Mattia Casula
Biographic Data
| ID | 103682 |
|---|---|
| NAME | Mattia Casula |
| GIVEN NAMES | Mattia |
| FAMILY NAME | Casula |
| SIGNATURE | CASULA M |
| AFFILIATIONS | University of Bologna |
| ORCID | 0000-0002-7081-8153 |
| VERIFIED | Yes |
| TOTAL WORKS | 25 |
| TOTAL CITATIONS | 54 |
| AUTHOR COUNT | 25 |
| EDITOR COUNT | 0 |
| FIRST PUBLICATION YEAR | 2015 |
| LATEST PUBLICATION YEAR | 2025 |
| H-INDEX | 5 |
Policy Growth and Its Impacts on Policy Implementation: Changes, Challenges and Chances
In this Special Issue titled “Policy Growth and Its Impacts on Policy Implementation,” we present a collection of articles examining the relationship between the policy growth and policy implementation. The issue is organized around three key themes: changes, challenges, and chances. In the “changes” section, we feature scholarly work that investigates how policy growth influences the evolution of implementation structures and practices. The “cha…
The Case for Gauging as a Research Purpose in Public Administration: Connecting Purpose, Frameworks, Design, and Norms in Applied Research
This article proposes “gauging” as an unrecognized and useful research purpose for public administration. Unlike an explanatory research purpose, which uses an experimental logic and hypotheses, gauging incorporates a logic of rating and frameworks like standards. It is used in normative assessments such as accreditation, process evaluation, and regulatory policy. We argue that it should be part of public administration’s research tradition becau…
Implementation arrangements as institutions: Assessments and prospects
Editorial
Re-organizing the service-delivery machine in a “post-NPM” era: A shopping-basket approach
We investigate how the reorganization of the service-delivery ‘machine’ is resulting in a hybridization of NPM and post-NPM principles. We compare reform trajectories in Italy and Spain to illustrate and interpret a combination of reorganization recipes that, from both the provision and production sides, affected service delivery; and how the NPM and post-NPM principles have been followed. Our analysis of how organizational structures for public …
Mapping bureaucratic overload: Dynamics and drivers in media coverage across three European countries
Bureaucratic overburdening has emerged as an important theme in public policy and administration research. The concept signifies a state where public administrators are overwhelmed with more tasks and responsibilities than they can effectively handle. Researchers attribute this phenomenon to several key factors, such as an increasing assault on the public sector, a growing volume of policies to enforce, and “external” shocks. These studies conver…
Exploring the link between administrative styles and policy output: The case of the Italian Extraordinary Commissioner for the Covid‐19 Emergency
Administrative style is a central concept in public policy and administration research. Despite the developments in the field, less is known about the effect different administrative styles have on policy output. To contribute to filling this gap, the article offers an original framework to explore the link between administrative styles and policy output based on the consolidated distinction between functional and positional orientations as const…
Navigating collaborative governance in Florida: An analysis of local governments resilience amidst the Covid ‐19 pandemic
This study investigates the effectiveness of collaborative governance in the context of state and local government responses to the COVID‐19 pandemic in Florida. Our analysis uncovers how local authorities have successfully adapted to implement policies to increase resilience and address the crisis, despite facing challenges, constraints, and limitations. Our findings underscore the significance of considering unique local characteristics when ad…
Understanding social innovation in refugee integration: Actors, practices, politics in Europe
The so-called ‘refugee crisis’ marked a crucial juncture in migration governance across Europe. Policy-makers and local communities face the challenge of receiving and integrating migrants (often in extremely vulnerable conditions) in a context of poor governance arrangements and rising skepticism, or even hostility. In the light of such a complex scenario, this special issue explores social innovation as a promising approach to refugee integrati…
Styles of inter-municipal cooperation and the multiple principal problem: A comparative analysis of European Economic Area countries
Contains fulltext : 284696.pdf (Publisher’s version ) (Open Access
A new typology for comparing scientific advisory committees. Evidence from the Italian response to the Covid ‐19 pandemic
The study of scientific advisory committees (SACs) is a recurrent topic of research in public policy and public administration. Scholars are increasingly interested in analyzing the scientization of policy advice as well as the role played by knowledge‐based policymaking processes. Despite recent developments in the field, SACs studies continue to face an analytical and empirical gap due to the lack of parsimonious conceptualizations of the chara…
Implementing the transformative innovation policy in the European Union: How does transformative change occur in Member States
Despite the emerging theoretical importance of the ‘transformative change’ approach, relatively little is known about how the transition towards this approach is happening in different European contexts, as well as the institutional factors that help explain possible different reform trajectories. To fill this research gap, this article interprets the adoption of the ‘transformative change’ approach in Europe as a paradigmatic case of multi-level…
How different multilevel and multi-actor arrangements impact policy implementation: Evidence from EU regional policy
While implementation through multilevel governance (MLG) has often been found to have achieved limited success, the literature agrees that further studies are required to investigate if and how different MLG systems impact policy implementation. By collecting data from the implementation of four European Union (EU) regional development programmes, characterized by distinct organizational and institutional arrangements, this article adopts a perfo…
How to frame the governance dimension of social innovation: Theoretical considerations and empirical evidence
Social innovation approach has been increasingly used by governments in delivery of public services, since the development of more and more complex societal challenges requires the establishment of new multi-actor implementation structures and arrangements. More recently, a call for a more robust analytical framework emerged in order to enable evaluation of the growing number and types of socially innovative practices implemented in different Eur…
Designing and implementing policies for transformative change in Europe: Ideas, policy mixes, actors
Institutionalizing innovation in welfare local services through co-production: Toward a Neo-Weberian State
Innovative practices based on the involvement of citizens as co-producers of welfare local services have been increasingly adopted by the public sector to effectively tackle emerging social problems. Despite the development in the literature on this subject, recent studies still do not clearly indicate which are the challenges for the institutionalization of such practices. By applying a governance lens to the analysis of co-production of local p…
Assessing the Multi-level Government Response to the Covid-19 Crisis: Italy and Spain Compared
This article compares the functioning of the intergovernmental systems in Italy and Spain facing the COVID-19 crisis. Combining the public administration literature on policy learning and multi-level governance with that on the institutional collective action framework, this article analyses if and how Italy and Spain have reacted and learned from the external pressures of the pandemic, leading to institutional adjustments to the respective multi…
The 2017 Italian reform on mandatory childhood vaccinations: Analysis of the policy process and early implementation
BACKGROUND: The data on vaccination coverage for the year 2016 were a cause of concern for the Italian government. For some years, in fact, there has been a growing mistrust of vaccines in the Italy, and consequently vaccination coverage rates have been decreasing. The number of cases of measles has been particularly high. AIM: The purpose of this article is to examine the content and the preliminary outcomes of the Lorenzin Decree, which was pas…
The potential of working hypotheses for deductive exploratory research
While hypotheses frame explanatory studies and provide guidance for measurement and statistical tests, deductive, exploratory research does not have a framing device like the hypothesis. To this purpose, this article examines the landscape of deductive, exploratory research and offers the working hypothesis as a flexible, useful framework that can guide and bring coherence across the steps in the research process. The working hypothesis conceptua…
Centralizing cohesion policy in times of austerity: Evidence from the policy cycle
European policy-making has been interpreted as a pendulum that swings between the Member States (MSs) and the transnational arena when choices about where to assign policy responsibilities have to be made. As in other policy sectors, the pendulum metaphor has been used to interpret the changes which have occurred in Cohesion Policy supremacy. This article analyses how the attribution of responsibilities between the European Commission (EC), and t…
Under which conditions is Cohesion Policy effective: Proposing an Hirschmanian approach to EU structural funds
Under which conditions is EU Cohesion Policy effective? Which are those ‘conditioning factors’ that help in explaining where, when, and how the Cohesion Policy is effective? This article adopts an Hirschmanian approach to argue that that the institutional characteristics of domestic authorities involved in the management of funds, as well as the decisions of policy makers, represent the key factors for understanding the effects of the Cohesion Po…
It is a Working Hypothesis: Searching for Truth in a Post-Truth World (part 2)
Public administration research methodology should be flexible and comprehensive enough to include many methodologies and approaches to inquiry. In this paper we show how certain kinds of qualitative and mixed method s tudies often lack of a clear theoretical s tructure and a s a result are poorly aligned across the stages of the research process. This paper introduces Working Hypotheses as a useful micro-conceptual framework with the capacity to …
It is a Working Hypothesis: Searching for Truth in a Post-Truth World (part I)
Public administration research methodology should be flexible and comprehensive enough to include many methodologies and approaches to inquiry. In this paper we show how certain kinds of qualitative and mixed method s tudies often lack of a clear theoretical s tructure and a s a result are poorly aligned across the stages of the research process. This paper introduces Working Hypotheses as a useful micro-conceptual framework with the capacity to …
Pursuing defragmentation at the municipal level: Signs of a changing pattern
Municipal fragmentation is a real historical issue in Italy but its relevance has been differently perceived over time. With a focus on the municipal unions and amalgamations as the main tools for defragmentation, we will present an overview of the last quarter century (1990–2017) of territorial policy at the local level. The reforms introduced since 2010 marked a step change in this area: in fact, empirical evidence shows that the most recent de…
Between national constraints and the legacies of the past: Explaining variations in inter-municipal cooperation in Italian regions
Despite the historical tradition of inter-municipal cooperation in several regions, the Italian policy maker has for the first time decided to oblige small municipalities to co-manage their basic functions. Although controversial because of its overly top-down logic, this provision is driving a “new” era of inter-municipal cooperation in Italian regions: around 70% of Italian municipalities must choose between a municipal union and a covenant in …
Opportunity Structures for Citizens’ Participation in Italian Regions: A Case Study
The Italian process of decentralization is opening new opportunities for action in the matter of political participation for Italian regions. Starting from the analysis of a regional case study (Emilia-Romagna), the paper tries to explain how a single region could elaborate a set of policy-oriented instruments to direct citizens’ political participation and mobilize them on specific issues beyond the classic electoral channel. After the presentat…
A new typology for comparing scientific advisory committees. Evidence from the Italian response to the Covid ‐19 pandemic
The study of scientific advisory committees (SACs) is a recurrent topic of research in public policy and public administration. Scholars are increasingly interested in analyzing the scientization of policy advice as well as the role played by knowledge‐based policymaking processes. Despite recent developments in the field, SACs studies continue to face an analytical and empirical gap due to the lack of parsimonious conceptualizations of the chara…
Institutionalizing innovation in welfare local services through co-production: Toward a Neo-Weberian State
Innovative practices based on the involvement of citizens as co-producers of welfare local services have been increasingly adopted by the public sector to effectively tackle emerging social problems. Despite the development in the literature on this subject, recent studies still do not clearly indicate which are the challenges for the institutionalization of such practices. By applying a governance lens to the analysis of co-production of local p…
Styles of inter-municipal cooperation and the multiple principal problem: A comparative analysis of European Economic Area countries
Contains fulltext : 284696.pdf (Publisher’s version ) (Open Access
How different multilevel and multi-actor arrangements impact policy implementation: Evidence from EU regional policy
While implementation through multilevel governance (MLG) has often been found to have achieved limited success, the literature agrees that further studies are required to investigate if and how different MLG systems impact policy implementation. By collecting data from the implementation of four European Union (EU) regional development programmes, characterized by distinct organizational and institutional arrangements, this article adopts a perfo…
How to frame the governance dimension of social innovation: Theoretical considerations and empirical evidence
Social innovation approach has been increasingly used by governments in delivery of public services, since the development of more and more complex societal challenges requires the establishment of new multi-actor implementation structures and arrangements. More recently, a call for a more robust analytical framework emerged in order to enable evaluation of the growing number and types of socially innovative practices implemented in different Eur…
Mapping bureaucratic overload: Dynamics and drivers in media coverage across three European countries
Bureaucratic overburdening has emerged as an important theme in public policy and administration research. The concept signifies a state where public administrators are overwhelmed with more tasks and responsibilities than they can effectively handle. Researchers attribute this phenomenon to several key factors, such as an increasing assault on the public sector, a growing volume of policies to enforce, and “external” shocks. These studies conver…
Between national constraints and the legacies of the past: Explaining variations in inter-municipal cooperation in Italian regions
Despite the historical tradition of inter-municipal cooperation in several regions, the Italian policy maker has for the first time decided to oblige small municipalities to co-manage their basic functions. Although controversial because of its overly top-down logic, this provision is driving a “new” era of inter-municipal cooperation in Italian regions: around 70% of Italian municipalities must choose between a municipal union and a covenant in …
Implementation arrangements as institutions: Assessments and prospects
Editorial
Exploring the link between administrative styles and policy output: The case of the Italian Extraordinary Commissioner for the Covid‐19 Emergency
Administrative style is a central concept in public policy and administration research. Despite the developments in the field, less is known about the effect different administrative styles have on policy output. To contribute to filling this gap, the article offers an original framework to explore the link between administrative styles and policy output based on the consolidated distinction between functional and positional orientations as const…
Understanding social innovation in refugee integration: Actors, practices, politics in Europe
The so-called ‘refugee crisis’ marked a crucial juncture in migration governance across Europe. Policy-makers and local communities face the challenge of receiving and integrating migrants (often in extremely vulnerable conditions) in a context of poor governance arrangements and rising skepticism, or even hostility. In the light of such a complex scenario, this special issue explores social innovation as a promising approach to refugee integrati…
Under which conditions is Cohesion Policy effective: Proposing an Hirschmanian approach to EU structural funds
Under which conditions is EU Cohesion Policy effective? Which are those ‘conditioning factors’ that help in explaining where, when, and how the Cohesion Policy is effective? This article adopts an Hirschmanian approach to argue that that the institutional characteristics of domestic authorities involved in the management of funds, as well as the decisions of policy makers, represent the key factors for understanding the effects of the Cohesion Po…
Designing and implementing policies for transformative change in Europe: Ideas, policy mixes, actors
Centralizing cohesion policy in times of austerity: Evidence from the policy cycle
European policy-making has been interpreted as a pendulum that swings between the Member States (MSs) and the transnational arena when choices about where to assign policy responsibilities have to be made. As in other policy sectors, the pendulum metaphor has been used to interpret the changes which have occurred in Cohesion Policy supremacy. This article analyses how the attribution of responsibilities between the European Commission (EC), and t…
Opportunity Structures for Citizens’ Participation in Italian Regions: A Case Study
The Italian process of decentralization is opening new opportunities for action in the matter of political participation for Italian regions. Starting from the analysis of a regional case study (Emilia-Romagna), the paper tries to explain how a single region could elaborate a set of policy-oriented instruments to direct citizens’ political participation and mobilize them on specific issues beyond the classic electoral channel. After the presentat…
Between national constraints and the legacies of the past: Explaining variations in inter-municipal cooperation in Italian regions
Despite the historical tradition of inter-municipal cooperation in several regions, the Italian policy maker has for the first time decided to oblige small municipalities to co-manage their basic functions. Although controversial because of its overly top-down logic, this provision is driving a “new” era of inter-municipal cooperation in Italian regions: around 70% of Italian municipalities must choose between a municipal union and a covenant in …
Pursuing defragmentation at the municipal level: Signs of a changing pattern
Municipal fragmentation is a real historical issue in Italy but its relevance has been differently perceived over time. With a focus on the municipal unions and amalgamations as the main tools for defragmentation, we will present an overview of the last quarter century (1990–2017) of territorial policy at the local level. The reforms introduced since 2010 marked a step change in this area: in fact, empirical evidence shows that the most recent de…
It is a Working Hypothesis: Searching for Truth in a Post-Truth World (part 2)
Public administration research methodology should be flexible and comprehensive enough to include many methodologies and approaches to inquiry. In this paper we show how certain kinds of qualitative and mixed method s tudies often lack of a clear theoretical s tructure and a s a result are poorly aligned across the stages of the research process. This paper introduces Working Hypotheses as a useful micro-conceptual framework with the capacity to …
It is a Working Hypothesis: Searching for Truth in a Post-Truth World (part I)
Public administration research methodology should be flexible and comprehensive enough to include many methodologies and approaches to inquiry. In this paper we show how certain kinds of qualitative and mixed method s tudies often lack of a clear theoretical s tructure and a s a result are poorly aligned across the stages of the research process. This paper introduces Working Hypotheses as a useful micro-conceptual framework with the capacity to …
Under which conditions is Cohesion Policy effective: Proposing an Hirschmanian approach to EU structural funds
Under which conditions is EU Cohesion Policy effective? Which are those ‘conditioning factors’ that help in explaining where, when, and how the Cohesion Policy is effective? This article adopts an Hirschmanian approach to argue that that the institutional characteristics of domestic authorities involved in the management of funds, as well as the decisions of policy makers, represent the key factors for understanding the effects of the Cohesion Po…
Assessing the Multi-level Government Response to the Covid-19 Crisis: Italy and Spain Compared
This article compares the functioning of the intergovernmental systems in Italy and Spain facing the COVID-19 crisis. Combining the public administration literature on policy learning and multi-level governance with that on the institutional collective action framework, this article analyses if and how Italy and Spain have reacted and learned from the external pressures of the pandemic, leading to institutional adjustments to the respective multi…
The 2017 Italian reform on mandatory childhood vaccinations: Analysis of the policy process and early implementation
BACKGROUND: The data on vaccination coverage for the year 2016 were a cause of concern for the Italian government. For some years, in fact, there has been a growing mistrust of vaccines in the Italy, and consequently vaccination coverage rates have been decreasing. The number of cases of measles has been particularly high. AIM: The purpose of this article is to examine the content and the preliminary outcomes of the Lorenzin Decree, which was pas…
The potential of working hypotheses for deductive exploratory research
While hypotheses frame explanatory studies and provide guidance for measurement and statistical tests, deductive, exploratory research does not have a framing device like the hypothesis. To this purpose, this article examines the landscape of deductive, exploratory research and offers the working hypothesis as a flexible, useful framework that can guide and bring coherence across the steps in the research process. The working hypothesis conceptua…
Centralizing cohesion policy in times of austerity: Evidence from the policy cycle
European policy-making has been interpreted as a pendulum that swings between the Member States (MSs) and the transnational arena when choices about where to assign policy responsibilities have to be made. As in other policy sectors, the pendulum metaphor has been used to interpret the changes which have occurred in Cohesion Policy supremacy. This article analyses how the attribution of responsibilities between the European Commission (EC), and t…
Implementing the transformative innovation policy in the European Union: How does transformative change occur in Member States
Despite the emerging theoretical importance of the ‘transformative change’ approach, relatively little is known about how the transition towards this approach is happening in different European contexts, as well as the institutional factors that help explain possible different reform trajectories. To fill this research gap, this article interprets the adoption of the ‘transformative change’ approach in Europe as a paradigmatic case of multi-level…
How different multilevel and multi-actor arrangements impact policy implementation: Evidence from EU regional policy
While implementation through multilevel governance (MLG) has often been found to have achieved limited success, the literature agrees that further studies are required to investigate if and how different MLG systems impact policy implementation. By collecting data from the implementation of four European Union (EU) regional development programmes, characterized by distinct organizational and institutional arrangements, this article adopts a perfo…
How to frame the governance dimension of social innovation: Theoretical considerations and empirical evidence
Social innovation approach has been increasingly used by governments in delivery of public services, since the development of more and more complex societal challenges requires the establishment of new multi-actor implementation structures and arrangements. More recently, a call for a more robust analytical framework emerged in order to enable evaluation of the growing number and types of socially innovative practices implemented in different Eur…
Designing and implementing policies for transformative change in Europe: Ideas, policy mixes, actors
Institutionalizing innovation in welfare local services through co-production: Toward a Neo-Weberian State
Innovative practices based on the involvement of citizens as co-producers of welfare local services have been increasingly adopted by the public sector to effectively tackle emerging social problems. Despite the development in the literature on this subject, recent studies still do not clearly indicate which are the challenges for the institutionalization of such practices. By applying a governance lens to the analysis of co-production of local p…
Exploring the link between administrative styles and policy output: The case of the Italian Extraordinary Commissioner for the Covid‐19 Emergency
Administrative style is a central concept in public policy and administration research. Despite the developments in the field, less is known about the effect different administrative styles have on policy output. To contribute to filling this gap, the article offers an original framework to explore the link between administrative styles and policy output based on the consolidated distinction between functional and positional orientations as const…
Navigating collaborative governance in Florida: An analysis of local governments resilience amidst the Covid ‐19 pandemic
This study investigates the effectiveness of collaborative governance in the context of state and local government responses to the COVID‐19 pandemic in Florida. Our analysis uncovers how local authorities have successfully adapted to implement policies to increase resilience and address the crisis, despite facing challenges, constraints, and limitations. Our findings underscore the significance of considering unique local characteristics when ad…
Understanding social innovation in refugee integration: Actors, practices, politics in Europe
The so-called ‘refugee crisis’ marked a crucial juncture in migration governance across Europe. Policy-makers and local communities face the challenge of receiving and integrating migrants (often in extremely vulnerable conditions) in a context of poor governance arrangements and rising skepticism, or even hostility. In the light of such a complex scenario, this special issue explores social innovation as a promising approach to refugee integrati…
Styles of inter-municipal cooperation and the multiple principal problem: A comparative analysis of European Economic Area countries
Contains fulltext : 284696.pdf (Publisher’s version ) (Open Access
A new typology for comparing scientific advisory committees. Evidence from the Italian response to the Covid ‐19 pandemic
The study of scientific advisory committees (SACs) is a recurrent topic of research in public policy and public administration. Scholars are increasingly interested in analyzing the scientization of policy advice as well as the role played by knowledge‐based policymaking processes. Despite recent developments in the field, SACs studies continue to face an analytical and empirical gap due to the lack of parsimonious conceptualizations of the chara…
Re-organizing the service-delivery machine in a “post-NPM” era: A shopping-basket approach
We investigate how the reorganization of the service-delivery ‘machine’ is resulting in a hybridization of NPM and post-NPM principles. We compare reform trajectories in Italy and Spain to illustrate and interpret a combination of reorganization recipes that, from both the provision and production sides, affected service delivery; and how the NPM and post-NPM principles have been followed. Our analysis of how organizational structures for public …
Mapping bureaucratic overload: Dynamics and drivers in media coverage across three European countries
Bureaucratic overburdening has emerged as an important theme in public policy and administration research. The concept signifies a state where public administrators are overwhelmed with more tasks and responsibilities than they can effectively handle. Researchers attribute this phenomenon to several key factors, such as an increasing assault on the public sector, a growing volume of policies to enforce, and “external” shocks. These studies conver…
Policy Growth and Its Impacts on Policy Implementation: Changes, Challenges and Chances
In this Special Issue titled “Policy Growth and Its Impacts on Policy Implementation,” we present a collection of articles examining the relationship between the policy growth and policy implementation. The issue is organized around three key themes: changes, challenges, and chances. In the “changes” section, we feature scholarly work that investigates how policy growth influences the evolution of implementation structures and practices. The “cha…
The Case for Gauging as a Research Purpose in Public Administration: Connecting Purpose, Frameworks, Design, and Norms in Applied Research
This article proposes “gauging” as an unrecognized and useful research purpose for public administration. Unlike an explanatory research purpose, which uses an experimental logic and hypotheses, gauging incorporates a logic of rating and frameworks like standards. It is used in normative assessments such as accreditation, process evaluation, and regulatory policy. We argue that it should be part of public administration’s research tradition becau…
Implementation arrangements as institutions: Assessments and prospects
Editorial
Political science (23 works) · Economics (16 works) · Business (13 works) · Sociology (13 works) · Law (12 works) · Public Policy and Administration Research (12 works) · Public Administration (11 works) · Computer Science (10 works) · Politics (10 works) · Corporate governance (9 works)