Analytical techniques in Belgian policy analysis

Fobé, Ellen; Peuter, Bart De; Jean, Maxime Petit; Pattyn, Valérie

doi:10.2307/j.ctt1t89chs.10

Cited by 5 publications

(9 citation statements)

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“…Given the relatively late adoption of NPM in Belgium, the findings cannot be fully disconnected from the wider evidence-based movement. Belgian governments have embraced this global trend, both in discourse and practice: in addition to functions as forecasting and environmental analyses, evidence-based policy making also implies an investment in monitoring and evaluation (Fobé et al 2017). While it can be argued that the general discourse on evidence-based policy gained momentum rather during the latest two of the four analysed legislatures, this is not reflected in our data.…”

Section: Npm Public Sector Reform (Hypotheses 1a and 1b)mentioning

confidence: 65%

“…Therefore, we can conclude that hypothesis 1a can be confirmed by our data. As mentioned above, more than a decade after its introduction, it is now clear that the reform philosophy has not always been consistently implemented in practice (Fobé et al 2017). In several policy fields, the evaluation capacity remained scattered between department and agencies.…”

Section: Npm Public Sector Reform (Hypotheses 1a and 1b)mentioning

confidence: 99%

“…The analysis is also constrained by the fact that a first self-standing policy note for a (new) field for a particular government term is not necessarily addressed separately in the next term. Even so, the observations in newer policy fields are symptomatic of the broader Flemish evaluation culture: also in policy fields with a strong evaluation maturity, ministers tend to be biased to ex post evaluations at the expense of ex ante evaluations (Fobé et al 2017). Formal ex ante evaluations, which are directly linked to the planning purpose, are often restricted to the obligatory regulatory impact analyses.…”

Section: Trajectories Of Policy Fields (Hypotheses 3a and 3b)mentioning

confidence: 99%

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Warum initiieren Minister Evaluationen? Eine Fallstudie der flämischen Regierung in Belgien

Pattyn¹,

Peuter

Brans³

2019

Polit Vierteljahresschr

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Policy evaluations can be set up for multiple purposes including accountability, policy learning and policy planning. The question is, however, how these purposes square with politics itself. To date, there is little knowledge on how government ministers present the rationale of evaluations. This article is the first to provide a diachronic study of discourse about evaluation purposes and encompass a wide range of policy fields. We present an analysis of evaluation announcements in so-called ministerial policy notes issued between 1999 and 2019 by the Flemish government in Belgium. The research fine-tunes available evidence on catalysts for conducting evaluations. The Flemish public sector turns out to be a strong case where New Public Management brought policy evaluation onto the agenda, but this has not resulted in a prominent focus on accountability-oriented evaluations. We further show that policy fields display different evaluation cultures, albeit more in terms of the volume of evaluation demand than in terms of preferences for particular evaluation purposes.

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Section: Npm Public Sector Reform (Hypotheses 1a and 1b)mentioning

confidence: 65%

Section: Npm Public Sector Reform (Hypotheses 1a and 1b)mentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Trajectories Of Policy Fields (Hypotheses 3a and 3b)mentioning

confidence: 99%

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Warum initiieren Minister Evaluationen? Eine Fallstudie der flämischen Regierung in Belgien

Pattyn¹,

Peuter

Brans³

2019

Polit Vierteljahresschr

Self Cite

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“…All in all, the relevance and impact of the RIA should not be overestimated. While it is meant as a tool supporting policy-makers in their decisions, it quite often serves as an after the fact justification for decisions that have arrived through political bargaining (Fobé et al 2017b).…”

Section: A Formal Anchorage Of Evaluation Requirements In Laws or Regmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Today, its hosts the secretariat of the Impact Analysis Committee, which provides advice and feedback on the implementation of the RIA with the aim of strengthening the quality of applications of this ex ante evaluation tool and legislation in general (Fobé et al 2017b).…”

Section: Evaluation Institutes With Varying Levels Of Independencymentioning

confidence: 99%

The Institutionalisation of Evaluation in Europe

Taube¹,

Stockmann²,

Meyer³

2020

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In order to have an accurate understanding of the level and way of institutionalisation of policy evaluation in Belgium, it is essential to highlight some key tenets of its politico-administrative setting: the federal structure, multiple party coalition governments and partitocracy. Since 1993, Belgium is officially a federal state. Consecutive constitutional reforms have transferred major competences from the national (coined 'federal') level to the regional level. The distribution of competences on the regional level is mainly organised along two broad axes. The first axis concerns linguistics and culture. A Flemish-, French-and German-speaking Community are each in charge of person-related matters (examples: education, culture, youth). The second axis is designed to accommodate the diversity in socioeconomic interests in the country and has constituted the basis for the creation of three territorial regions: the Flemish Region, the Walloon Region and the Brussels-Capital Region. The regions are in charge of territorial matters (examples: environment, agriculture), and legislation with regard to municipalities and provinces. Despite the devolution in competences to regions and communities, the federal level in Belgium is still competent for traditionally core tasks of a state including internal security, foreign affairs, defence, justice and finance. Moreover, in several domains, competences are scattered over the federal and regional level (examples: labour market, health care and social security). All government levels do have their own government; parliament and administration, with the exception of the Flemish region and community which have merged their institutions (Pattyn and Brans 2015). 1 This chapter is to large extent based on the conference paper entitled 'Once Laggard, Always Laggard? A multi-level analysis of the state of evaluation institutionalisation in Belgium', that the authors presented at the 2016 European Evaluation Society conference in Maastricht. For this conference paper, we launched a questionnaire that was modelled along the survey used in (Jacob et al., 2015). We owe special thanks to Steve Jacob for sharing this questionnaire; and we are most grateful to the eleven respondents that provided us with valuable input on the state of evaluation institutionalisation in Belgium. The insights collected via this survey have been integrated in this chapter.

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Belgium

Pattyn¹,

Peuter²

2020

The Institutionalisation of Evaluation in Europe

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Analytical techniques in Belgian policy analysis

Cited by 5 publications

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Warum initiieren Minister Evaluationen? Eine Fallstudie der flämischen Regierung in Belgien

Warum initiieren Minister Evaluationen? Eine Fallstudie der flämischen Regierung in Belgien

The Institutionalisation of Evaluation in Europe

Belgium

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