Formal agenda-setting government tools: periodic evaluations and reviews

Abstract

This chapter reviews the agenda-setting potential and influence of a particular group of evaluation-related tools governments often resort to in the agenda-setting stage. Particular evaluation tools play an important analytical role in setting up and managing the agendas of governments. The chapter discusses the agenda-setting role of three in-house tools: budget reviews, policy reviews, and sunset reviews. It also discusses their major attributes, their underpinning rational assumptions, and the way they have been institutionalized and routinized in countries' evaluation systems and reflect on the conditions that foster or jeopardize their agenda-setting impact. The chapter describes different empirical examples from various countries. A pragmatic approach to evaluation requirements, varying from case to case, seems to prevail with recent attempts, particularly at the sub-state level, to establish the level of administrative burdens as a decisive criterion for the intensity of evaluation activities.