do them harm. Trust is measured in degrees, varying from partial trust (only in certain contexts or about certain matters) to full trust (in all situations). When distrust occurs, it is likely that the LGAB or SIR phenomenon will cause politics to enter into the relationship. Previous chapters have suggested various strategies for building trust, from involving stakeholders in evaluation design to specific trust-building techniques. Identifying Political Games It is impossible to keep evaluation completely separate from politics. The challenge is to manage the political situation in which evaluators find themselves. To help evaluators do so, Murray (2002) classifies games according to the roles of the people involved. Understanding these games helps evaluators manage the situation. Political games played by people being evaluated People being evaluated often want to avoid unwanted formal scrutiny of their activities. They may respond by • denying the need for an evaluation • claiming the evaluation would take too much time away from their normal or especially heavy workload and asking that it be postponed • claiming evaluation is a good thing but engaging in delaying tactics • seeking to form close personal relationships with evaluators in order to convince them to trust them. Once the evaluation has begun and the data are being collected, other political games. Providers of information may • omit or distort the information evaluators ask them to provide, so that they will not look bad • provide evaluators with huge amounts of information, making it difficult for evaluators to sort out what is relevant and what is not • come up with new data toward the end of the evaluation. Once the data have been collected and evaluators are ready to interpret them, people being evaluated may respond by • denying the problem exists • downplaying the importance of the problem, claiming that they already knew about it and are implementing changes, or attributing it to others or forces beyond their control • arguing that the information is irrelevant because things have changed.
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The Road to Results: Designing and Conducting Effective Development Evaluations