Explaining complexity to power. A failed mission?

To revisit Bruno Dente's extraordinary research path is also an exploration of the development of policy studies in Italy from the 1970s to Dente’s final experiments aimed at improving the quality of interaction between policymakers and policy researchers. At the heart of Dente’s scientific vision lie theories and methods of policy evaluation that are sensitive to two different sources of complexity: the nature of policy problems and the relationship between the evaluator and the evaluated. For this reason, I focus on policy evaluation to explain the social, cultural, and political context of his enterprise. For our generation, public policy research was a discovery of the American policy sciences of democracy – a single trajectory from evaluation to the essence of democracy, something that was entirely original in the landscape of the then nascent discipline of political science in Italy. I then jump forward 50 years to offer a critical assessment of policy evaluation in Italy in light of Bruno’s vision. Here the comparison of Italy with France shows the different path to the institutionalization of evaluation, showing that little or nothing of what Bruno envisioned has been embedded in Italian institutions. This has happened because of limitations and deficiencies not only in the demand for policy evaluation, but also on the supply side. This conclusion sheds light on the breadth of policy vision, but also on the critical variables that engaged researchers have to take into account when moving from research to practice and to the impact on political institutions

LE POLITICHE SOCIALI IN ITALIA: METODI DI ANALISI

IntroduzioneQuesto articolo si propone tre obiettivi: discutere alcuni recenti orientamenti metodologici emersi dagli studi comparati sul policy making nei paesi occidentali; mettere alla prova la loro capacità di catturare elementi importanti del modo di elaborare le politiche sociali in Italia; controllare se non sia possibile trattare le discordanze tra i modelli considerati ed il caso italiano non come meri residui o come prodotti di una qualche anomalia nazionale, ma come elementi per un riesame degli schemi inizialmente assunti come punto di riferimento, in modo da ampliarne il potere esplicativo.</jats:p

Criança na escola? Programa de Formação Integral da Criança Children at school? Child Integral Upbringing Program

Este artigo analisa uma política pública que foi implementada em São Paulo, Brasil, entre os anos de 1986 e 1993. Este programa público, chamado Profic - Programa de Formação Integral da Criança -, procurou estender o tempo de permanência das crianças pobres na escola e expandir as condições para seu melhor desempenho na aprendizagem. Os autores escolheram uma abordagem incrementalista e usaram conceitos clássicos da análise de políticas, tais como atores, policy community, policy network, partizan mutual adjustment, entre outros. Ao mesmo tempo tentaram considerar as condições políticas que envolveram, então, esse processo de policy making.<br>This article analyses a public policy that was implemented in São Paulo, Brazil, between 1986 and 1993. This public program, called PROFIC- "Programa de Formação Integral da Criança"- sought to extend the permanency time of poor children at school and expand the conditions to their better performance in learning. The authors chose an "incrementalist" approach and used classical concepts of policies analysis, such as "actors", "policy community", "policy network", "partizan mutual adjustment", among others. At the same time they tried to consider the policies conditions that then involved this policy-making process