Paper short abstract:

We analyze the Dutch national elderly program as a form of ‘experimentalist governance’. We develop the notions ‘valuing uncertainties’ (uncertainty about how experimentation should be valued) and ‘uncertain valuations’ (how actors define success and outcome according to different valuation schemes).

Paper long abstract:

The notion of 'the experimental organization' is increasingly used to explore how organizations - as socio-ecological spaces - learn from and experiment with uncertainties. However, not only organizations but also inter-organizational programs and networks can be viewed as such spaces. We zoom in on the Dutch national elderly program (NPO) that was explicitly positioned as an experimental learning program. The NPO can be viewed as a form of 'experimentalist governance' in which multiple organizations interact and collaborate to improve elderly care under uncertain conditions about what constitutes good care. We build on document analysis and interviews with stakeholders (elderly patients, doctors and representatives of the program committee). Our study contributes to a better understanding of the relation between experimentation, valuation and uncertainty in two particular ways. First, the notion of 'valuing uncertainties' shows that there is uncertainty about the process of experimenting and how experimentation should be valued. Despite the original framing of the NPO as a learning program with room for uncertainty, in practice many actors sought to reduce uncertainty. We analyze the different tactics actors used to reduce or open up uncertainty about the process of experimenting with 'good' forms of elderly care. Second, the notion of 'uncertain valuations' shows how actors define measures of success and outcome of the NPO differently according to different valuation schemes: i.e. statistical evaluation, processual evaluation, cost-effectiveness evaluation and participatory evaluation. The multiplicity of valuation schemes can generate 'productive tensions' that reconfigure our understanding of success, good science, good ways of steering and good care.