Abstract
A vast reservoir of knowledge and experience from utilization studies developed since 1970 illuminates political and enlightenment functions in evaluation. As a bridgehead for applying the concept of evaluation use to evaluation studies and practices for public policy in Japan, this paper starts with an historical review of utilization studies and frames the concept of'use' distinguishing the term from its synonyms. Refining a number of definitions and perspectives from earlier studies, it then introduces evaluator-primacy/user-primacy, concrete/abstract (process of use), substantive/symbolic (purpose of use) and findings/process (object of use) discriminators. With these discriminators and the appreciation of studies by policy analysts such as Weiss and Whiteman, this study illustrates six different modes of evaluation use with a novel comprehensive matrix. Apart from the conventional typology of use including instrumental, conceptual and symbolic, this matrix gains a balanced perspective on the substantive and political nature of evaluation use.
