2001 Volume 1 Pages 127-140
This article shows how policy evaluation works differently in each policy area, using Paul E. Peterson’s three-policy-arena categorization. Policies are well-known to be produced through political processes, in the sense that politics are designed with political considerations rather than being based on clear, universal rationale. Accordingly, the characteristics of each particular political arena-rules, actors, and top-priority values are decisive when evaluating on-going programs.
Recent literature on this subject in Japan has largely focused on better policy combinations, more budget savings, and more sophisticated techniques to measure government performance. These are the keys to satisfy more customers, making the political system more reliable, and they are also worth pursuing. Political factors must also be taken into account, however, if we believe that policy evaluation plays an important role in the entire process to maintain fair school systems, effective sanitation programs, and good municipal hospitals.
To make this point, this article first examines debates over this issues, and argues that the debate undermines the thesis that, “politics does not matter.” It also shows that politics are expected to be rational but are not necessarily rational in reality. Next, it analyzes each policy arena in term so both the agenda-setting process and relations among actors, including the concept of, “policy community.”
Particularly in the redistributive policy structure, which has the toughest barriers to participation by outsiders of any policy arena, this articles demonstrates that the function of evaluation reflects who monopolizes relevant policy information, and that the different methods to evaluate programs in different policy arenas must be developed to ensure real political governance.
