Evaluation and Social Capital: A Theory-Driven and Participatory Approach

Abstract

In a knowledge-based economy, the practice of evaluation is a fundamental tool available to governments to critically reflect on the effectiveness and efficiency of public policies, to obtain and share the knowledge necessary to improve those and, therefore, the society. However, from the methodological point of view, what are the most promising approaches in this regard? Basing on the concept of social capital (Coleman 1988, 1990), the article analyzes the links between public policies evaluation processes, knowledge production, and social betterment (Owen and Rogers 1999; Mark et al. 2000) in complex and multi-actors systems (Sanderson 2000, 2002; Davies 2005). The relational and cognitive dimensions of social capital (Paldam 2000; Bertolini and Bravo 2001; Bertolini 2001) are identified as the most relevant, on which evaluation processes should focus to build useful knowledge and to achieve organizational and collective learning (Rist 1994; Gabbay and Leenders 2001). The argument is then oriented on the methodological plan, to identify the most suitable approaches for this purpose. Participatory evaluation (Oakley 1991; Rugh 1992; Cousins and Earl 1995; Cousins and Whitmore 1998) is probably the most appropriate to work on the network of policy actors, then on the relational component of social capital: however, some critical issues require caution in adopting this approach, in which the evaluator is primarily a facilitator of processes (Fjellstrom 2008; Torrigiani 2009, 2010). Theory-based evaluation (Weiss 1972, 1995, 1997, 1998, 2000; Rossi et al. 2004; Chen 1990; Stame 2004), combined with a participatory approach, allows the evaluator to identify with the actors the conditions, the assumptions, and the mechanisms (Pawson and Tilley 1997; Pawson 2013) that enable them to achieve the policy objectives. On this basis, evaluation may produce information, knowledge, and evidence (Pawson 2006, 2013) useful for the success of present and future action. In this perspective, social capital is the potential product of virtuous evaluation processes (Torrigiani 2004, 2010).