Abstract Despite its high potential to support decision-making, the role of policy assessment in real-world policy making in the field of poverty and social inequalities remains largely questioned. In this study, we analyse policy assessment's role in a context of real-world policymaking, by means of a case study on a legislative proposal on integration policy for immigrant newcomers in the Brussels-Capital Region, for which we evaluate the potential effects on poverty and social inequalities. We first analyse the policy process surrounding the policy proposal – a process that is often treated as a black box within policy assessment research. Understanding the factors that influence and determine the decision-making process, enables us to gain insight into the potential decision-support function(s). Second, we develop an approach to policy assessment that aims to fully exploit its potential to contribute to the functions of both instrumental and conceptual learning. For this purpose, we propose to introduce the approach of realist evaluation and to focus on evaluating the underlying policy intervention theory from the perspective of poverty and social inequalities. Finally, we illustrate this new approach and its added value by applying it to the legislative proposal on integration policy and analyse its contribution to policy-oriented learning.

中文翻译：

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分析贫困和社会不平等领域现实世界政策制定中政策评估的决策支持功能。布鲁塞尔首都地区移民融合政策案例研究

摘要 尽管政策评估在支持决策方面具有巨大潜力，但在贫困和社会不平等领域的现实世界政策制定中的作用仍然受到很大质疑。在本研究中，我们通过对布鲁塞尔首都地区新移民融合政策立法提案的案例研究，分析了政策评估在现实世界决策背景下的作用，我们评估了该提案对贫困的潜在影响和社会不平等。我们首先分析围绕政策提案的政策过程——这个过程通常被视为政策评估研究中的黑匣子。了解影响和决定决策过程的因素，使我们能够深入了解潜在的决策支持功能。第二，我们开发了一种政策评估方法，旨在充分发挥其潜力，为工具性学习和概念性学习的功能做出贡献。为此，我们建议引入现实主义评估方法，并重点从贫困和社会不平等的角度评估潜在的政策干预理论。最后，我们通过将其应用于关于一体化政策的立法提案并分析其对政策导向学习的贡献来说明这种新方法及其附加价值。我们建议引入现实主义评估的方法，并重点从贫困和社会不平等的角度评估潜在的政策干预理论。最后，我们通过将其应用于关于一体化政策的立法提案并分析其对政策导向学习的贡献来说明这种新方法及其附加价值。我们建议引入现实主义评估的方法，并重点从贫困和社会不平等的角度评估潜在的政策干预理论。最后，我们通过将其应用于关于一体化政策的立法提案并分析其对政策导向学习的贡献来说明这种新方法及其附加价值。