POL 207 Policy Analysis and the Governance of Commons
Policy Analysis and the Governance of Commons
Class hours: 42
Credits (ECTS): 6
LM-SP – Specialization in Governance of Commons
Year: 2st
Terms: 3rd–4th
Course held in Italian
The course introduces to understanding the functioning of the “state in action”, an essential field of research for a non-naive analysis of political and administrative processes at local and supra-local level: public policy-making is an activity that organizes peculiar resources, presents specific obstacles, and requires particular intervention techniques and theoretical and methodological tools. With a broad reflection on the progressive change of paradigms in the structure of decision-making models and public management, the course focuses in particular on the theme of commons, which entered social, economic and political science areas in particular with Elinor Ostrom’s studies.
Students will learn principles, meanings and practices of modern commons goods public management, and the fundamental skills to outline and implement sustainable, collaborative and polycentric strategies of urban co-governance, increasingly necessary to compose in one framework the plurality of voices and interests that characterizes the phenomenology of contemporary societies.
The program aims to give ample space to the collective action and civic initiative of city dwellers, who today appear central in the processes of social innovation and participatory planning, in urban regeneration, community development and ecological resilience.
Bibliographical references:
- BOBBIO L., POMATTO G., RAVAZZI S., Le politiche pubbliche. Problemi, soluzioni, incertezze, conflitti, Mondadori Università, Firenze, 2017.
- BOBBIO L., La democrazia non abita a Gordio, Angeli, Milano 1996 (ed. 2003).
- ARENA G., IAIONE C. (a cura di), L’età della condivisione, La collaborazione fra cittadini e amministrazione per i beni comuni, Carocci, Roma 2015.
- HOWLETT M., RAMESH M., Come studiare le politiche pubbliche, il Mulino, Bologna 2003.
- SCLAVI M., Arte di ascoltare e mondi possibili, Bruno Mondadori, Milano 2003.
- Other materials about the selected topics will be provided in class.
English language students may also refer to:
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- HOWLETT M., RAMESH M., PERL A., Studying Public Policy, Oxford University Press, 2009.
- FISCHER F., MILLER G.J., SYDNEY M.S., Handbook of Public Policy Analysis: Theory, Politics, and Methods, CRC Press NY 2007.

Professor Daniela Ropelato
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