Università Roma Tre

Objectives
At the end of the course students will have a good knowledge of the topics covered in the lessons and be able not only to identify the main theories, actors, institutions, policy instruments and the different stages of creation of public policies, but also to critically evaluate the policy-making processes and the development of policies resulting from the impact of domestic and international factors.

Program
The making of public policies is one of the basic functions of each political system, it affects the arrangement of solutions by policy makers to the problems that arise in society. The analysis of public policies is a specific perspective of study in political science that the course intends to introduce. The particular objective is to provide the conceptual tools for understanding and analysing the policy process.
The lessons will be split in two parts: general introduction and empirical application.
The first part will introduce the basic concepts of the discipline, it will give an overview of the definitions of “public policy” and will outline the various approaches to the study of public policies. Then, will be presented the main typologies of policies, the actors involved in their production, and the different stages that give rise to the policy making process: agenda setting, formulation, decision, implementation, evaluation. Lastly, will be discussed the national styles of policy making and the influence of international factors on them.
The second part, given the relevance of the automotive industry in Italy, will be devoted to the analysis of government policies relating to the automotive industry. Particular attention will be paid to the interaction between public and private actors in the definition of policies on the automotive industry and it will be shown (even by comparison with the experience of other major Western countries) as the incidence of domestic and international factors contributed the evolution of the Italian policy style in the automotive industry.

Reference books

– Howlett M., Ramesh M. and A. Perl, Studying Public Policy. Policy Cycles and Policy Subsystems 3rd ed., Toronto, Oxford University Press, 2009.
-Germano L., Fiat Goes it Alone: The Italian Car Industry, The Government, and the Crisis of 2000s, in «South European Society and Politics», Vol. 17 N.1, 2012 PP. 65-86. DOI: 10.1080/13608746.2011.647467.