Carrots, Sticks, and Sermons: Policy Instruments and Their Evaluation

Marie-Louise Bemelmans-Videc · Ray C. Rist · Evert Oskar Vedung

Dec 2011 · Comparative Policy Evaluation Book 1 · Transaction Publishers

About this ebook

The literature on policy strategies, instruments, and styles is impressive. Still, a complex variety of theoretical and conceptual approaches and analytical tools hamper a good overview. Carrots, Sticks, and Sermons proposes such a framework for the field and clearly shows how public policy instruments are classified, packaged, and chosen, while highlighting the role evaluation plays in the instruments-choice process. Carrots, Sticks, and Sermons offers a comprehensive analysis of categories and typologies of policy instruments. It classifies sticks, carrots, and sermons—or, more specifically, regulation, economic means, and information. Readers are offered a comparative perspective of evaluation practice in foreign contexts. Special attention is paid to the examples of Sweden, the Netherlands, Belgium, England, Canada, the United States, and the Republic of Korea. As such, this volume crosses language barriers that stand in the way of dispersing research results among the international community of theoreticians and practitioners. As nations become increasingly interdependent, problems of implementation and evaluation of policy choices will become issues of increasing gravity. Carrots, Sticks, and Sermons provides insights into the traditional and current practice of policy and program evaluation in various contexts. The book's theory of comparative public policy will produce understanding and guidance in designing better policies. It will be of wide interest to those in the fields of public policy, particularly policy design, policy implementation, policy evaluation, comparative politics, and economics.

About the author

"Marie-Louise Bemelmans-Videc" is professor of public administration at the Radboud University of Nijmegen, a senator in the Netherlands Parliament and a former advisor on quality evaluation at the Netherlands Court of Audit. Ray C. Rist was a senior evaluation officer in the World Bank for many years. He has served as university professor at Johns Hopkins University, Cornell University, and George Washington University. In addition, he is the editor for Transaction’s Comparative Policy Evaluation series. Evert Vedung is professor of political science in the Department of Government and Institute of Housing Research, Uppsala University, Sweden, and associate professor of public administration in the Department of Public Administration, Abo Academy University, Finland. He has also held a special position on evaluation research in the Swedish Research Council for the Humanities and the Social Sciences.