Public Policy Evaluation: A Bibliometric Study of International Literature From 1997 to 2021

Abstract

This study aims to carry out a bibliometric analysis of the international literature on public policy evaluation in the last 25 years, in order to map the scientific field of production in the period. Therefore, a bibliometric analysis was performed in the Web of Science database and the selected articles were indexed in the VOSviewer software, to build and visualize bibliometric maps through graphical representation. The results demonstrate that the theme is clearly growing. In the period, 485 articles were found published in the researched base. The largest academic production is in the United States, followed by England, Australia and Canada. Regarding the keywords, there was a superiority of theories on public policy, evaluation and governance. The biggest publications are in the areas of public administration, interdisciplinary social sciences and political science. Therefore, the methodological care generated reliable and coherent information about the state of the art on the subject outside Brazil.