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The paper discusses the idea that the evaluation of public policies is witnessing a remarkable enlargement of its domain, in four relevant dimensions- its object, effect, methods, and data.Regarding the objects of evaluation, policy makers are increasingly interested not only in the evaluation of the content of policies (output) or the result (outcome), but also on a broader notion of impact, which includes direct and indirect effects, on the sub-system under analysis and on society at large. Regarding the effects of policies, the paper calls the attention on the rising of the notion of conditionality, requiring more flexible and sophisticated approaches for in itinere evaluation. With respect to new methods, the paper discusses new developments in counterfactual methods, robust nonparametric approaches (robust and conditional), as well as methods to deal with non commensurable indicators. Finally, the implications for evaluation of policies of the availability of microdata from public sources are examined. In all these devekopments new challenges are identified, calling for advanced methodological and quantitative work. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The main objective of the paper is to address and explore a much-debated issue within the evaluation community: the idea of "democratic evaluation". What exactly is meant by this term? When can an evaluation be said to be democratic? Through the adoption of what behaviours should this ideal translate into concrete working practice? The essay aims to contribute to broadening the community's debate on these questions, which are central at a historical-political moment such as the post-emergence from Covid-19 and in the midst of an international crisis, that between Russia and Ukraine, which calls democratic evaluation into question in our country. On a general level, in fact, the situation of uncertainty due to the unpredictable effects of the pandemic, the social and economic crisis in the country and the consequent growing distrust of the citizens towards the administration seem to have increased the demand for accountability, leading to talk, as in the rest of Europe as well, of a "democratic deficit". On the other hand, recent administrative re-centralization, even assisted by current evaluative practices, only aggravates the inefficiency of public administration. Accountability, freedom and democracy are never given, they need to be defended, always regained: evaluation assumes a strategic role to this end; it can help bring citizens closer to public administration. The crisis between Russia and Ukraine is changing geopolitical balances; the effects of the war economy, inflation, the energy crisis, and the possible escalation of the conflict add to the uncertain situation due to the pandemic. New inequalities and an increase in poverty threaten to generate deep rifts in the country's socioeconomic fabric. Systemic shocks add to chronic problems: a demographic collapse, stagnation, job insecurity, and a lag in digitization. At the same time, the political system fails to represent and stabilize consensus over time. Governments also suffer from this instability, with the inability to design and implement structural reforms for the country, including that of the bureaucracy. Social complexity, chronic problems and systemic shocks, require the ability to apply effective public policies. State intervention and the ability of the bureaucracy to be efficient and responsive to social change are central issues for the health of democracy. Public policies move within a framework of very high complexity, in which the role of evaluation emerges, which should tend to the development of democratic accountability, illuminating decision-making choices through its methodological rigor, analytical capacity and scientific knowledge. The essay thus aims to address the potential of a democratic evaluation that can broaden the number of stakeholders, the field of values that are taken into account, the repertoire of research methods, the field of interest of policies, and the very definition of the objects of evaluations. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper argues that, despite a very large volume of management reform in the EU over the past quarter century or more, our knowledge of the impacts of these efforts is patchy and fragile. It calls on a number of key studies which each, in a different way, carries this same basic message. In the second part of the paper the reasons for this state of affairs are analyzed. One set of reasons is concerned with the considerable methodological difficulties of evaluating major reforms, which are commonly complex, evolving and spread out over time. A second set of reasons concerns the limited incentives for politicians and top officials to take a sustained interest in evaluation. A concluding reflection is that, while this basic situation is not likely to change, there are nevertheless ways in which the academic contribution to reform evaluation can be strengthened. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The movement for the commons has emerged in the past decade in opposition to neoliberal policies of privatization of resources and services. It claims the right to occupy publicly- and privately-owned spaces and to use them according to the principles of self-government and direct democracy. In the Southern European context, the movement for the commons has focused on the grassroots restructuring of public services otherwise eroded by austerity policies. This paper investigates the trajectory of the movement for the commons in Palermo and highlights how a social mobilization with a critical approach towards private property and socioeconomic inequalities has been partially co-opted by the public administration through an institutional rhetoric promoting legality and participation in public spaces. From the legal point of view, this process translated into the negotiation of a top-down administrative, regulation establishing that the commons should be managed through a public-private partnership. The risk is both the political weakening of the movement for the commons and the social marginalization of vulnerable subjects inhabiting the city centre. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The paper presents an old but dismissed concept: co-production of public services. The basic definition is very simple: people who use services contribute to the production of services. The application is more complex: a mutual subsidiary relationship between users, staff and communities. The paper offers an overview of the literature on co-production, through the presentation of three semantics: the overlap of regular and consumer producer (Ostrom and colleagues), the user involvement for service quality (Pestoff and colleagues), the core approach to implementing personalisation (Needham and colleagues). After showing some Italian example, the paper proposes integration between the couple personalisation-coproduction for a new service design. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The paper presents a reflection on the policy of cost-cutting and spending review in the Italian public sectors. The thesis is twofold. First of all, the paradigm used by the spending reviews' policies is based on the macro-economic theory that doesn't take into account the complexity of the implementation processes. Secondly, the weakness of the administrative technical bureaucracies in coordinating modernisation processes produces an incoherent diffusion of innovations. The paper discusses, as empirical examples, two relevant national programmes in the field of the judicial sector; these programmes are mobilising an interesting governance network at the territorial (local) level and a vast number of projects in specific territorial areas. The implementation of these interventions shows, however, that many judicial offices of the Nation lack the necessary resources and capabilities to sustain modernisation projects and, at the same time, the difficulty of central bureaucracies to oversee and safeguard a coherent fulfilment of the diffusion objectives, due to the fragility of technical bodies. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Copyright of Rassegna Italiana di Valutazione is the property of FrancoAngeli srl and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

The paper discusses the evolution of public performance evaluation from the early nineties to the present, age of the so-called spending review. It is a re-reading of facts with an operational dimension, also to orient future choices and the growth of the country, promoting policies for the development of productive public spending and acknowledging merit. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Copyright of Rassegna Italiana di Valutazione is the property of FrancoAngeli srl and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

Copyright of Rassegna Italiana di Valutazione is the property of FrancoAngeli srl and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

Copyright of Rassegna Italiana di Valutazione is the property of FrancoAngeli srl and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

In this paper the author tries to show what it means to organize and deliver new subsidiary relational services. Subsidiarity is not only a "political" value or a more efficient (economic) way to provide services. Subsidiarity is a new way to organize relational services, i.e. services that work on relationships. From this point of view, the subsidiarity of a given service is an emergent property generated by a special kind of reciprocal orientations between the actors of the service itself. This special reciprocity is based on practices of (meta)reflexivity. The categorical imperative of subsidiarity is: "act in such a way as to make possible for everyone to act at his/her best, developing his/her personal skills and competences in order to make others act in theirs….". Thus, "subsidiarity" is an eigenvalue, which emerges from these reciprocal orientations. To act in a subsidiary way is to act reflecting about and across the relationships that "make" the service possible. It is not simply to act in the best individual way possible, but to act "for", "with", "from" and "in order to improve" the relationship with "others". Reflections about our ways of acting, and (meta) reflections about the influence everyone's actions have upon the actions of others, are here at stake. So, supplying a subsidiary relational service means leaving the modem system based on the values of "individual competence-bureaucracy-working skills-aggregation of output", to develop a new system based on the values of "relational competence-responsibility-duty-emergence of outcome". In this paper this new vision is illustrated by a case study dedicated to a service named "Giocoamico", provided by the Hospital of Parma. The case study is only conceived to be a euristic device, which is useful to develop new scientific observations on the emergent field of subsidiarity relational services. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

So called "new economy" seems to have a bearing on "old organisations" too. This paper describes an Italian E-Government Program aimed at implementing Information and Communication Technologies within a typical "old" organisation, the Court, and discusses some of the organisational issues raised by this innovation dynamic. Thus, the concept of "Isomorphic Paradox" and the flexibility/control dialectic are introduced and tested against a body of field data gathered in a set of Italian Civil Courts. The provided insights, it is stated, might prove useful in accounting for the conflicts which often arise from the implementation of E-Government policies. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article explores the contradictory relationship between workers' experience of ecology and working-class environmentalism in the case study of Italsider/(ex)Ilva in Taranto (Apulia, Italy), on the methodological basis of social ethnography. The main thesis is that a new - qualitative and historically solid - analysis of such, complex relationship makes it possible on the one hand to deconstruct the seemingly natural opposition between employment and health, and on the other hand to open up unprecedented scenarios for the development of a different labor-based perspective on the ecological crisis. The structure of the article is as follows: the first paragraph situates the research from a theoretical point of view, against the background of an emerging field of investigation: environmental labor studies (§1). The second makes its methodology explicit (§2). The following ones examine two phases of Taranto's industrial, steelbased development - the public management (§3) and the private one, during which the eco-sanitary crisis deflagrates (§4) - in an attempt to articulate the elusive and non-linear relationship between workers' experience of ecology and working-class environmentalism - until the agreement with Arcelor Mittal in September 2018, starting from which a largely different story opens up. Such story is briefly referred to in the conclusions, recalling more recent events and sketching possible lines of future research. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this contribution, the Author intends to take stock of the situation regarding the main Italian public institutions which have assumed a leading role in the evaluation of public policies, with particular regard to the evaluation of the public administration, the evaluation of the education and training system, the evaluation of universities and research, the analysis and evaluation of labor policies and social policies, the evaluation of development cooperation initiatives, the evaluation of cohesion policies, the evaluation of agricultural policies. For each of these areas the public institutions of reference are identified, the role covered is outlined and the main activities carried out within the framework of the functions assigned to them are described. The purpose of the essay is to provide a general overview: the sources reported can be used for appropriate insights. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The University as an institution is a central actor of the knowledge economies. It has now become, in most developed societies, an actor entitled with a large autonomy within the national higher education and research system, in the context of national policies and public management rules. In this sense, the University is a strategic actor, i.e. in a position to develop a vision of its future, based on its missions and taking into account its strengths and weaknesses as well as the threats and opportunities of its environment. From there establishing short and medium terms operational objectives, making organisational choices and allocation of resources – in short, developing a strategy. It is the role of the governance' of a University to elaborate such a strategy and to implement it through a variety of managerial processes and instruments. Among them the evaluation function is of major importance, since it is fundamentally the feed-back loop linking the governance to the real world. But if evaluation is a key-function for strategic actors, it makes it an issue for all the strategic actors of the Higher Education and Research (HER) system, beyond the universities – in particular the ministry in charge of Higher Education and Research (MHER) and the Departments in a University2. Those three levels – National, University, Departmental – are admittedly highly inter- connected and having asymmetrical (hierarchical) relationships, yet their strategic capability must be recognised – hence their legitimate involvement in – and use of – evaluation activities. The objective of this paper is – focussing on the University as an evaluation actor – to identify and discuss the question of its relationships, in terms of evaluation activities, with University Departments on one side and with the MHER on the other – which are both evaluation actors as well. Our standpoint is to refer to evaluation methodologies and our examples will mostly be based on the evaluation activities of the UNIMIL, as well as those taking place in France, at various levels. We also make some references to the evaluation implications of the Bologna process. In a first paragraph, we give an overview of the relationships among the evaluation actors of the different levels; in a second and third paragraph, we focus on the relationships of a university with the departmental and national level, respectively, discussing some methodological issues, concluding then on the stakes which a university faces as an evaluation actor. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

However decisive the role of regional governments in local development policies has tended to become in recent times, it is still quite conditioned by the central government. Yet, regional governments have considerably extended their influence in overlooking the Territorial Pacts - a major local development measure. This marks a return to a "strategic" thinking in planning regional local development. Based on the results of a field research, the paper highlights a number of key factors influencing the future development of regional development polices. At the present, many pacts and other relevant initiatives related to local development are characterized by a lack of coordination: very little coordination exists between European and national funding; a large number of organizations operating at the regional level have little or no contact with each other; it is not at all clear how to accompany the transition from the phase of the so-called `concertation' to the constitution of a 'local agency' in charge of coordinating and implementing the pacts. Finally, whether - and how - the regional governments will be able to undertake cohesive actions within commonly shared development plans and policies remains an open question. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The current economic and social crisis calls for new practices within the public administration: an increase in its productivity could be obtained by the mobilization of social energies and the diffusion of leadership capacities. Spending review, performance management and evaluation of public policies are separate activities that converge in view of reaching the objective of "doing more and better with less". For each of these activities it is necessary to decide which method to apply. If the democratic alternative prevailed in each of them, it would be possible to overcome those conditions (centralism, legalism, compliance) that are at the origin of the present crisis, and that would be reinforced were those activities conducted according to the traditional way. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Copyright of Sociologia del Lavoro is the property of FrancoAngeli srl and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

Copyright of Sociologia del Lavoro is the property of FrancoAngeli srl and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

The article discusses certain issues concerning sustainable governance of territories. The capacities of encountering the dilemmas of the globalized post-industrial processes and the global climatic and environmental crises have changed. The state of territories and the governance of the local system are examined.The association between positive liberty of the citizens as inhabitants of territories and the capacities of the territorial auto-governance in rapport with the actual challenges are discussed. The territories and the citizens are stated to be positioned towards a long transition.

The article discusses certain issues concerning local economic development in Italy. For in-depth analyses of the dynamics of local development, determination of the role played by local institutions, political action, and the culture of territorial governance is stated to be necessary. The politics of the policies for local development in Italy has been transformed by the institutional reforms of the 1990s and by the process of becoming part of the European Union. Analysis of cultures and local political institutions is stated to provide adequate understanding of diversities, bringing together the quality of development with the quality of governance and of democracy.

The article offers information on the importance of a comparative study of the effect of new policies on territorial governance. Several reasons contributing to the importance of the comparative study have been cited. Adequate understanding of differentiations and territorial disparities have been cited as one of the reasons. A comparative study is predicted to provide an important compliment for the theories on the development of the capitalistic systems. A comparative study is stated to throw more light on the new governance of the local development, highlighting the similarities and differences that are present in various national cases.

In this article the authors examine the impact of local development policies and their implementation in Calabria. Analyzing the literature on this subject that claims a sort of dualism between government and governance, the researchers try to explore the possible connections between both approaches. Using case studies the researchers support the thesis that local development policies have to necessarily take into account the specific nature and vocations of territories and they must succeed in activating several partners on specific projects according to a logic of multilevel governance.

The aims of this article are twofold. In the first part it elaborates on the different uses of the concept of governance to be found in public policy analysis and design. An effort is made to distinguish from an analytical perspective between descriptive, explicatory and prescriptive points of view. Governance has been understood as (a way to bring together and analyse) the core questions in the building of a description of society as complex and plural and the demands for its guidance (i.e. the expression of the need for social representations of contemporary society and for strategic devices to drive it). The second part is devoted to the "multilevel governance" perspective, discussed as a theoretical and operative figure to understand and represent the complex reality of the European Union's political system, which is introduced to compete with and/or complement other understandings and representations (e.g. European integration). [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]