Accountability for Practical Reasoning Agents

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Guaranteed traffic calming in the urban area : the ISA promise. Paper for the 5th Symposium of the International Planning and Environmnent Association,Oxford , 23-26 September

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Evaluation of strategic plans: the performance principle

Evaluation and implementation studies have a well-established tradition For evaluation in general, this tradition seems to offer a clear-cut research design. This is not true for evaluation of strategic plans. First, most evaluation and implementation research deals with specific and well-defined operational policy and not with broad and sometimes vague indicative strategic planning. Second, the means - ends scheme underlying mainstream evaluation, in which conformance between a plan and final outcomes is the ultimate test of effectiveness, does not apply. In trying to establish conformance, we not only ask the wrong question but also use the wrong unit of analysis. Building on ideas from the planning and evaluation literature, we develop an alternative approach based on the notion that strategic plans serve the function of signposts for those involved in subsequent decisions. Our approach entails a test of the effectiveness of strategic plans which reflects their character; we suggest testing their performance. Empirical research on the role and purpose of strategic plans shows that 'performance' offers a promising way of understanding how strategic plans relate to intervention and of judging their usefulness.

Performance studies in spatial planning: the state of the art

Reviewing the state of the art in performance studies indicates that the performance approach offers a fruitful and promising way to deal with questions of the functioning and evaluation of strategic policymaking. Nevertheless the papers in this issue also present us with a host of new questions that need further research. These questions are theoretical, empirical, and methodological in nature. Answering them will no doubt broaden the scope and will link performance studies with emerging issues in the social, policy, and management sciences that deal with questions of planning and effectiveness in complex interorganisational settings.

Performance of national policies

National spatial policies are usually indicative and strategic. As a result, this kind of policy does not have a direct bearing on the spatial organisation of society. Instead the performance of these policies depends on whether or not they are used in subsequent decisionmaking and planning procedures, where and when this seems relevant. Consequently, straightforward evaluation procedures, based on a combined methodology of before - after design and the measurement of conformity, do not help us to understand the real influence of these policies. Insight into the 'black box' of subsequent decisionmaking is necessary for this purpose. In this paper we discuss some recent research findings on this topic.