Blame avoidance, scapegoats and spin: Why Dutch politicians won’t evaluate ZBO-outcomes
| Author | Sandra van Thiel |
| DOI | http://doi.org/10.1177/09520767211022490 |
| Published date | 01 October 2022 |
| Date | 01 October 2022 |
| Subject Matter | Articles |
Article
Blame avoidance,
scapegoats and spin: Why
Dutch politicians won’t
evaluate ZBO-outcomes
Sandra van Thiel
Department of Public Administration and Sociology, Erasmus
University Rotterdam, Rotterdam, Netherlands
Abstract
Despite high expectations about the results of agencification and a legal obligation to
evaluate executive agencies, ministers and MPs seem not very interested in evaluating
agencies’ results. Hood’s theory on blame avoidance is used to explain the lack of
evaluation in the case of the Dutch ZBOs. Only one in seven ZBOs is evaluated as
frequently as mandated. Findings show that ZBO evaluations are more an administra-
tive than a political process. Reports do not offer hard evidence and are seldom used in
parliamentary debates. There are no clear patterns as to which ZBOs are evaluated
more, or less, often.
Keywords
Blame avoidance, blame games, executive agencies, evaluations
Introduction
Agencification came with high expectations. Compared to government bureaucra-
cy, executive agencies were expected to operate more business-like, provide more
value and quality of public services for less money, operate at a distance from
politics and closer to citizens, ensure more transparency and accountability, and
offer a more motivating work environment for employees (Overman, 2016). Little
Corresponding author:
Sandra van Thiel, Erasmus University Rotterdam, PO Box 9108, Rotterdam 3000 DR, Netherlands.
Email: vanthiel@essb.eur.nl
Public Policy and Administration
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DOI: 10.1177/09520767211022490
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2022, Vol. 37(4) 457–479
458 Public Policy and Administration 37(4)
is known however about the actual results, mostly due to a generic lack of formal
evaluation studies on the results of these types of reforms (Pollitt and Dan, 2013).
A lack of formal evaluations of policy outcomes is not uncommon (McCubbins
and Schwartz, 1984). Different explanations are offered for the lack of interest
among politicians – members of parliament and ministers alike – for evaluating
policy implementation. McCubbins and Schwartz (1984) posit that politicians
prefer incidental (‘fire alarm oversight’) and informal evaluations over formal
and systematic evaluations (‘police patrol oversight’) as this is a more efficient
strategy, fitting with opportunity costs, available technology and limited human
cognitive abilities. Busuioc and Lodge (2017) point to reputation effects as expla-
nation; evaluation is only undertaken when it contributes to the reputation of
either the accountholder or the account-giver. Hood (2007, 2011) and Weaver
(1986) mention the inclination of public office holders to avoid blame as the
main reason for not wanting to evaluate the outcomes of their decisions, while
other authors show that even if evaluation information is present many politicians
are not interested or cognitively unable to use that information to properly eval-
uate their policies and decisions regarding policy execution (Askim, 2007; Dubnick
and Frederickson, 2010; Nielsen and Baekgaard, 2015; Schillemans and Busuioc,
2015; Ter Bogt, 2004).
This article will delve into the lack of evaluations in the case of Dutch ZBOs, a
specific type of executive agency (more explanation below). Despite the high
expectations and a legal obligation to evaluate these agencies every five years,
only 14.4% is evaluated as often as they should be. The central research question
is how this lack of evaluation, and the apparent disinterest of politicians in agency
evaluation, can be explained.
Because one cannot study evaluations that did not happen, I will use 102 reports
that have been published so far, to examine which ZBOs have been evaluated
compared to the overall population. This will offer insight into which types of
ZBOs have been evaluated, but also which ones not. Furthermore, I will look into
why, how and what is evaluated, and how evaluation reports are used in political
decision-making, as this may also shed light on the question when politicians are
interested in evaluations, and by implication when not.
The outline of this article is straightforward. First the theoretical framework is
presented. I will use Hood’s theory as an integrative framework for a number of
explanations and deduce six testable hypotheses. The method section is next,
describing the data, mostly from public sources, and the methods used to test
these hypotheses. Based on the results, conclusions are drawn and theoretical
implications are discussed.
Blame games
Multiple authors have observed a lack of evaluation of policy implementation.
McCubbins and Schwartz (1984) were one of the first to discuss the lack of over-
sight by Congress. They concluded that this is not to be lamented, but rather
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