Policy evaluation and the will of the people

Abstract

There are few studies on the relation between policy evaluation and the will of the people. But they are related. But both are related as affecting public policy and public policy making systems. The purpose of this paper is to clarify the relationship between policy evaluation and the will of the people. There are two types of policy evaluation method. The first type is a type that tries to clarify the value of policy, and cost benefit analysis is a typical method. The second type is a type to clarify the program theory of public policy, to evaluate its necessity and effectiveness, and program evaluation, performance measurement, and budget screening are representative methods. Regardless of which of these two types, the function of policy evaluation has been thought of as providing information useful for the formation of the will of the people. Recently, however, there are several policy evaluation systems that local governments in Japan are likely to be oriented towards policy evaluation based on the will of the people. In this paper, we will take up three such systems and clarify whether they are policy evaluations based on the will of the people. The conclusion of this paper is that they can not be said to be a policy evaluation by the will of the people.