The politics of program logic
| Author | Lisette Kaleveld,Brian English |
| Published date | 01 August 2003 |
| Date | 01 August 2003 |
| DOI | http://doi.org/10.1177/1035719X0300300106 |
| Subject Matter | Refereed Article |
35
REFEREED ARTICLE
Evaluation Journal of Australasia, Vol. 3 (new series), No. 1, August 2003, pp. 35–42
Brian English
Lisette Kaleveld
This paper examines the use of program logic against the
background of the politicised environment of evaluations. Its
central argument is that the development of a program logic
for the purpose of focusing an evaluation can be a highly
politicised process, given that it requires sign-off by the
‘authorising environment’. We commence with a brief
discussion of how politics surface within organisations
because evaluation planning is typically conducted within
these settings. A model of change management is then
introduced to highlight how political forces both hostile to and
supportive of the evaluation process can surface when
evaluations are being planned. We next consider two
scenarios, drawn from the evaluation of a program to improve
the competence and confidence of professionals working
with people at risk of self-harm and suicide. These scenarios
are used to highlight a number of important points about the
politics of focusing an evaluation. The paper concludes by
identifying some of the dilemmas that evaluation practitioners
may need to work through in focusing an evaluation in a highly
politicised environment, as well as how these might be
addressed using program logic.
Organisational politics set the context for many
evaluations
The politics that inevitably surround the evaluation of social programs are manifest in
many ways. They can shape what questions are worth addressing, how success is defined
and measured, who will be privy to the information and how the information will be used.
Understanding how politics surface within organisational settings (both negatively and
positively) is an important contextual consideration here. As defined by Mintzberg (1983,
p. 611), politics operating in organisational settings:
… refers to individual or group behaviour that is informal, ostensibly parochial, typically
divisive, and above all, in the technical sense illegitimate - sanctioned neither by formal
authority, accepted ideology, nor certified expertise (though it may exploit any of these).
The politics
of program logic
Brian English is the Director
of the Institute for the
Service Professions, Edith
Cowan University, Perth,
Western Australia.1
Lisette Kaleveld is a
Research Officer at the
Institute for the Service
Professions, Edith Cowan
University, Perth, Western
Australia.2
English & Kalaveld – The politics of program logic
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