LES TROIS PARADIGMES DE L'ÉVALUATION DES POLITIQUES PUBLIQUES FACE À L'OBLIGATION DE RENDRE DES COMPTES ET DE RENDRE COMPTE

Abstract

The relationships between evaluation and accountability of public policies - This articles studies how public policy evaluation can serve the democratic principles that are providing accounts and being accountable. It proposes a typology of the different modes of public policy evaluation based on three paradigms: strategic or “evidence-based” evaluation, collaborative/pluralist or “by deliberation” evaluation and managerial or “by management standards” evalu- ation. It shows that these three approaches do not have the same capacity to facilitate the provi- sion of accounts and the same attitude towards the accountability. Focusing on the first of its first two functions, which are providing accounts, it explains that political factors are at the origins of the current predominance in France of collaborative/pluralist evaluations paradigm even if it is the least able to fulfil this function. Paradoxically, managerial evaluation, potentially able to facilitate the provision of accounts, especially by relying on the LOLF framework, is little used, both by the executive and by the control institutions of the executive's action, which are the Parliament and the Court of Auditors.