Evaluating spatial policies without indicators: A study on Taiwan as a developmental state in transition

Area of Science:

• Public Administration
• Urban Planning
• Political Science

Background:

• Policy evaluations are vital for effective governance but are rarely conducted for spatial policies due to complexity.
• Developing states transitioning to democracy face challenges in formulating evaluation indicators after losing top-down leadership.
• Existing literature infrequently discusses policy evaluation, particularly spatial policy evaluation, within Taiwanese and East Asian contexts.

Purpose of the Study:

• To explore alternative evaluation methods for spatial policies in democratizing developmental states.
• To propose "soft" evaluation approaches that can bridge the gap left by the loss of top-down leadership.
• To investigate the feasibility of bottom-up spatial policy evaluation without traditional indicators.

Main Methods:

• Qualitative analysis of policy evaluation challenges in democratizing developmental states.
• Exploration of "soft" evaluation methods, including process evaluation, participatory evaluation, and self-assessment.
• Conceptual framework development for bottom-up spatial policy evaluation.

Main Results:

• "Soft" evaluation methods can enhance cross-departmental collaboration and policy-executor connections.
• Participatory and self-assessment approaches offer viable alternatives to quantitative impact evaluations.
• Bottom-up evaluation without indicators is a potential solution for spatial policy assessment in transitional contexts.

Conclusions:

• Democratizing developmental states can adopt "soft" and bottom-up evaluation methods for spatial policies.
• Human-centered approaches are crucial as developmental states shift focus from economic growth to human aspects.
• The proposed evaluation strategies offer valuable references for similar states, especially in Asia.