51 Evaluation Strategies and Analysis of the Policy Process CLAUDIO M. RADAELLI University of Bradford BRUNO DENTE University of Venice This article focuses on the theoretical development of evaluation research from the perspective of public-policy analysis. The discontinuity between the first stage of evaluation research and its more recent stage is assessed by arguing that the main problems in early evaluation research were related to an inadequate conceptualization of the evaluator’s role, whilst the recent debate in evaluation research correctly acknowledges the endogeneity of the evaluator to the policy process. Consequently, it seems possible to elaborate upon this by investigating the strategies available to the evaluator as actor. In this respect the literature on the cognitive aspects of politics provides useful hints. Following a discussion of this literature, the authors argue that the choice of evaluation strategies is contingent upon the characteristics of the policy process. Two dimensions of the policy process (i.e. the degree of social conflict and the degree of innovation) are employed in order to present a typology of strategies. Introduction This article considers evaluation from a public-policy-analysis perspective. Following a long period during which the theory of evaluation research (ER) remained a relatively neglected area (Chen, 1990: 17; Scriven, 1991: 19), a new theoretical stream is flourishing (see Chen, 1990; Fishman, 1991a; 1991b; Guba and Lincoln, 1989; Shadish et al., 1991 ). It seems, therefore, worthwhile to make an attempt to develop a more vigorous debate between political science and ER. Indeed, the authors are political scientists periodically working in the field of evaluation. They have observed a number of intriguing links between ER and political science: most importantly, perhaps, the debate on the role of knowledge in the policy process, or, alternatively, the emergence of social-constructionist approaches. The authors have leamt lessons from the theoret- ical developments of ER, yet some questions remain. First, how can one strike a balance between integration and diversity in ER approaches? At first glance the ER debate seems to have spawned a huge diversity of approaches. However, seen from the point of view of the theory of the policy process, there is a fundamental convergence on important points relating to the role of the