Policy design and state capacity in the COVID-19 emergency in Italy: if you are not prepared for the (un)expected, you can be only what you already are

Italy was the first large epicentre of the COVID-19 pandemic in the Western world. Since the country has not had any serious experience with this kind of disease in recent decades, its response has been indicative of a first reaction to an (un)known and (un)expected event. At the same time, the Italian experience is an emblematic case of how a lack of specific preparedness measures drives a country to deal with this kind of crisis through a process in which the existing characteristics of the policy and political system, with all their pros and cons, prevail. This means that the existing country characteristics that affects policy design, state capacity, institutional arrangements and political games forge the process and content of the response. Based on this observation, this paper analyses the policy dynamics of the first four months of management of the COVID-19 outbreak in Italy, focusing on how the health and economic responses were designed and implemented

Mapping the use of knowledge in policymaking: barriers and facilitators from a subjectivist perspective (1990–2020)

The use of knowledge and evidence in policymaking is a recurrent topic of research due to its scientific and policy relevance. The existing and expansive body of literature has been scrutinised in various ways to grasp the dimensions of knowledge utilisation in policymak- ing, although most of this research has a monosectoral focus and is based on very general criteria of analysis that do not completely account for the complexity of policy making. This paper overcomes this limitation by enlightening the epistemological divide in the field between an objectivist and a subjectivist perspective and by distinguishing two dif- ferent focuses in this literature: a focus on knowledge for policy making and a focus on knowledge in policy making. Based on this analytical distinction, the paper presents an original and unprecedented systematic, intersectoral metareview by considering the thirty- year period between 1990 and 2020 (approximately 1,400 were selected for fine-grained analysis). This metareview offers a broader and more detailed map with a clear idea of the distribution of interest in the topic among the different policy fields, a better classification of the theoretical/empirical content and research goals that scholars adopt and a novel and, above all, more fine-grained perspective on the types of conditions that favour or disfavour a significant role of knowledge in policymaking. Ultimately, and above all, this metareview identifies three highly relevant components of policy making that can facilitate or constrain the use of knowledge in policymaking more than others: values/ideology/beliefs, actors’ relationships, and policy capacities

Giorgio Freddi (1932-2024): The winemaker of Political Science in Italy

Giorgio Freddi, Professor Emeritus of the University of Bologna, passed away on May 20, 2024, at the age of 92. He played a pivotal role in establishing political science as a discipline in Italy and enhancing the University of Bologna's standing in empirical political studies. Born in 1932, he graduated with honors in law in 1955, subsequently earning a master's degree and a PhD in political science from the University of California, Berkeley, supported by a Ford Foundation scholarship. Upon his return to Italy, he dedicated himself to advancing empirical political research and institutional frameworks. Freddi held various notable positions, such as serving as a full professor at the University of Bologna starting in 1972, where he directed the Department of Political Science, elevating its reputation nationally. Additionally, he served as the President of the Italian Society of Political Science and was the inaugural Italian Chair of the European Consortium for Political Research. Widely recognized as a visiting professor at esteemed universities globally, Freddi was esteemed for his commitment to fostering his students' intellectual development and analytical skills. Giorgio Freddi's research encompassed bureaucratic systems, public administration, and public policy, leading to the publication of more than 15 books and 50 papers. He was renowned for his eloquence, wit, and extensive intellectual inquisitiveness. His lasting impact on Italian and international political science is characterized by his steadfast belief in rationality and his valuable contributions to the academic sphere

Giorgio Freddi (1932-2024): The winemaker of Political Science in Italy

Giorgio Freddi, Professor Emeritus of the University of Bologna, passed away on May 20, 2024, at the age of 92. He played a pivotal role in establishing political science as a discipline in Italy and enhancing the University of Bologna's standing in empirical political studies. Born in 1932, he graduated with honors in law in 1955, subsequently earning a master's degree and a PhD in political science from the University of California, Berkeley, supported by a Ford Foundation scholarship. Upon his return to Italy, he dedicated himself to advancing empirical political research and institutional frameworks. Freddi held various notable positions, such as serving as a full professor at the University of Bologna starting in 1972, where he directed the Department of Political Science, elevating its reputation nationally. Additionally, he served as the President of the Italian Society of Political Science and was the inaugural Italian Chair of the European Consortium for Political Research. Widely recognized as a visiting professor at esteemed universities globally, Freddi was esteemed for his commitment to fostering his students' intellectual development and analytical skills. Giorgio Freddi's research encompassed bureaucratic systems, public administration, and public policy, leading to the publication of more than 15 books and 50 papers. He was renowned for his eloquence, wit, and extensive intellectual inquisitiveness. His lasting impact on Italian and international political science is characterized by his steadfast belief in rationality and his valuable contributions to the academic sphere

The Fate of Political Scientists in Europe

This open access book offers a systematic survey of the attitudes and values of European political scientists. It builds a structural interpretation based on empirical data, as well as offering reflections on the future structure of the discipline. In the middle of a delicate phase of changes marked by the effects of pandemic and the war in Ukraine, we need to pay attention to the factors that are affecting not only the ‘objects’ of Political Science as a discipline but also its interactions with the world around it. First, this book asks to what extent the work of European political scientists is impacted by the current change. Second, their attitudes and predisposition about the future goals of the discipline are analysed. In the final chapter, the authors seek to understand to what extent a diffuse but still not completely institutionalized academic discipline will be able to produce a comprehensive impact around the European society, in order to be more visible and effective in policy making and policy processes

Designing policy robustness: outputs and processes

Faced with growing policy complexity and environmental uncertainty, policymakers are increasingly concerned with ensuring that policy processes retain functionality amidst shock and uncertainty. In this paper, we seek to address the ways in which robustness \u2013 or the capability of policies to maintain functionality and effectiveness in policy goal attainment \u2013 can be designed into policies, institutions or systems. We suggest that robust policy designs can be characterized by diversity, modularity and redundancy, whereas robust policy design processes require the presence of polycentric decisional process, political capacity and technical capacity. In identifying these design elements of policy robustness, we argue that robustness is a property that can be designed to ensure that policies continue to deliver, over time, its intended functions, purposes and objectives, even under negative circumstances

When the political leader is the narrator: the political and policy dimensions of narratives

There is increasing interest in the role of narratives in policy-making, as evidenced by the consolidation of the Narrative Policy Framework, a theory of the policy process whose overall aim is to explain how policy narratives influence policy outcomes. However, with the focus on only policy narratives, there is a risk of underestimating the relationship between the policy dynamics in a specific subsystem and the pursuit of consent in the political arena. To attract more scholarly attention to this relationship, this paper distinguishes between two types of narratives—the political narrative and the policy narrative. It focuses on how political leaders address the trade-off between the content of their political and policy narratives, not only adding analytical and theoretical leverage to the Narrative Policy Framework but also providing a fine-grained comprehension of the multilayered dynamics of narratives in politics. Our main assumption is that political leaders continuously address relationships and the eventual trade-off between their political narratives (the stories through which they shape the preferences of public opinion by proposing their general political vision) and their policy narratives (the stories they tell to shape the policy process and its outputs). The way leaders decide between these trade-offs can make a significant difference in terms of political and policy outputs. We test this assumption with a comparison of the use of narratives by the same political leader in labour and education policies in Italy

Assessing the types of policy networks in policymaking: Empirical evidence from administrative reform in Italy

Policy networks can propose solutions (policy communities, and epistemic communities), defend specific instruments (instrument constituencies), and programmatically prioritize change or stability (programmatic groups). This paper focuses on two specific networks that have been present in 30 years of administrative reform in Italy, and it empirically assesses what type of network they are according to their origins, developments over time, membership and motivations to stay together, and role in the policymaking. This comparison, while improving the current understanding of the networking taking place in the Italian administrative reform, shows that if policy networks are very relevant in the policy process, it is analytically more fruitful and empirically more reliable to assess their characteristics empirically, rather than to assume their existence in advance (and make hypotheses on this basis) or to use the concept in a purely metaphorical manner.(?,(?,(?. 30?,,,?.""?:???(?.Las redes de politicas pueden proponer soluciones (comunidades de politicas y comunidades epistemicas), defender instrumentos especificos (grupos de instrumentos) y priorizar programaticamente el cambio o la estabilidad (grupos programaticos). Este articulo se centra en dos redes especificas que han estado presentes durante 30 anos de reforma administrativa en Italia, y+ evalua empiricamente que tipo de red son segun sus origenes, evolucion a lo largo del tiempo, membresia y motivaciones para permanecer juntas, y papel en el proceso. formulacion de politicas. Esta comparacion, si bien mejora la comprension actual de las redes que tienen lugar en la reforma administrativa italiana, muestra que, si las redes de politicas son muy relevantes en el proceso politico, es analiticamente mas fructifero y empiricamente mas confiable evaluar sus caracteristicas empiricamente, en lugar de hacerlo. asumir su existencia de antemano (y formular hipotesis sobre esta base) o utilizar el concepto de una manera puramente metaforica

Dealing with the challenges of legitimacy, values, and politics in policy advice

Policy advice has been the subject of ongoing research in the policy sciences as it raises fundamental issues about what constitutes policy knowledge, expertise, and their effects on policymaking. This introduction reviews the existing literature on the subject and introduces the themes motivating the articles in the issue. It highlights the need to consider several key subjects in the topic in the contemporary era: namely the challenge of legitimacy, that of values, and the challenge of politics. The papers in the issue shed light on the ongoing delegitimization of conventional knowledge providers, the problem of the normative basis of experts’ advice, the increasing politicization of expertise in policymaking, and the relevance of political context in influencing not only the role of experts but also whether or not their advice is accepted and implemented. It is argued that these modern challenges, when not addressed, reinforce trends toward the inclusion of antidemocratic values and uninformed ideas in contemporary policymaking