Political Economy Perspectives on Performance Measurement

Abstract

This chapter explores the conceptual basis for performance measurement within political economy. It shows that competing perspectives in economic theory suggest different approaches to measuring performance — and that some perspectives even suggest such measurement is irrelevant or potentially counter-productive. It explores how key concepts in performance measurement are handled differently in each school of political economy, highlights the self-reinforcing nature of many of the questions asked within political economy, and offers some lessons from conflicting paradigms of performance measurement.

An earlier version of this chapter was published as Bovaird (1996). The author is grateful for the comments of Jacky Holloway and for ongoing discussions with Arie Halachmi, which have helped shape the arguments in this chapter.