Whether initiated by law, regulation, or administrative direction, evaluations have political purposes. Improvement, the classic purpose of evaluation, is most faithfully observed when the importance, funding, and constituency of a program are small. If something is wrong, or if the program's existence is threatened, evaluation can become a weapon…

A number of ways in which evaluations may be biased are illustrated: (1) policy and political purposes for evaluations; (2) sources of policy or political bias prior to evaluation activities; (3) limitations and biases within the evaluation itself; and (4) utilization of evaluation information in the policy process. (Author/GK)