1 Participatory evaluation: who, what, why, how and when Mauro Palumbo * , Daniela Congiu ** , Claudio Torrigiani *** (draft version) Introduction According to our experience, participatory evaluation works better if it is developed hand in hand with participation in planning. Both activities have a common root in two widely studied phenomena:  the first is the feasibility of policies; very often these can be implemented only through the active assistance of citizens, it is therefore clear that the participation of potential recipients in their design is an additional warranty as to the success of their implementation: in the design phase citizens or recipients can answer questions like: is this policy useful? might it work implemented in this way?). Likewise, it is likely that the actual participation of the recipients to review the effectiveness of policy can have positive effects on subsequent cycles of policy (in the evaluation phase citizens or recipients can answer the question: has the implemented intervention produced the results expected by the citizens?);  the second is related to the empowerment of citizens; while most of the efforts to develop active citizenship are being made regarding decisional processes (in Italy there are several recent experiences, including regional laws governing the participation in decision making 1 ), we believe that (also the) participation in the evaluation may encourage responsible citizenship. The participation in the evaluation, on the one hand, put the citizen in a more advantageous condition with respect to participation in programming, as he is in a position to "criticize" the work of public administration, but on the other hand, if participation in evaluation is interactive, not one shot but with techniques to facilitate dialogue between decision makers and participants in the evaluation (and the evaluator), participants can become aware of the constraints that affected the decision maker in taking certain decisions 2 . Here it is not possible to take into account the extensive literature relating the theme of participation, however we would like to highlight some aspects which are important, also considering the experiences we have had the opportunity to develop locally. Participating to evaluation: why? The reasons for participation in the evaluation are an extremely important discriminating factor to distinguish the type of process that we intend to conduct and / or examine. Participation in the evaluation has inevitably a dual role: on the one hand it serves to legitimize the choices of public decision-maker or to strengthen the authority of the evaluation process itself, but often it has also an instrumental value in relation to the information, because if we do not require to express an opinion * Mauro Palumbo is full professor of Sociology and Methodology of Social Research at the University of Genoa and works in the field of evaluation of public policies (particularly in the educational and social area). He’s been President of Italian Evaluation Society since 2004 to 2007. ** Daniela Congiu is adjunct professor of “Business Organization” at the Faculty of Education, University of Genoa. She has worked for years in the field of social research and evaluation which has devoted several papers. *** Claudio Torrigiani, has a PhD. in Research Methodology in Humanities; he is Fellow at the Department of Anthropological Sciences, and adjunct professor of “Techniques and tools of evaluative research” at the Faculty of Education, University of Genoa. He works in the field of public policies evaluation since 2000. 1 The Region of Tuscany has adopted the regional law 27 December 2007, n. 69, “Law on the promotion of participation in the formulation of regional and local policies”; two years after it was the turn of Emilia Romagna, with the regional law 9 February 2010, n. 3, “Rules for defining, reorganizing and promoting consultation and participation procedures in the formulation of regional and local policies”. 2 These constraints may relate both to the subject of policies – that must be the responsibility institutionally recognized to the decision-maker –, both to the amount of resources available for implementation and also, often, to the practical arrangements viable for the implementation of these policies. There are then both constraints of socio-economic context and available resources both constraints due to the procedures derived from the rules for policies implementation and to the institutional competences that are in the hands of the authorities carrying out these policies.