PUBLIC POLICY ANALYSIS

The course is part of a Master's degree program in which students are expected to have many basic notions about the nature of public policies, power structures and regulatory architectures that produce them, as well as about the mechanisms of transmission from decision-makers to users. However, in the first part of the course
However, in the first part of the course all this will be summarized in order to then proceed with more confidence A) to dissect what is normally meant by "analysis" of policies and what can be added to this definition from different perspectives (the impact of the same on people for example in terms of inclusion, gender equality, non discrimination) and B) to analyze withi this new pair of glasses a specific field of public policies, which in the case of this course will be urban policies (territory, city, urban planning), considered in the literature "public policies par excellence" because they have a strong impact on the daily lives of all the people who live in a certain place. The local level of the minicipality will be the most analyzed during the course.

At the end of the course, students are required to have learned a method of policy analysis based not only on economic criteria, but open to the impact on society, to the perspectives of gender and inclusion as well as on the fight against intersectional discrimination, which are the foundations for any political action that wants -today- to call itself "sustainable".
It is important to be open at considering, among the primary methods of policy assessment, not only the classic parameters of economic evaluation, but also all those elements that refer to the "listening to the community", who is the real subject of the policies.

The prerequisites needed to tackle this 30-hour module are an open mind, the desire and ability to expand and enrich the normal parameters and patterns of policy analysis learned so far and also look at other scenarios, use new glasses to read the reality in which policies are born and act.

1. public policies. concepts, theories and methods (synthesis) -
2. architecture of decision-making arenas . who decides? where is it decided? (Lowi, Dahl, Wildawski, Lindblom)
3. policy/politics - the relationship between the role of politics and policy production.
4. public policy as a "network" of decisions and actions that has as its objective the allocation of values (Easton approach)
5. importance of the construction of the process of policy making - know the context / know the data - how / where (general characteristics and feminist perspective)
6. public policy analysis what it means - the policy cycle (social demand/expectation/public intervention). What about impact - how is it measured? making the right questions
7. innovative methods of measurement/evaluation from the gender perspective
8. urban policies as examples of public policies: we will start from the texts of Dahl and Wildawski, passing through the anthropological approach of Jane Jacobs to the policies for the city, to arrive at concrete contemporary cases of analysis of urban policy scenarios in the local dimension (Veneto) using a "different perspective based on gender, inclusion and non discrimination

Students are reminded that it is essential to consult the course's moodle page where lecture materials and readings for each topic will be uploaded from time to time.
A list of orientative texts (selection of chapters) will be provided at the beginning of the lessons (useful also for the non attending students).

This list will include, among others

Dahl, Robert A. Who Governs? : Democracy and Power in an American City. Yale university press, 1961.
Wildawski A., Speaking truth to power : the art and craft of policy analysis New Brunswick, N.J : London :1987
Jacobs, Jane. The Death and Life of Great American Cities: \The Failure of Town Planning! Penguin books Jonathan Cape, 1965.

For the local level analysis from the gender perspective: "LE DONNE NEL PROCESSO DI DECISIONE
POLITICA E NELL’AZIONE DI GOVERNO: APPROFONDIMENTI QUALITATIVI, a cura di IRPPS, Consiglio Nazionale delle Ricerche, 2018

written paper and its oral exposition
the same modality is valid both for attending students and non-attending students.
The viewing of the material in the moodle page is recommended for everyone.
However, I recommend the non-attending students to come to the "ricevimento" or contact me to arrange a study program.

face-to-face classroom with use of slides and videos

Italian

written and oral

This subject deals with topics related to the macro-area "Poverty and inequalities" and contributes to the achievement of one or more goals of U. N. Agenda for Sustainable Development