In recent years, three distinct fields of enquiry have developed that contribute to our understanding of public policy. The first of these is the field of policy sciences that grew in response to a call by Harold Lasswell in the 1950s, to overcome the weaknesses of conventional disciplines in understanding the poor record of development policy. This evolved as an inter-disciplinary field, drawing on several disciplines. Contributions to this field came to be organised around the journal Policy Sciences. The second was the field of policy studies, that emerged as a sub-field of political science; contributions to this field of enquiry were organised around the journals Policy Studies Review and Policy Studies Journal. The third was the field of policy analysis, further developed by a Ford Foundation grant in the 1990s, which began as a group of institutions doing applied micro-economics, later broadening under the Journal of Policy Analysis and Management. Policy analysis was an applied extension of microeconomics to the study of public policy.

Each of these fields retains a distinct approach to the study of public policy. However, they suffer from several weaknesses in terms of their applicability to a context beyond the one in which they developed. Policy sciences, in particular, emerged as a very inter-disciplinary field, drawing on several concepts across disciplines. However, the large bulk of this literature is rooted in western contexts and has been developed by western scholars. There remains a question of whether these terms and concepts can be used to understand public policy processes in the global South. Within the international public policy scholarship, there is a burning question of whether tools, theories and concepts that explain policy change developed in the north can be used to understand policy processes in the South.

In general, efforts to understand the relevance and application of these concepts and theories to a Third World context are lacking. There remains a critical challenge of integrating public policy literature developed in the global North with the policy experience of the global South. The large number of books on public policy available to Indian students are written by western authors and cater to a western context; they use examples and cases from Britain and the USA. This is of little relevance to Indian students, who need something tailored to or drawing upon an Indian context.

In this chapter, we turn our attention to crucial issues surrounding the evaluation and monitoring of public policy. The chapter is intended not so much to provide prescriptions on how to monitor and evaluate policies; instead to trigger reflection among readers on their experiences with policy monitoring and evaluation, approaches adopted, political motivations and problems encountered.

We start with examining the conceptual connotations of public policy evaluation and distinguish between different types of policy evaluation; particularly, in this context, we emphasise the need to distinguish policy outcomes from policy outputs. We then look at the imperatives and need for policy evaluation. This is followed by a review of different types of evaluation that may be typically carried out as well as the different approaches that may be adopted.

The latter part of this chapter is devoted to an analysis of the politics of public policy evaluation. Policy evaluation is not simply a positivist exercise using scientific tools and techniques, as seen in a linear rational model of the policy process; rather, it is an inherently political activity, shaped by and enmeshed in social relations of power. The linear rational model of policy analysis sees policy monitoring and evaluation as culminating in policy termination and/or continuation. We look at why this may not always be the case and how protecting certain political and legal interests could keep policies in continuation even when analysis has proven that they have not been effective. We conclude the chapter with some discussion on the issues in the monitoring of public policy.

Public policy evaluation

Policy evaluation could be defined as the process of learning about the consequences of public policy (Dye 2002). Wholey et al. (2004) define policy evaluation to be the assessment of the overall effectiveness of a national programme in meeting its objectives or assessment of the relative effectiveness of two or more programmes in meeting a common objective.

Policy evaluation needs to be distinguished from monitoring. While monitoring provides routine feedback, evaluation offers a more in-depth study of particular issues or concerns at any specific point in time. Public policies, nevertheless, could be evaluated at all phases of policy-making: in the identification and articulation of policy problems, in the formulation of alternative policy options, during the implementation of a particular policy, or at the termination of policy to determine its final impact.