Evaluation à la française

Evaluation of public policies in France has been late arriving but its subsequent development has been markedly sustained. Although the methods used are often either rudimentary or excessively rigid, evaluation is now an integral part of public action. Having first presented the approaches behind this trend, this article then follows the institutionalization of evaluation through its adoption by state and then local bureaucracies, a process heavily encouraged by the European Commission. Two distinctive features, both involving social scientists, mark the French evaluation scene and influence the article's final section. First, although some continue to actually carry out evaluations, today a growing number of academics are involved as key members of committees advising actors responsible for the evaluation of public policies. Second, these committees serve as interfaces between evaluators and actors. Together these developments could be seen as prefiguring a new relationship between knowledge and power.