Democratic governance and evaluation.

This paper, presented by Anders Hanberger at the Sixth EES (European Evaluation Society) Conference in Berlin, Germany (September 30-October 2, 2004) argues that governance, democracy and evaluation impact each in different ways. It offers a discussion centred around the evaluation of three general democratic governance models and the implications of leading democratic evaluations. "Since governance and democracy are changing phenomena, and evaluation is embedded in these structures, there is a need to illuminate and discuss the role of evaluation. Evaluation is to most people thought of as a democratic tool, but what do we mean with democratic evaluation? Furthermore, what is the role of evaluation in times when democracy and governance are changing? The many meanings of democracy and the shifting role of evaluation in various democratic governance settings are also a motive for discussing governance and democratic evaluation. Governance issues can be discussed in relation to different political systems. However, in this paper the discussion is confined to democratic governance systems. The premise of this paper is that governance, democracy and evaluation affect one another in different ways. Governance is intertwined with democracy, and democracy and governance can be maintained or strengthened by evaluation, for example. Because different models of governance and democracy presuppose one another, evaluating governance models, or programme processes/outcomes where a specific governance model sets up the context, have implications for the model under scrutiny and subsequently for democracy. Accordingly, the implications of democratic evaluations need to be discussed in various ways. For analytical purpose democracy and governance are sometimes kept apart." (Hanberger, 2004)​