La social network analysis nella valutazione delle politiche sociali

Evaluation is a traditional topic in the political debate: public institutions evaluate public policies in order to get a measure of their effectiveness. In spite of their importance, it is well known that evaluation policy tools are difficult to apply in complex and dynamic contexts of social interventions, because of heterogeneity and plurality of actors and specific social needs. In this framework, the Social Network Analysis (SNA) techniques are particularly within useful evaluation practice to view the policy making process through the lens of relationships rather than just attribute among actors involved in the public policies. So it is possible to know about the nature, structure, development and potential sustainability for the future of the relationships between people, organizations, events or ideas in a specific project, program or initiative. Aims of the present PhD thesis are: i) to investigate the potential of using SNA techniques to stress the relevance of relationship dimension in decision-making arenas at different levels of policy design and ii) to study the effect of context and individual actions on public policy design, implementation and evaluation. Starting from this theoretical framework, the experimental part of the work focuses on one Italian regional program, part of the Seventh Framework Programme (2007-2013) of European Commission, whose aim was the contrast of social exclusion of disadvantaged families with children aged 0-3 years. .. [edited by Author]