Conclusion: Integrating Evaluation into the Intervention Process

Abstract

The focus of the case studies in this book are specific intervention efforts in ethnic conflicts — not the conflicts themselves. The author of each case study was asked to describe the activities making up an intervention, to spell out each project’s criteria for success, and to analyse the assumptions underlying a project’s work. From each project’s goals and from the ways in which interveners discussed their activities, we believe one can learn about the theory of practice which informs particular conflict intervention efforts, and gain a clearer sense of how practitioners conceptualize their work. The idea here is that every action strategy has implicit criteria of success which can and should be articulated, and a key belief underlying our project is that more explicit goal articulation will improve both theory and practice.