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Public policies and social progress: two evaluation models

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  12 December 2022

Reynaldo Fernandes Open the ORCID record for Reynaldo Fernandes [Opens in a new window]
Reynaldo Fernandes*
Affiliation:
Department of Economics, University of São Paulo, FEA-RP, Ribeirão Preto, Brasil
*
E-mail: refernan@usp.br
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Abstract

The article presents two models of public policy evaluation: one named idealistic and the other named pragmatic. In the former, social progress occurs when changes in the form of how society is organised bring us closer to social institutions and public authority conduct considered ideal. In the latter, social progress occurs if the prevailing social state (postchanges) is taken to be better than the previous social state (prechanges), according to certain pre-established judgement criteria. It is argued that the adoption of different models is one of the main obstacles to clarity in the public debate on the implementation of public policies, namely, that of making the points of disagreement explicit. The article presents a defence of the pragmatic model, which is considered more compatible with the use of scientific criteria in order to assess the effectiveness of policies.

Keywords

evaluationideal theoryidealisticpragmaticpublic policysocial progress
Type
Research Article
Information
Journal of Public Policy , Volume 43 , Issue 2 , June 2023 , pp. 199 - 214
Copyright
© The Author(s), 2022. Published by Cambridge University Press

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