| The main of this study is "public policy evaluation" analyzed from a "policy implementation" perspective.; The study constitutes an account of the implementation of the French National Evaluation Policy (NEP), enacted by the presidential decree of January 22nd, 1990, as a tool modernization, efficiency and "legibility" of a French "administrative state" often criticized for its legendary closeness and arrogant policy-making style. Policy evaluation was entrusted with the ambitious goal of "changing the state" by the social-democratic promoters of a "pluralistic" approach to policy-making.; The Rocard government (1988-1991) created a complicated, centralized inter-ministerial tripartite "national evaluation mechanism" under executive supervision for the evaluation of public policies in France, composed of three main bodies strategically attached to the Office of the Prime Minister: (1) the Inter-Ministerial Evaluation Committee; (2) the National Fund for the Development of Policy Evaluation; (3) the Scientific Evaluation Council.; Considering the various theoretical and practical obstacles to implementing such an ambitious, comprehensive and quite revolutionary policy, the study investigates the implementation of the NEP, both as a global "inter-ministerial" policy framework and as a set of concrete evaluation programs at the ministerial and local levels, in an attempt to assess whether it was ever successfully implemented, and if so, to what extent and under which modalities.; The study is based in part on two detailed case-studies of the implementation of two nationally-mandated evaluation programs concerning two important, yet contrasting, "social urban policies" in France: the Urban Policy (Politique de la Ville) and the Social Housing Rehabilitation Policy. Both evaluation programs led to the implementation of very large, costly and quite unique studies in the French context.; The study is not an evaluation of the Urban Policy, nor an evaluation of the Social Housing Rehabilitation Policy. The interventions being documented here are national evaluation programs conducted under the umbrella of the French National Evaluation Policy (NEP). |
