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Rick Davies' comments on David's comments can be found below, in blue

Nice target, wrong idea: A response from David Marsden to Rick Davies’ ‘Nice idea, wrong target’

In Section 5 of the latest edition of M and E News - Editor's Questions and Comments - Rick Davies comments on the theme of the forthcoming evaluation conference being organized by INTRAC. He titles his comment 'Nice idea, wrong target' but it is not clear what he sees as the 'target'. Is it the 'Us -v- Them' theme that is controversial? Or the large donors, identified as 'bogeymen' later in the comment?

[RD: It’s the "us versus them" which seemed contrived and unhelpful, especially in the text promoting the conference. The "large donors", etc were simply part of an example, of how we often hear this sort of oppositional thinking.]

If it is the former then one can legitimately question the value of addressing that theme. I would hope that questions addressed to that theme might figure prominently in the conference agenda. My article (a shortened verion of which is reproduced in this issue of ONTRAC) tries indeed to address some of the important questions that lie behind the construction of such dichotomies. The cultural and historical contexts that lie behind their construction are seldom examined. The article is not about supposed differences between qualitative and quantitative methods or about the differences between 'bottom up' and 'top down' approaches, as Rick seems to suggest. Like Rick, I recognize that such dichotomies are simplistic and as heuristic devices they hide more than they reveal.

[RD: You say this but other things you say suggest you are thinking in these terms, especially when you point into the dark and say beware, as in this next sentence of yours that follows below. Your "them" (in the us-them dichotomy) is just a bit more sophisticated, it isn't given a name, it is just darkly hinted at.]

It is, rather, about the issues of power that lie behind the deployment of particular simplifying devices and methods, and the investigation of the motives of the navy and the sociology department, to use Rick's own analogy. These often get submerged (excuse the pun!) in discussions about definitions and methods.

[RD: What we are doing here is taking sides in the "conspiracy" versus "cock up" theory of history. You look for ulterior motives for explanations, I see globally limited competence as a more persuasive explanation. I am tempted to say that mine is the more economical explanation (in the sense of Ockams razor)]

It is not about 'getting the right mix' rather it is about understanding who is doing the 'mixing' and why. I am not clear why this should be perceived as 'one-sided' or 'decontextualized' when the whole point is to reveal the many sides and the particular places and histories in which reality is negotiated.

I would argue that organizations do not find a 'balance'. To suggest that they do implies a perspective that is informed by an equilibrium theory. Individuals in organizations negotiate contextually specific accomodations at particular times as they evolve. What they choose to call it depends on who is controlling the discourse.

[RD: By balance I meant some degree of stability over time, reflecting a temporary and sometimes longer-term resolution of all the contending and accommodating forces within an organisation. This balance (and resolution) is not intrinsically good or bad. We do see stasis in organisational beliefs and practices all the time, so we cant say it does not exist. The contrast between the submarine and the sociology department is that in the former there is much more external social (and physical!) pressure to develop a single dominant view of what is happening and what needs to be done, whereas in the latter there is more institutionalised diversity in views. In most organisations some homogeneity of view is necessary for effective collective action, so one way or another it is developed]

INTRAC will be happy to provide a platform for both fieldworkers and CEOs - to provide an opportunity for those who normally have no voice, to question the controllers of information (the 'mixers'). The evolving negotiations within these participating organizations will surely depend, however, on who has control over perceptions about what the value of the conference is. Sending two people with very different stories to tell would indeed be very valuable, but who would choose them? And what would happen to the social capital of the organization as a result of such an exercise. There is a limit to how much 'dirty linen' you might want to wash in public. What is that limit?

[Obviously no one is going to force any organisation to do this. Any that were willing to discuss internal differences would probably (but not inevitably) do it on a self selecting basis. The value of having an intra-organisational rather than inter-organisational focus for debates about evaluation is that (a) it is closer to home - all participants would be able to identify with the differences in perspective, I think. (b) there are some observable dichotomies here that do cause problems, arising out of the pyramid shape of most large organisations. That is between the types of information and analysis needed by CEOs in organisations and their field workers (or equivalents). Behind this is my view that scale is inherently a problem for organisations. Large organisations get to the point where they (as in the CEO especially) do not know what they (as in the whole organisation) are doing. DFID's recent Development Effectiveness Report seems to state this in respect of DFID]

I would therefore argue that INTRAC's proposed conference, rather than being 'off target' is precisely on target in trying to get beyond the simple dichotomies that restrict an effective understanding of complex realities. Lets use the tools rather than be used by them!

[RD: I am not arguing against the conference per se, but at the focus or target of attention. Lets not be focused on contrived dichotomies, but focus on some observable ones that are closer at hand and problematic enough. On the use of tools, yes lets look at them critically, in terms of the mindsets they encourage and discourage in ourselves, but lets take some responsibility for those responses. ]

As to the 'bogeymen', are they evil or mischieveous spirits who plan to disrupt, or imaginary windmills to be tilted at? I hope that the conference can help in destroying them by bringing together different 'voices' that can transcend some of these false dichotomies. I don't recall addressing in my article any of the 'bogeymen' that Rick refers to?

[Correct, you did not. They were simplistic examples of unproductive oppositions that some participants would probably readily buy into. Yours, as noted above, were more sophisticated]

if we were just seeking to provide a platform for bashing the large agencies INTRAC would not have entered into a partnership agreement with the Bank and obtained DFID support for this conference!

I welcome contributions to this debate. A slightly extended version of the article in ONTRAC can be found on INTRAC's web page http://www.intrac.org/Of Management.htm and INTRAC invites responses.

See David's uninterupted text (free of the blue inserts) at http://www.mande.co.uk/docs/nice target.htm

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