Evaluation is assumed to support democratic governance and promote accountability and policy and program improvement (Boswell 2009; Chelimsky 1995; Hanberger 2006; 2012; Pollitt 2006; Weiss et al. 2005). Thus, from this perspective evaluation is conceived as a governing tool or a governing technique. It could be assumed that different modes of governing require different roles concerning types of evaluations and evaluative knowledge, however empirical investigations is by no means plentiful on this respect and thus needs further studying. Also, evaluation has mostly been regarded as one of many different governing techniques. Lately, however, scholars are raising the issue of systemic evaluation governance (Hansen 2013) which also brings an additional element to it.
This paper discusses the role of evaluation in a specific policy area; Swedish education policy. Sweden has been criticized by OECD in lacking coherence among the different evaluation parts which also calls for an investigation of why and how the different parts of the evaluative functions have emerged and what demands they responded to, and how evaluation has been designed and governed. The paper will examine the purposes of evaluation in education governance by analyzing public policy documents, governmental investigations and previous research, focusing on the time after the Second World War and the building of a comprehensive school system. Different periods are identified on the basis of different modes of education governance. The paper will discuss the implications of the study results for the literature on evaluation governance.