Traffic is increasing across evaluation’s interdisciplinary boundary with political science. This is unsurprising. Evaluation is now well-institutionalised within policy systems, and evaluation itself having migrated from projects to programmes nowadays increasingly investigates policies or even strategies. This issue begins with four articles that sit squarely on this boundary. They are followed by four further articles that take a methodologically rigorous – and theoretically informed – approach to qualitative evaluation. Niklas Andreas Andersen argues that research into the institutionalisation of evaluation in different evaluation systems moves our attention away from the traditional focus on ‘evaluation use’ in discrete evaluations. Andersen’s study of active labour market policies in Denmark ‘aims to empirically examine whether and how the distinct features of evaluation systems also mark new forms of evaluation use and influence’. Evaluation systems, promoted as a topic of research interest by Leeuw and Furubo in Evaluation 14 (2), 2008, is one theoretical startingpoint for Andersen. Another is Peter Dahler Larsen’s notions of ‘constitutive effects’. According to the author, the institutionalisation of evaluation within government goes beyond support for the ‘instrumental uses’ of evaluation. The way evaluation is woven into policy systems ‘come to structure the language and interactions of policymaking’. Andersen argues this is not without risk in particular when evaluation is used to strengthen technical assessments of policy ‘downplaying the open deliberation on goals and values, which is also a central and necessary component of policymaking’. Shushu Chen and Ian Henry set out to ‘unpack the complexity’ when evaluating Olympic impacts by focusing on ‘legacy claims’, one of the main justifications for the enormous upfront investments that all Olympic host countries must make, despite uncertain benefits. Evaluating ‘big events’ and their consequence has become more common in recent years – exemplified by McCartney, Hanlon and Bond’s ideas of how the 2014 Glasgow Commonwealth Games should be evaluated, and Busetti and Dente’s evaluation of Expo Milano 2015 (see Evaluation 19 (1) and 23 (3), respectively). Chen and Henry observe that most assessments of Olympic legacy ‘only attempt to tell us whether or not impacts and legacies have been created [. . ..] but not how those impacts were generated, by whom or/and in what circumstances’. The authors rely on ‘theory-based’ evaluation thinking and ‘Process Tracing’ (PT) methods (Busetti and Dente also relied on PT). As is often the case in evaluation, it is only after theoretical and methodological innovation that it becomes possible to take on new ‘evaluation objects’. According to Chen and Henry, it is ‘theoretical rather than more complex methodological efforts [that] are most needed’. Guillaume Fontaine provides another example of traffic across the policy/evaluation frontier. The methodological and ontological arguments in this article are not for the faint-hearted! 943311 EVI0010.1177/1356389020943311EvaluationEditorial editorial2020

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社论

跨评估与政治学的跨学科边界的流量正在增加。这不足为奇。评估现在在政策系统中已经很好地制度化了，评估本身已经从项目转移到项目，如今越来越多地调查政策甚至战略。本期以四篇文章开始，这些文章正好位于此边界上。紧随其后的是另外四篇文章，这些文章采用了方法学上严格且理论依据丰富的定性评估方法。Niklas Andreas Andersen 认为，对不同评价体系中评价制度化的研究将我们的注意力从传统的离散评价中的“评价使用”转移。安徒生对丹麦积极劳动力市场政策的研究“旨在实证检验评估系统的独特特征是否以及如何标志着评估使用和影响的新形式”。评价系统，由 Leeuw 和 Furubo 在 2008 年的评价 14 (2) 中被提升为研究兴趣的主题，是安徒生的一个理论起点。另一个是彼得·达勒·拉森 (Peter Dahler Larsen) 的“构成效应”概念。根据作者的说法，政府内部评估的制度化超出了对评估的“工具用途”的支持。评估融入政策系统的方式“开始构建政策制定的语言和互动”。Andersen 认为这并非没有风险，特别是当评估被用来加强政策的技术评估时，“淡化对目标和价值的公开审议，这也是政策制定的核心和必要组成部分”。Shushu Chen 和 Ian Henry 在评估奥运影响时着手“解开复杂性”，重点关注“遗产索赔”，这是所有奥运会主办国必须进行大量前期投资的主要理由之一，尽管收益不确定。近年来，评估“重大事件”及其后果变得越来越普遍——例如麦卡特尼、汉隆和邦德关于如何评估 2014 年格拉斯哥英联邦运动会的想法，以及布塞蒂和登特对 2015 年米兰世博会的评估（见评估 19 (1) ) 和 23 (3)）。陈和亨利观察到，大多数对奥运遗产的评估“只是试图告诉我们影响和遗产是否已经产生[。. ..] 但不是这些影响是如何产生的，由谁或/和在什么情况下产生的。作者依赖于“基于理论的”评估思维和“过程追踪”（PT）方法（Busetti 和 Dente 也依赖于 PT）。与评估中的常见情况一样，只有在理论和方法创新之后，才有可能采用新的“评估对象”。根据陈和亨利的说法，“最需要的是理论而不是更复杂的方法论努力”。Guillaume Fontaine 提供了另一个跨越策略/评估边界的流量示例。本文中的方法论和本体论论点不适合胆小的人！943311 EVI0010。