ABSTRACT
Power is relational. It takes at least two entities to be in a relation for there to be any conversation about power. Another power relations that evaluators often find themselves dealing with directly is with organizational gatekeepers. Perhaps the one recent contrarian example of evaluators attempting to successfully and directly deal with persons and organizations with hard power comes in the article by Eleanor Chelimsky, "Integrating Evaluation Units Into the political environment of Government: The Role of Evaluation Policy". Eleanor Chelimsky outlines strategies she and her team used to blunt these power assertions and what she called "well aimed strikes" at the evaluation work being done. She sees these strikes at evaluative work creating pressures to diminish or eliminate evaluator independence, evaluative credibility, and destroy evaluator morale.
