The politics of evaluation: The case of cultural organizations

Cultural policy always means to decide how to spend money. This is a problem, as there are usually more useful options to use financial means than money available . Hence a sound evaluation of the proposed results and the predicted outcome as well as to some extent also a comparison of different projects is required. We raise the question, if and how the interests of various stakeholders can be considered in the theoretical framework of evaluation in the field of arts and culture. This entails the question, what kind of political processes are hidden behind processes of evaluation in the cultural sector and how the relation between the purpose of evaluation, the evaluators, and the other stakeholders can be understood and explicitly addressed. Hence, this requires a focus on the inherent (political) values and interests as well as their contexts.