In this paper we analyse the use of evaluations in the context of the EU's Common Agricultural Policy (CAP). We show how ideas about "closing the regulatory cycle" and several focussing events strengthened and broadened the evaluation regime of the CAP. By combining the literature on the "politics of evaluation" and policy exceptionalism we also show how the belief that the CAP is "special" affected the design of the CAP's evaluation regime, thereby limiting the opportunities for outsiders to assess, question and possibly change the policy ideas, instruments and programs of the CAP. We do so by presenting two cases: i) the introduction of the monitoring and evaluation system in 2013 and its implementation; and ii) the non-decision on a so-called fitness check of the CAP in the context of the Commission broader REFIT initiative. Our case studies show how the belief of being special, resulted in a post-exceptionalist, and (because of that a) contested, evaluation regime.
