Research on policy strategies, instruments, and styles incorporates a complex variety of theoretical and conceptual approaches and analytical tools. Carrots, Sticks, and Sermons proposes an overarching framework for the field, one that clearly shows how public policy instruments may be classified, packaged, and chosen, while highlighting the role evaluation plays in which instruments are used.

The book offers a comprehensive analysis of categories and typologies of policy instruments. It categorizes these as sticks, carrots, and sermons—or, more specifically, regulation, economic means, and information. It also offers readers a comparative perspective on evaluation practice in foreign contexts, with special attention paid to the examples of Sweden, the Netherlands, Belgium, England, Canada, the United States, and the Republic of Korea. As such, this volume crosses language barriers that stand in the way of dispersing research results among the international community of theoreticians and practitioners. As nations become increasingly interdependent, implementation and evaluation of policy choices made by different nations will become issues of increasing gravity.

Carrots, Sticks, and Sermons will be of wide interest to those in the fields of public policy, particularly policy design, policy implementation, policy evaluation, comparative politics, and economics.

Marie-Louise Bemelmans-Videc is professor of public administration at the Catholic University of Nijmegen and a member of the Upper House of the Netherlands Parliament. She is co-editor of Advancing Public Policy Evaluation.

Ray C. Rist is senior evaluation advisor with the Operations Evaluation Department of the World Bank. He is the author of The Urban School and the editor of Program Evaluation and the Management of Government, both published by Transaction.

Evert Vedung is professor of political science in the Institute for Housing and Urban Research and the Department of Government, Uppsala University, Sweden, and associate professor of public administration in the Department of Public Administration, Åbo Academy University, Finland. He is the author of Public Policy and Program Evaluation, published by Transaction.