Robert Picciotto
Biographic Data
| ID | 1294447 |
|---|---|
| NAME | Robert Picciotto |
| GIVEN NAMES | Robert |
| FAMILY NAME | Picciotto |
| SIGNATURE | PICCIOTTO R |
| AFFILIATIONS | King's College London |
| ORCID | 0000-0001-6269-9679 |
| VERIFIED | Yes |
| TOTAL WORKS | 34 |
| TOTAL CITATIONS | 91 |
| AUTHOR COUNT | 32 |
| EDITOR COUNT | 2 |
| FIRST PUBLICATION YEAR | 1999 |
| LATEST PUBLICATION YEAR | 2023 |
| H-INDEX | 5 |
Social Ontology and Evaluation— A Comment on “Framing Evaluation in Reality: An Introduction to Ontologically Integrative Evaluation”
According to Jennifer Billman, western evaluation bias against indigenous thinking is due to ontological incompetence. If so, the solution she offers (a highly abstract list of criteria) is inadequate since it fails to address let alone resolve a wide range of philosophical dilemmas at the intersection of logic and ontology. Furthermore, it fails to “frame evaluation in reality” since it ignores the patent fact that, in the market society, positi…
The psychology of evaluation
What should evaluation learn from COP 26? Views of evaluation practitioners
Leading evaluation practitioners were asked about lessons from the recent 26th Conference of the Parties (COP26) for evaluation practice. Contributors emphasize the importance of evaluating equity between rich and poor countries and other forms of climate injustice. The role of the evaluation is questioned: what can evaluation be expected to do on its own and what requires collaboration across disciplines, professions and civil society – and acro…
Evaluation as a social practice: Disenchantment, rationalities and ethics
From disenchantment to renewal
Evaluation as a free-standing discipline arose out of the ashes of World War II, a time of optimism, when government turned to the academy to guide public policy. The evaluation pioneers shared a bracing vision: a search for truth in the public interest. Seventy years later the glitter has faded, and disenchantment has taken hold. Evaluation, a quintessential public good, has become a market good, and eminent evaluation thinkers are asking the sa…
Evaluation and the Big Data Challenge
Evaluators have been slow to “plug” into the digital world, let alone engage with the strategic implications of the Big Data revolution for the evaluation discipline. Yet, Big Data holds enormous promise for extending the reach and improving the quality of evaluation practice. Equally, systematic recourse to evaluation would greatly improve the social impact of Big Data and guide much needed reform of the enabling framework of Big Data governance…
Evaluation & Development: The Partnership Dimension
The Logic of Partnership
In the business world, partnership has a specific and instructive meaning. It is a form of organization in which some or all of the owners accept unlimited liability for the organization's debt and jointly exercise management control. In fact, partnerships are the dominant form of organization in professional services industries. Outside the organization, the free-market model breaks down where public goods are involved. While public goods enjoy …
Involuntary Resettlement: Comparative Perspectives
Among development assistance agencies, the World Bank has led the way in policies to mitigate the impact of large-scale engineering projects on local populations, particularly in the building of dams. Since the 1980s the Bank has implemented guidelines for policies with respect to displacement, social infrastructure and services, environmental effects, resettlement, compensation, and the restoration of income for those affected. Having learned fr…
Accountability and learning in development evaluation: A commentary on Lauren Kogen’s thesis
Should aid evaluation focus on accountability for results or learning? In the January 2018 edition of Evaluation, Lauren Kogen rejected the conflation of these distinct roles and the resulting marginalization of learning in aid evaluation. She viewed the growing dominance of the accountability criterion as a defensive reaction to aid skepticism and observed that focusing on the ‘does it work’ question has led to neglecting the most important eval…
Is Adversary Evaluation Worth a Second Look
The adversary evaluation model emerged in a context that favored democratic debate. It was successfully used in a variety of sectors following its inception, but it was abandoned once neo-liberal thinking and goal achievement approaches became dominant. It is time to give it a second chance. The judicial evaluation model (JEM) relies on human testimony, rules of evidence, cross examination and principled deliberation. These features contribute to…
Evaluation: Discursive practice or communicative action
Public trust in expert analysis is at all-time low. Vivid claims unconstrained by fact checking dominate public policy. In this operating environment is evaluation obsolete? To help rebut this proposition, this article examines the relationship between information, knowledge, and politics through two contrasting philosophical lenses. First, Michel Foucault’s discursive practice model: rather than pursuing truth, power is intent to capture evaluat…
Probing the “Untranslatability” Thesis
Evaluation and bureaucracy: The tricky rectangle
This article puts institutional economics concepts to work to help identify the proper role of evaluation in organizations and circumvent key obstacles to evaluation use. Looking at the role of evaluation in bureaucracies through an economics lens has its limitations. But addressing ‘the rules of the evaluation game’ helps to complement currently dominant approaches that concentrate on evaluation quality and practices. In concert with systems thi…
Democratic evaluation for the 21st century
The evaluation discipline has long been put at the service of liberal democratic values. But contemporary evaluation practice is threatened by vested interests, western democracy is under stress and internationalization has propelled evaluation towards illiberal and patrimonial states. What is to be done in contexts where democracy is absent and/or evaluation has been captured by powerful interests whether globally, within countries or within org…
Have Development Evaluators Been Fighting the Last War… And If So, What is to be Done
What are the right evaluation methods and what evaluation strategy adapted to contemporary development issues should such methods serve? This article argues that a range of methods and tools must be drawn upon to achieve high-quality evaluation standards and that even the best methods cannot compensate for a misguided strategy. For both sets of reasons, it is time for the current craze for experimental evaluation methods in international developm…
Is Impact Evaluation Evaluation
The logic of development effectiveness: Is it time for the broader evaluation community to take notice
This article addresses the evaluative dimension of development effectiveness. It argues that, with some refinements, the effectiveness criteria forged in the international-development field would be equally serviceable in other domains of evaluative practice. Specifically, the criteria and tools in widespread use within the development-evaluation arena reflect hard-won lessons of experience. They have demonstrated their worth in diverse operating…
Experimentalism and development evaluation: Will the bubble burst
Bridging the current divide of opinion about experimentalism would help protect an evaluation brand currently under threat in international evaluation circles. In order to help settle a lingering and unnecessary controversy, this opinion article describes the policy force field that triggered the recent surge of interest in experimental methods in development evaluation; digs up the historical and philosophical roots of the long-standing epistemo…
The logic of evaluation professionalism
This article draws on the sociological literature to (i) explore the intersection between evaluation and professionalism; (ii) identify the extent to which evaluation fulfills the main attributes of professionalism; (iii) apply logical models of professionalism to the practice of independent and self-evaluation; and (iv) speculate about the future of the discipline. It rests the case for evaluation professionalism on the imperative of occupationa…
Conflict prevention and development co-operation in Africa: An Introduction
This introductory article is in four sections. The first outlines the origins of this special issue and the rationale focusing on conflict prevention in Africa. The second relates current shifts in the aid paradigm to the changing geo-political and geo-economic force field. The third identifies the policy research strands that characterise the contemporary security and development literature. The fourth sketches the contents of the special issue …
The New Environment for Development Evaluation
The millennium development goals have created new challenges for development evaluation. The main unit of account has shifted to the country level. Evaluation ownership must move from donor agencies to developing countries. The recognition that rich countries have development obligations is opening up evaluation frontiers beyond aid. A transformation of evaluation priorities is needed: (a) Evaluation frameworks should give more weight to alignmen…
Why the world needs millennium security goals: Opinion
The Millennium Development Goals solemnly endorsed by all United Nations Members at the turn of the century do not tackle the threats and challenges posed by state fragility, international terrorism and weapons proliferation. An international agreement on Millennium Security Goals would improve the prospects for global peace and prosperity
The Evaluation of Policy Coherence for Development
The promotion of human welfare in the zones of turmoil and transition can no longer be evaluated simply by examining the degree to which aid programs and projects achieve their relevant objectives efficiently. With globalization, the rules of the game that govern the international economy have become pivotal. Yet, the policies that govern trade, investment, migration, knowledge flows, environmental protection and human security have escaped syste…
Towards a new policy framework for the enlarged Europe: Investing for growth and modernisation
European leaders aim to turn the enlarged Union into “the most competitive and dynamic knowledge–based economy in the world” (Lisbon Declaration). Without major increases in infrastructure investments, however, dynamic growth — the missing ingredient of the European model — will not materialise. Given extraordinarily tight fiscal prospects, policy reform is imperative: (i) redeployment of resources from agricultural subsidies towards productive i…
Experimentalism and development evaluation: Will the bubble burst
Bridging the current divide of opinion about experimentalism would help protect an evaluation brand currently under threat in international evaluation circles. In order to help settle a lingering and unnecessary controversy, this opinion article describes the policy force field that triggered the recent surge of interest in experimental methods in development evaluation; digs up the historical and philosophical roots of the long-standing epistemo…
The Evaluation of Policy Coherence for Development
The promotion of human welfare in the zones of turmoil and transition can no longer be evaluated simply by examining the degree to which aid programs and projects achieve their relevant objectives efficiently. With globalization, the rules of the game that govern the international economy have become pivotal. Yet, the policies that govern trade, investment, migration, knowledge flows, environmental protection and human security have escaped syste…
The Logic of Mainstreaming: A Development Evaluation Perspective
The rationale for evaluation mainstreaming is straightforward: evaluation creates value only when lessons are drawn and incentives encourage institutional learning. Accountability as well as organizational adaptation are facilitated by the incorporation of evaluation processes in policy formation and program administration. This article is about the `what, why and how' of evaluation mainstreaming; it does not dwell on the `whether'. First, mainst…
Democratic evaluation for the 21st century
The evaluation discipline has long been put at the service of liberal democratic values. But contemporary evaluation practice is threatened by vested interests, western democracy is under stress and internationalization has propelled evaluation towards illiberal and patrimonial states. What is to be done in contexts where democracy is absent and/or evaluation has been captured by powerful interests whether globally, within countries or within org…
The New Environment for Development Evaluation
The millennium development goals have created new challenges for development evaluation. The main unit of account has shifted to the country level. Evaluation ownership must move from donor agencies to developing countries. The recognition that rich countries have development obligations is opening up evaluation frontiers beyond aid. A transformation of evaluation priorities is needed: (a) Evaluation frameworks should give more weight to alignmen…
Towards an Economics of Evaluation
This article probes the contrasting traditions of economics and evaluation and shows that intensified collaboration would benefit both professions. While evaluators have long been examining the impact of economic advice on public policy, economists have neglected evaluation both as a platform for testing economic policy hypotheses and as a topic for economic research in its own right. To encourage convergence between economics and evaluation, thi…
Evaluation: Discursive practice or communicative action
Public trust in expert analysis is at all-time low. Vivid claims unconstrained by fact checking dominate public policy. In this operating environment is evaluation obsolete? To help rebut this proposition, this article examines the relationship between information, knowledge, and politics through two contrasting philosophical lenses. First, Michel Foucault’s discursive practice model: rather than pursuing truth, power is intent to capture evaluat…
Aid and conflict: The Policy Coherence Challenge
Evaluation and the Big Data Challenge
Evaluators have been slow to “plug” into the digital world, let alone engage with the strategic implications of the Big Data revolution for the evaluation discipline. Yet, Big Data holds enormous promise for extending the reach and improving the quality of evaluation practice. Equally, systematic recourse to evaluation would greatly improve the social impact of Big Data and guide much needed reform of the enabling framework of Big Data governance…
Accountability and learning in development evaluation: A commentary on Lauren Kogen’s thesis
Should aid evaluation focus on accountability for results or learning? In the January 2018 edition of Evaluation, Lauren Kogen rejected the conflation of these distinct roles and the resulting marginalization of learning in aid evaluation. She viewed the growing dominance of the accountability criterion as a defensive reaction to aid skepticism and observed that focusing on the ‘does it work’ question has led to neglecting the most important eval…
Evaluation and bureaucracy: The tricky rectangle
This article puts institutional economics concepts to work to help identify the proper role of evaluation in organizations and circumvent key obstacles to evaluation use. Looking at the role of evaluation in bureaucracies through an economics lens has its limitations. But addressing ‘the rules of the evaluation game’ helps to complement currently dominant approaches that concentrate on evaluation quality and practices. In concert with systems thi…
Is Impact Evaluation Evaluation
The logic of evaluation professionalism
This article draws on the sociological literature to (i) explore the intersection between evaluation and professionalism; (ii) identify the extent to which evaluation fulfills the main attributes of professionalism; (iii) apply logical models of professionalism to the practice of independent and self-evaluation; and (iv) speculate about the future of the discipline. It rests the case for evaluation professionalism on the imperative of occupationa…
Conflict prevention and development co-operation in Africa: An Introduction
This introductory article is in four sections. The first outlines the origins of this special issue and the rationale focusing on conflict prevention in Africa. The second relates current shifts in the aid paradigm to the changing geo-political and geo-economic force field. The third identifies the policy research strands that characterise the contemporary security and development literature. The fourth sketches the contents of the special issue …
Investing in peace and prosperity
International Trends and Development Evaluation: The Need for Ideas
A number of trends in the development arena—a renewed commitment to lifting billions of people out of poverty, the need to draw and put to use the lessons of experience, and the emergence of “evidence-based” policy making—create daunting professional challenges for evaluation. Development evaluation has long been nearly invisible within the evaluation community. But by emphasising results-based approaches to global public policy, recent UN confer…
From disenchantment to renewal
Evaluation as a free-standing discipline arose out of the ashes of World War II, a time of optimism, when government turned to the academy to guide public policy. The evaluation pioneers shared a bracing vision: a search for truth in the public interest. Seventy years later the glitter has faded, and disenchantment has taken hold. Evaluation, a quintessential public good, has become a market good, and eminent evaluation thinkers are asking the sa…
Is Adversary Evaluation Worth a Second Look
The adversary evaluation model emerged in a context that favored democratic debate. It was successfully used in a variety of sectors following its inception, but it was abandoned once neo-liberal thinking and goal achievement approaches became dominant. It is time to give it a second chance. The judicial evaluation model (JEM) relies on human testimony, rules of evidence, cross examination and principled deliberation. These features contribute to…
The logic of development effectiveness: Is it time for the broader evaluation community to take notice
This article addresses the evaluative dimension of development effectiveness. It argues that, with some refinements, the effectiveness criteria forged in the international-development field would be equally serviceable in other domains of evaluative practice. Specifically, the criteria and tools in widespread use within the development-evaluation arena reflect hard-won lessons of experience. They have demonstrated their worth in diverse operating…
Why the world needs millennium security goals: Opinion
The Millennium Development Goals solemnly endorsed by all United Nations Members at the turn of the century do not tackle the threats and challenges posed by state fragility, international terrorism and weapons proliferation. An international agreement on Millennium Security Goals would improve the prospects for global peace and prosperity
Towards a new policy framework for the enlarged Europe: Investing for growth and modernisation
European leaders aim to turn the enlarged Union into “the most competitive and dynamic knowledge–based economy in the world” (Lisbon Declaration). Without major increases in infrastructure investments, however, dynamic growth — the missing ingredient of the European model — will not materialise. Given extraordinarily tight fiscal prospects, policy reform is imperative: (i) redeployment of resources from agricultural subsidies towards productive i…
International Trends and Development Evaluation: The Need for Ideas
Towards an Economics of Evaluation
This article probes the contrasting traditions of economics and evaluation and shows that intensified collaboration would benefit both professions. While evaluators have long been examining the impact of economic advice on public policy, economists have neglected evaluation both as a platform for testing economic policy hypotheses and as a topic for economic research in its own right. To encourage convergence between economics and evaluation, thi…
Involuntary Resettlement: Comparative Perspectives
Among development assistance agencies, the World Bank has led the way in policies to mitigate the impact of large-scale engineering projects on local populations, particularly in the building of dams. Since the 1980s the Bank has implemented guidelines for policies with respect to displacement, social infrastructure and services, environmental effects, resettlement, compensation, and the restoration of income for those affected. Having learned fr…
Howling over Wolfensohn
Kofi A. Annan, Jagdish Bhagwati, Shengman Zhang, Peter D. Bell, Peter Richardson, H. Paul Crevier, Angus Scrimgeour, Robert Picciotto, J. Michael Finger, Stephen Fidler, Howling over Wolfensohn, Foreign Policy, No. 127 (Nov. - Dec., 2001), pp. 6+8+10+12-13
The Logic of Mainstreaming: A Development Evaluation Perspective
The rationale for evaluation mainstreaming is straightforward: evaluation creates value only when lessons are drawn and incentives encourage institutional learning. Accountability as well as organizational adaptation are facilitated by the incorporation of evaluation processes in policy formation and program administration. This article is about the `what, why and how' of evaluation mainstreaming; it does not dwell on the `whether'. First, mainst…
Banking on Reform
International Trends and Development Evaluation: The Need for Ideas
A number of trends in the development arena—a renewed commitment to lifting billions of people out of poverty, the need to draw and put to use the lessons of experience, and the emergence of “evidence-based” policy making—create daunting professional challenges for evaluation. Development evaluation has long been nearly invisible within the evaluation community. But by emphasising results-based approaches to global public policy, recent UN confer…
International Trends and Development Evaluation: The Need for Ideas
Towards a new policy framework for the enlarged Europe: Investing for growth and modernisation
European leaders aim to turn the enlarged Union into “the most competitive and dynamic knowledge–based economy in the world” (Lisbon Declaration). Without major increases in infrastructure investments, however, dynamic growth — the missing ingredient of the European model — will not materialise. Given extraordinarily tight fiscal prospects, policy reform is imperative: (i) redeployment of resources from agricultural subsidies towards productive i…
Investing in peace and prosperity
Aid and conflict: The Policy Coherence Challenge
The Evaluation of Policy Coherence for Development
The promotion of human welfare in the zones of turmoil and transition can no longer be evaluated simply by examining the degree to which aid programs and projects achieve their relevant objectives efficiently. With globalization, the rules of the game that govern the international economy have become pivotal. Yet, the policies that govern trade, investment, migration, knowledge flows, environmental protection and human security have escaped syste…
Why the world needs millennium security goals: Opinion
The Millennium Development Goals solemnly endorsed by all United Nations Members at the turn of the century do not tackle the threats and challenges posed by state fragility, international terrorism and weapons proliferation. An international agreement on Millennium Security Goals would improve the prospects for global peace and prosperity
The New Environment for Development Evaluation
The millennium development goals have created new challenges for development evaluation. The main unit of account has shifted to the country level. Evaluation ownership must move from donor agencies to developing countries. The recognition that rich countries have development obligations is opening up evaluation frontiers beyond aid. A transformation of evaluation priorities is needed: (a) Evaluation frameworks should give more weight to alignmen…
Conflict prevention and development co-operation in Africa: An Introduction
This introductory article is in four sections. The first outlines the origins of this special issue and the rationale focusing on conflict prevention in Africa. The second relates current shifts in the aid paradigm to the changing geo-political and geo-economic force field. The third identifies the policy research strands that characterise the contemporary security and development literature. The fourth sketches the contents of the special issue …
The logic of evaluation professionalism
This article draws on the sociological literature to (i) explore the intersection between evaluation and professionalism; (ii) identify the extent to which evaluation fulfills the main attributes of professionalism; (iii) apply logical models of professionalism to the practice of independent and self-evaluation; and (iv) speculate about the future of the discipline. It rests the case for evaluation professionalism on the imperative of occupationa…
Experimentalism and development evaluation: Will the bubble burst
Bridging the current divide of opinion about experimentalism would help protect an evaluation brand currently under threat in international evaluation circles. In order to help settle a lingering and unnecessary controversy, this opinion article describes the policy force field that triggered the recent surge of interest in experimental methods in development evaluation; digs up the historical and philosophical roots of the long-standing epistemo…
The logic of development effectiveness: Is it time for the broader evaluation community to take notice
This article addresses the evaluative dimension of development effectiveness. It argues that, with some refinements, the effectiveness criteria forged in the international-development field would be equally serviceable in other domains of evaluative practice. Specifically, the criteria and tools in widespread use within the development-evaluation arena reflect hard-won lessons of experience. They have demonstrated their worth in diverse operating…
Have Development Evaluators Been Fighting the Last War… And If So, What is to be Done
What are the right evaluation methods and what evaluation strategy adapted to contemporary development issues should such methods serve? This article argues that a range of methods and tools must be drawn upon to achieve high-quality evaluation standards and that even the best methods cannot compensate for a misguided strategy. For both sets of reasons, it is time for the current craze for experimental evaluation methods in international developm…
Is Impact Evaluation Evaluation
Democratic evaluation for the 21st century
The evaluation discipline has long been put at the service of liberal democratic values. But contemporary evaluation practice is threatened by vested interests, western democracy is under stress and internationalization has propelled evaluation towards illiberal and patrimonial states. What is to be done in contexts where democracy is absent and/or evaluation has been captured by powerful interests whether globally, within countries or within org…
Evaluation and bureaucracy: The tricky rectangle
This article puts institutional economics concepts to work to help identify the proper role of evaluation in organizations and circumvent key obstacles to evaluation use. Looking at the role of evaluation in bureaucracies through an economics lens has its limitations. But addressing ‘the rules of the evaluation game’ helps to complement currently dominant approaches that concentrate on evaluation quality and practices. In concert with systems thi…
Evaluation: Discursive practice or communicative action
Public trust in expert analysis is at all-time low. Vivid claims unconstrained by fact checking dominate public policy. In this operating environment is evaluation obsolete? To help rebut this proposition, this article examines the relationship between information, knowledge, and politics through two contrasting philosophical lenses. First, Michel Foucault’s discursive practice model: rather than pursuing truth, power is intent to capture evaluat…
Probing the “Untranslatability” Thesis
Evaluation & Development: The Partnership Dimension
The Logic of Partnership
In the business world, partnership has a specific and instructive meaning. It is a form of organization in which some or all of the owners accept unlimited liability for the organization's debt and jointly exercise management control. In fact, partnerships are the dominant form of organization in professional services industries. Outside the organization, the free-market model breaks down where public goods are involved. While public goods enjoy …
Political science (27 works) · Evaluation and Performance Assessment (22 works) · Economics (19 works) · Sociology (14 works) · Law (13 works) · Business (12 works) · Computer Science (12 works) · Economic growth (11 works) · Engineering (10 works) · Epistemology (10 works)