Evaluation and Governing in the 21st Century

1. Front Matter

   Pages i-xv

   PDF

2. Introduction

   • Deirdre Niamh Duffy

   Pages 1-33

3. Understanding Evaluation in the UK

   • Deirdre Niamh Duffy

   Pages 35-71

4. Disciplinary Measures

   • Deirdre Niamh Duffy

   Pages 73-109

5. Transformative Possibilities

   • Deirdre Niamh Duffy

   Pages 111-142

6. Conclusion

   • Deirdre Niamh Duffy

   Pages 143-150

7. Back Matter

   Pages 151-161

   PDF

This book interrogates the role played by evaluation in 21st century governing. Using youth work in the UK as a case study, it challenges the narrative of evidence-based policy-making, arguing instead that evaluation research is used to discipline and control. At the same time, drawing on the work of Michel Foucault and Gilles Deleuze, this book argues that evaluation can be reclaimed and facilitate transformation. In bringing these theoretically rich discussions to bear on the domain of contemporary evaluation, the author provokes an alternative reading of the relationship between research and governing, emphasising how knowledge production has historically been manipulated by elites towards their own political ends. As the debate around elite’s use of research expands globally, this book is a nuanced interjection into both established evidence-based policy and emergent narratives of ‘post-truth’. Challenging and provocative, this innovative work will appeal to students and scholars of social and public policy, and governance and public management.

• evaluation
• evidence-based policy
• post-truth
• genealogy
• Foucault
• UK policy-making
• New Public Management
• evidence-based policy
• Deleuze
• youth work
• neoliberalism
• austerity

“Duffy’s new book engages with the many uses and abuses of evaluation in UK politics. … Duffy compares the many ways in which people could, do, and should use evaluation to inform policy and policymaking. … As such, Duffy’s book stands out as a critical theoretical take on the role of evidence in policy making and evaluation. I commend to people who want to broaden their horizons.” (Paul Cairney, Paul Cairney: Politics & Public Policy, paulcairney.wordpress.com, May, 2018) “In a world which seems to have morphed from advocacy of evidence-based policy to anti-expert, post-truth politics and emotive populism, Deirdre Duffy provides a very timely and wonderfully incisive analysis of the recent relationship between evaluation, government and policy-making. She skilfully adopts a Foucauldian perspective to explore how the avowedly objective, non-ideological and technocratic mode of evidence-based policy-making extolled by many political leaders since the 1990s, has actually entailed the social construction of knowledge, and the adoption of a discourse which presents ostensibly verifiable facts to conceal an underlying exercise of power, domination and social discipline. Duffy comes not to bury evidence-based policy-making, but to rescue and reclaim it, so that it can become a means of transformation, rather than a mode of subordination. The problem is not evidence-based policy-making per se, but who controls and conducts it, and to what purpose.” (Pete Dorey,University of Cardiff, UK)

“This is a thought provoking and timely book which makes us reflect on how we can use evaluation to facilitate change. Deirdre manages to systematically and stylishly draw on critical sociological perspectives to explore the relationship between knowledge production and governing. The examination of youth work policy context urges academics and practitioners alike to critically explore their own preconceptions, use and potentials of evaluation. This book is not just a theoretically robust, practically astute and an engaging read, but it is a call to action to reclaim, rearticulate and transform how we engage with evaluation.” (Sinéad Gormally, Senior Lecturer in Community Development, University of Glasgow)

• Department of Interdisciplinary Studies, Manchester Metropolitan University, Manchester, United Kingdom

  Deirdre Niamh Duffy

Deirdre Niamh Duffy is Senior Lecturer in Childhood, Youth Studies and Social Policy at Manchester Metropolitan University, UK.

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