E-evaluating public policies (with citizens?) 22. October 2009 – 20:08 by University Bergamo

Next week at the University of Milano an interesting Conference (“Mettere i governi davanti alle evidenze. Valutazione delle politiche, web 2.0 e competenza dei cittadini”) will focus on the relevance of web 2.0 in the field of co-evaluating public policies with citizens.

This is a peculiar approach to e-participation. Is this focus on evaluating public policies a better way to involve citizens in the institutional action? Can we consider more urgent to involve citizens in strategic decision-making (for example evaluating a policy action as a whole) or in the evaluation of the public performances (i.e. testing a service)?
To establish the participation of the citizens to policy evaluation as a general principle of good administration can effectively increase transparency and accountability of the governement, and value the citizens competences: this seems the key message of the Conference. But which are the levels of the institutional activities addressed by this new practices of ‘policy’ evaluation?
I think that the answer to this question can help to make clearer if politics or management is at stake.

All the details on the Conference web-site:
http://www.pubblica.org/

Anna Carola Freschi
(University of Bergamo)

Tags: inenglish