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The overall purpose of this thesis is to make a critical analysis of the criteria problem inherent in stakeholder evaluation, especially the problem of how to select different criteria in a situation of rapid political change and conflict among different stakeholder groups in the programme context. The aim is also to make a critical examination of the possibilities for a fair and just evaluation of official educational and social programmes.

The study is composed of four sections. In the first section the research problem and the aims of the study are introduced. Then the theoretical basis of the study and the connection with the theories of evaluation are discussed. The second section of the thesis contains a deeper analysis of political changes in society and an examination of the circumstances and development lines of the evaluation and the stakeholder evaluation.

In the third section the case study and an analysis of different judgement criteria and conflicts of the interest groups are presented. The fourth section contains a discussion of strategies for handling the problems emerging in the shape of general criteria, e.g. social justice, or of contextual equity criteria. Possibilities for a powerffee dialogue between the interest groups, in order to agree upon certain common criteria, are examined in a critical way. How different judgements can be structured together by consensus is analysed from a cognitive and an action-oriented perspective. At the end, some reflections are done about the stakeholder evaluation, its political dimensions and the connections between evaluation theory and political philosopy and political theory.

The thesis shows that evaluation of official programmes places the evaluation in the centre of a political context with different stakeholder groups and conflicts. The thesis makes clear that a more explicit perspective of political theory could be a constructive way forward for the further development of evaluation theory.