Download or read book The Politics of Evaluation in International Organizations written by Vytautas Jankauskas and published by Oxford University Press. This book was released on 2023-04-26 with total page 241 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Evaluation has become a key tool in assessing the performance of international organizations, in fostering learning, and in demonstrating accountability. Within the United Nations (UN) system, thousands of evaluators and consultants produce hundreds of evaluation reports worth millions of dollars every year. But does evaluation really deliver on its promise of objective evidence and functional use? By unravelling the internal machinery of evaluation systems in international organizations, this book challenges the conventional understanding of evaluation as a value-free activity. Vytautas Jankauskas and Steffen Eckhard show how a seemingly neutral technocratic tool can serve as an instrument for power in global governance; they demonstrate and explain how deeply politics are entrenched in the interests of evaluation stakeholders, in the control and design of IO evaluation systems, and to a lesser extent also in the content of evaluation reports. The analysis draws on 120 research interviews with evaluators, member state representatives, and IO secretariat officials as well as on textual analysis of over 200 evaluation reports. The investigation covers 21 UN system organizations, including detailed case studies of the ILO, IMF, UNDP, UN WOMEN, IOM, UNHCR, FAO, WHO, and UNESCO. Shedding light on the (in-)effectiveness of evidence-based policymaking, the authors propose possible ways of better reconciling the observed evaluation politics with the need to gather reliable evidence that is used to improve the functioning of the United Nations. The answer to evaluation politics is not to abandon evaluation or isolate it from the stakeholders but to acknowledge surrounding political interests and design evaluation systems accordingly.
Download or read book The Politics of Evaluation in International Organizations written by Vytautas Jankauskas and published by Oxford University Press. This book was released on 2023-05-25 with total page 241 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Evaluation has become a key tool in assessing the performance of international organizations, in fostering learning, and in demonstrating accountability. Within the United Nations (UN) system, thousands of evaluators and consultants produce hundreds of evaluation reports worth millions of dollars every year. But does evaluation really deliver on its promise of objective evidence and functional use? By unravelling the internal machinery of evaluation systems in international organizations, this book challenges the conventional understanding of evaluation as a value-free activity. Vytautas Jankauskas and Steffen Eckhard show how a seemingly neutral technocratic tool can serve as an instrument for power in global governance; they demonstrate and explain how deeply politics are entrenched in the interests of evaluation stakeholders, in the control and design of IO evaluation systems, and to a lesser extent also in the content of evaluation reports. The analysis draws on 120 research interviews with evaluators, member state representatives, and IO secretariat officials as well as on textual analysis of over 200 evaluation reports. The investigation covers 21 UN system organizations, including detailed case studies of the ILO, IMF, UNDP, UN WOMEN, IOM, UNHCR, FAO, WHO, and UNESCO. Shedding light on the (in-)effectiveness of evidence-based policymaking, the authors propose possible ways of better reconciling the observed evaluation politics with the need to gather reliable evidence that is used to improve the functioning of the United Nations. The answer to evaluation politics is not to abandon evaluation or isolate it from the stakeholders but to acknowledge surrounding political interests and design evaluation systems accordingly.
Download or read book The Politics of Expertise in International Organizations written by Annabelle Littoz-Monnet and published by Taylor & Francis. This book was released on 2017-02-24 with total page 228 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This edited volume advances existing research on the production and use of expert knowledge by international bureaucracies. Given the complexity, technicality and apparent apolitical character of the issues dealt with in global governance arenas, ‘evidence-based’ policy-making has imposed itself as the best way to evaluate the risks and consequences of political action in global arenas. In the absence of alternative, democratic modes of legitimation, international organizations have adopted this approach to policy-making. By treating international bureaucracies as strategic actors, this volume address novel questions: why and how do international bureaucrats deploy knowledge in policy-making? Where does the knowledge they use come from, and how can we retrace pathways between the origins of certain ideas and their adoption by international administrations? What kind of evidence do international bureaucrats resort to, and with what implications? Which types of knowledge are seen as authoritative, and why? This volume makes a crucial contribution to our understanding of the way global policy agendas are shaped and propagated. It will be of great interest to scholars, policy-makers and practitioners in the fields of public policy, international relations, global governance and international organizations.
Download or read book Performance Management in International Organizations written by Marco Amici and published by Springer Nature. This book was released on 2020-04-23 with total page 245 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This book provides a multilevel system analysis of performance in the production of global public goods, as well as a tailored analysis of the specific features of performance management systems in international organizations. The book compares performance management systems across a number of international organizations, including the European Union and the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD).
Download or read book The Politics of Evaluation written by Taylor, David and published by Policy Press. This book was released on 2005-01-19 with total page 280 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Evaluation has become a central tool in the development of contemporary social policy. Its widespread popularity is based on the need to provide evidence of the effectiveness of policies and programmes. This book sees evaluation as an inherently political activity, as much about forms of governance as scientific practice. Using a wide range of examples from neighbourhood renewal, health and social care and other aspects of social policy, it relates practical issues in evaluation design to their political contexts. With contributions from leading academics and evaluation practitioners, the book considers key issues in the politics of evaluation including: governance and evaluation; participatory evaluation; partnerships and evaluation; and learning from evaluation. The politics of evaluation is important reading for academics, social researchers, policy makers, service providers and professionals across the public services as well as professional evaluators. It will be a valuable resource for students on a range of social science and professional courses and those concerned with recent developments in social research methodology.
Download or read book International Organizations in World Politics written by Tamar Gutner and published by CQ Press. This book was released on 2016-01-29 with total page 438 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This timely new title examines the importance and impact of major international organizations and their role in global governance. International Organizations in World Politics focuses on the most influential IOs, including the United Nations, World Bank, International Monetary Fund, and World Trade Organization. For each organization, author Tamar Gutner describes their birth and evolution, governance structure, activities, and performance. A second chapter on each organization presents a case study that illuminates the constraints and challenges each IO faces. Regional organizations and issues are also examined, including the European Union and the euro crisis, as well as a case study on the African Union’s peace operations.
Download or read book The Power of Global Performance Indicators written by Judith G. Kelley and published by Cambridge University Press. This book was released on 2020-03-19 with total page 453 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Shows how global ratings and rankings shape political agendas and influence states' behavior, reframing how we think about power.
Download or read book The Politics of International Organizations written by Patrick Weller and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2015-05-15 with total page 305 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: International organisations (IOs) often receive a bad press, seen as intrusive, domineering and unresponsive to the needs of the people and countries they are meant to serve. The best way to understand the operation of these international organisations is to bring together those who represent their countries at IOs and those who have been working at IOs at various capacities and then to listen to their experiences. This book develops an alternative approach to the analysis of IOs that takes account of all those involved, whether state representatives, IO leaders and members of the secretariat. Experts with long experience in the WTO, the World Bank, the IMF, WIPO, the FAO and the WHO at senior level consider the workings of the IOs, and a conclusion that explicitly draws out the comparative lessons and contrasts the insights of practitioners from those of external observers. This book takes an alternative approach to the analysis of IOs that takes account of all those involved, whether state representatives, IO leaders and members of the secretariat. Providing a well-informed, innovative and consistently structured analysis of IOs this work will be of interest to students and scholars of international relations, international organizations and global governance.
Download or read book Why International Organizations Hate Politics written by Marieke Louis and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2021-04-05 with total page 157 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Building on the concept of depoliticization, this book provides a first systematic analysis of International Organizations (IO) apolitical claims. It shows that depoliticization sustains IO everyday activities while allowing them to remain engaged in politics, even when they pretend not to. Delving into the inner dynamics of global governance, this book develops an analytical framework on why IOs "hate" politics by bringing together practices and logics of depoliticization in a wide variety of historical, geographic and organizational contexts. With multiple case studies in the fields of labor rights and economic regulation, environmental protection, development and humanitarian aid, peacekeeping, among others this book shows that depoliticization is enacted in a series of overlapping, sometimes mundane, practices resulting from the complex interaction between professional habits, organizational cultures and individual tactics. By approaching the consequences of these practices in terms of logics, the book addresses the instrumental dimension of depoliticization without assuming that IO actors necessarily intend to depoliticize their action or global problems. For IO scholars and students, this book sheds new light on IO politics by clarifying one often taken-for-granted dimension of their everyday activities, precisely that of depoliticization. It will also be of interest to other researchers working in the fields of political science, international relations, international political sociology, international political economy, international public administration, history, law, sociology, anthropology and geography as well as IO practitioners.
Download or read book International Organizations Under Pressure written by Klaus Dingwerth and published by . This book was released on 2019 with total page pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: International organizations like the United Nations, the International Monetary Fund, or the European Union are a defining feature of contemporary world politics. In recent years, many of them have also become heavily politicized. In this work, we examine how the norms and values that underpin the evaluations of international organizations have changed over the past 50 years. Looking at five organizations in depth, we observe two major trends. Taken together, both trends make the legitimation of international organizations more challenging today.
Download or read book Emerging Practices in International Development Evaluation written by Stewart I. Donaldson and published by IAP. This book was released on 2013-03-01 with total page 269 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The impetus for this volume comes from reflecting on many years of experience, successes and failures in development evaluation in Asia and Africa, and from recent work supported by the Rockefeller Foundation on Rethinking, Reshaping, and Reforming Evaluation. The concepts, frameworks and ideas presented in this volume are a useful contribution to the ongoing efforts at rethinking, reforming and reshaping international development evaluation. They come from leading thinkers and practitioners in development, evaluation, research and academia who have recognized that development evaluation must evolve if it is to respond to the challenges of the 21st Century and play a meaningful role in social and economic transformation. This volume will be of great interest to evaluation scholars, practitioners, and students, particularly to those interested in international development projects, programs, and policies. This book will be appropriate for a wide range of courses, included Introduction to Evaluation, International Development Evaluation, Program Evaluation, Policy Evaluation, and evaluation courses in International Development, International Relations, Public Policy, Public Health, Human Services, Sociology, and Psychology.
Download or read book The Future of Evaluation written by Wolfgang Meyer and published by Springer. This book was released on 2016-01-26 with total page 393 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Evaluation has become an important instrument for rational governance and is used in an increasing number of countries and policy fields. Recent developments at the global, national and local level are changing the conditions and functions of evaluation worldwide. This book examines current global development trends and changing demands for evaluation. It addresses issues surrounding professionalisation and globalisation, examining the need to strengthen accountability for social development in various different policy fields, regions and countries to improve governance and its impacts on social betterment. It also considers issues of quality, utility and further education and the upgrading of evaluation in a broad variety of different organisations, such as multilateral donor organisations, national public administrations, private consultancies, civil-society organisations, universities, and research institutes. With contributions from 30 different countries, this book combines a broad variety of viewpoints to examine the global future of evaluation.
Download or read book Shaping Policy Agendas written by David Dolowitz and published by Edward Elgar Publishing. This book was released on 2020-01-31 with total page 256 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This fascinating book investigates the strategic importance of the production and dissemination of expertise in the activities of the international organizations (IOs) that have come to symbolize the dominance of the Western political and economic order.
Download or read book International Organizations written by Margaret P. Karns and published by Lynne Rienner Pub. This book was released on 2004 with total page 603 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A comprehensive, in-depth examination of the full range of international organizations, including current case studies.
Download or read book International Public Administrations in Global Public Policy written by Christoph Knill and published by Taylor & Francis. This book was released on 2022-11-18 with total page 275 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This book examines the rise and agency of International Organizations (IOs) and their bureaucratic bodies— the International Public Administrations (IPAs)— as a reflection of an ongoing transfer of political authority and power from the domestic to the international level. It shows that IPAs represent actors per se, with autonomy and resources that allow them to exert an independent influence on global policy-making processes and outputs. Providing a combination of novel conceptual lenses and research design to capture IPAs as an empirical phenomenon, the book takes an open, theoretically and methodologically diverse approach to show that IPAs are far from being negligible actors in global public policy and must be taken seriously as actors in policy-making beyond the nation-state. This book will be of key interest to students, scholars, and practitioners in Public Policy and Public Administration, International Relations, International Political Economy, as well as Organizational Studies.
Download or read book International Organizations written by Margaret P. Karns and published by . This book was released on 2010 with total page 652 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The challenges of global governance -- The theoretical foundations of global governance -- Foundations of the pieces of global governance -- The United Nations : centerpiece of global governance -- Regional organizations -- Nonstate actors : NGOs, networks, and social movements -- The role of states in global governance -- The search for peace and security -- Promoting human development and economic well-being -- Protecting human rights -- Protecting the environment -- Innovations in global governance for the twenty-first century.
Download or read book Independent Evaluation at the IMF written by Ruben Lamdany and published by International Monetary Fund. This book was released on 2012-12-24 with total page 268 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This volume examines how independent evaluation contributes to the legitimacy and effectiveness of the IMF. It describes the evolution and impact of the Independent Evaluation Office ten years after its creation as well as the challenges it has faced. It also incorporates feedback from a wide range of internal and external actors and offers useful insights for international organizations, academics, and other global stakeholders.
