Theories and Research Methods for Public Administrations

As part of the interdisciplinary training of our Public Policies and Administration Post graduate Course, this teaching is aimed at giving analytical, both theoretical and methodological, knowledge and skills, for the analysis of decision making of Public Administrations, understood as complex organizations, and for the conception, design, implementation of research/intervention activities within the state bureaucracies. Starting from a theoretical framework given by Social theory (with particular reference to rational choice theory, economic analysis of organizations, neo-institutionalist theories and theories of power), those knowledge and skills will be introduced and declined with respect to the characteristics of some relevant public administrative systems (USA, Germany, France, UK, Italy). In the second part of the course, we will focus on some of the main techniques of quantitative data analysis: using case studies we will try to highlight the salience of those techniques for the purposes of the research and intervention activities that are intended to be carried out in the context of public administrations, at different levels, both national and local.

- Knowledge and Understanding: at the end of the course, the student will have got a set of analytical skills, both theoretical and methodological, related to decision making and to the design and execution of research/intervention activities in Public Administration.
In a theoretical perspective, these skills will be part of an ideal toolkit for interpreting the functioning, for diagnosing the main dysfunctions, as well as for acting possibile interventions aimed at improving the performance, of the Public Administration as complex organization..
- Applying Knowledge and Learning Skills: those skills should allow the student to autonomously proceed with the organizational analysis of sector, offices and activities of the Public Administration, as well as the design of research/intervention actions aimed at improving their organizational and policy performance.
- Communication Skills: through the discussion of case studies, the student should learn to design, organize, carry out and evaluate a research/intervention action for the Public Administration, in many and different sectors and offices, as well as to communicate the results of those activities to interlocutors of various kinds, specialists and non-specialists ones.