flowing from the EC’s very effective website. The political nature of these documents has too often been underestimated. True, these are unequally politicized. Some may be softly politicized, some much more strongly. For instance, Joint Employment Reports are political documents that give information corresponding to a particular compromise which the EC was able to strike with the Member states’ representatives: this document strikes a

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