Around the world, democracy is under threat. Yet in the European Union, democracy is still widely considered to be the best possible system for government. In European evaluation, too, it is seen as a universal value.

Important features are freedom of assembly, freedom of religion and speech, voting rights, freedom from unwarranted governmental deprivation of the right to life and liberty, and minority rights. All things I consider imperative: in government, in public policy, and in evaluation.

To me, democratic government is important. In my recent book (in Dutch) on policy evaluation, I mention democracy/democratic no less than 28 times. As I put it, in the accountability function, ‘The most important contribution of policy evaluation (…) is that of democratic control of public exercise of power’.

Am I alone in this? Fortunately, not:

– The Evaluation Capabilities Framework of our very own European Evaluation Society is clear: a professional and ethical evaluator ‘upholds ethical standards and democratic values in the conduct of evaluations’.

– In a 2022 IOCE/EvalPartner report ‘Strengthening VOPEs’ capacities in Europe’, with input from a survey by the National Evaluation Societies of Europe network (NESE), democracy is identified as a ‘key horizontal principle’ for professional evaluation.

– In its Guiding Principles for Evaluators, the American Evaluation Association states that evaluators must strive to contribute to the common good and advancement of an equitable and just society; in their work, evaluators must ‘identify and make efforts to address potential threats (..) to the common good, especially when specific stakeholder interests conflict with the goals of a democratic, equitable, and just society’.

According to the United Nations, ‘Democracy provides an environment that respects human rights and fundamental freedoms, and in which the freely expressed will of people is exercised’. The UN argues that ‘People have a say in decisions and can hold decision-makers to account’.

I fully agree. And evaluation plays a key role. To name just a few:  shedding light on results, looking out for unwanted effects, and listening to minority and suppressed voices, while sometimes amplifying those voices.

These are things you can find in evaluation textbooks. But too often, we seem to take democratic government for granted. In response to the aforementioned survey by NESE on key evaluation principles, there was only limited reference to democracy.

As I see it, the key function of evaluation – improving democratic government – must be higher on our collective agenda. Because if our aim is to help governments learn, what is the purpose of this learning without democracy? And if we want to foster accountability and ‘speak truth to power’, who is it that will be held accountable if there is no true representation of the people?

Of course, I know; that the superiority of the (western) democratic model is being scrutinised and debated around the globe (and that is an understatement). There is an increasing distrust of democratic institutions, processes and elected representatives. As I see it, it is exactly here, that evaluation must step in, and, in fact, step up.

And while there may be no one-size-fits-all model of democracy, there are fundamental characteristics these models need in common to qualify as real democracies. First and foremost: the democratic control of public exercise of power.

Irrefutably, evaluation delivers a crucial contribution to this by making our findings available to the public and bringing evaluation forward as an input to public discourse. Vice versa, evaluation depends on democracy to be able to perform this role.