ABSTRACT
Political evaluation has received little systematic attention in the social science literature, especially the policy literature. The dominant position of noncognitivism has begun to yield to the scientific or naturalistic approach to values and ethical principles, especially as constituted in scientific post-behavioralism. An analysis of political evaluation in public policy must focus on when and how the concept is used and how it relates to other concepts in policy evaluation, especially the concept of rational political judgment. The controversy rests on the fact-value problem, raising methodological questions concerning how facts and values are to be integrated in a full-scale political evaluation. Most of democratic political theory in pluralistic societies has anchored the concept of legitimate consensus to the concept of a rational political process, defined in terms of free group competition. By focusing on the formal or established decision-making structures, process theorists tend to overlook or underestimate the significance of minorities and other groups without political power.
