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This paper assesses the efficiency of public agricultural expenditure in each Italian region through the analysis of regional budgets, both as a whole and in relation to specific agricultural policy measures. The degree of integration/complementarity between regional funds and Community funds of the second pillar of the CAP is also evaluated, in order to determine whether European resources are used by the Regions as a substitute for or in addition to regional measures. In Italy, public agricultural funding comes from three sources: the EU, the State, and the regions. While the literature on the effectiveness and efficiency of public spending in agriculture focuses on EU funds, the present research also takes into consideration the agricultural spending of Regions. This original analysis of agricultural spending at the regional level has been made possible by the databank of the CREA (Council for Agricultural Research and Economics), which has been gathering information on the allocations, payments, and remaining balances of regional accounts since 1990. The expenditure items for the agricultural sector included in the regional budgets were reclassified according to an original methodology created by the INEA (National Institute of Agricultural Economics, today CREA). The results show that the overall efficiency of public expenditure has improved over the last two decades (from less than 40% in 2000 to just over 50% in 2019). This improvement is quite evident in the South and the Islands and less so in the North. Agricultural policy measures that can be defined as “short term measures” (contributions to public and private entities involved in agricultural and forestry activities for running costs, such as salaries, telephone, electricity, etc.) show a good spending capacity, while measures requiring planning, such as business investments, still present difficulties. As regards integration/complementarity between regional funds and EU Fund for Rural Development Programmes (RDPs), the regions have been classified depending or whether or not they differentiate between the RDP financing and Budget financing. In the most recent period of 2014-2020, most regions have tended to target both sources of funding to support the same types of priority activities.

The European Digital Agenda represented a priority of the Europe 2020 strategy for smart growth of the European Union, towards the objectives of Europe 2030. The article outlines the regulatory framework on the digital strategy in Europe and Italy, proposing a theoretical-methodological discussion on the evaluation of policies on digitalization. The national results are presented in relation to the DESI INDEX, the main European tool for the observation of socio-cultural changes resulting from investments in digitalization, in the pre and post COVID period, discussing on the current state of evaluation practice in the implementation of Digital Agenda in Italy. The policy cycle outlined by the EU 2021-2027 programming and by the Recovery Plan on the topic of digital transition leads to a discussion of the main challenges of the evaluation practice, evidence of the structural complexity of the policies on digitization, stressing the need for multifocal and pluralistic evaluative perspectives of programs. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The paper critically examines how evaluation gains visibility as a «soft» policy instrument in the current policy making climate shaped by the rhetorical appeals for neutrality and sound evidence, and which consequences can be observed on the kind of legitimate knowledge devices and actors that are called to use them, admitted into the policy arena. In this framework we analyse specifically the experimental methods and performance analysis systems, often recognized as legitimate devices to provide value free accounts able to prompt reassuring effects on the complexity of decision making processes. Our intention is not prescriptive, we do not seek to identify the better instruments of evaluation nor to deny the potential worthiness of the mentioned devices, rather we aim at removing the «taken-for granted» character of their use, stressing their problematisation and insisting on the need of surfacing the assumptions underpinning their choice, that are often doomed to remain in the dark. For this purpose, we use the technical dimension as a preferable point of view to surface the logic of reasoning underpinning their adoption, outlining how they construct and legitimize interpretations of truth and causal links between behaviour and events, and vice versa how they are effected by them. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Through an ideal dialogue with Albert O. Hirschman and Charles Lindblom, in this article, I focus on how to envision and assess desired change. The most innovative contributions by Hirschman and Lindblom are still in tune with recent complexity theory-based approaches to policy analysis and evaluation. Departing from rational choice premises, I highlight learning and social mechanisms to mobilize those contextual resources, which are underutilized or hidden. The aim of this article is to shed light on those processual dimensions of change where to focus public policy analysis and evaluation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]