Legal Basis for Evaluation in Switzerland and its Implementation

Providing a complete picture of the legal basis for public policy evaluation, highlighting the reasons for its existence and examining its implementation are the three specific objectives of this subproject. Yet the data on this subject are inadequate, on the federal as well as on the cantonal level. This subproject aims on the one hand to fill in this gap and, on the other hand, to furnish further information about the factors that could explain the institutionalization of public policy evaluation in Switzerland.

The subproject is divided into the following three sections:

1) What are the legal basis for evaluation?

2) Why have public authorities introduced mandatory evaluation and how are evaluation clauses used by the political actors?

3) Whether and how are the evaluation clauses implemented? How are they interpreted and how are they used during the implementation phase?

Two thesis address these three questions in order to fulfil the the following goals:

  • Reviewing legal basis for evaluation and understanding the causes of its’ existence (thesis 1)
  • Analysing the implementation of its’ foundations (thesis 2)

This subproject will provide a census of legal basis for evaluation on the federal and on the cantonal level as well as in all policy sectors. Due to a case-study design, it is possible to understand the reasons why political actors, at the federal and the cantonal level, require mandatory evaluations by formulating or adopting evaluation clauses. To highlight the political utility of these obligations the data collected are analysed with a model based on the game theory in order.

The Phd Student that addresses the questions of the interpretation of the evaluation clauses, of their use and of their utility has just been engaged. As soon as his methodology and his research design will be defined, the informations will be updated on this page.

 

Project Leaders:

Prof. Dr. Katia Horber-Papazian
Prof. Dr. Luzius Mader

 

Post-Doc:

Dr. Christian Rosser


Ph.D. Student:

Damien Wirths

 

 

Institution:

Swiss Graduate School of Public Administration (IDEAP)
Quartier UNIL Mouline
CH-1015 Lausanne