Giliberto Capano: The Politics of Detail: The Micro-Dimensions of Policy Design | Higher Research Seminar

Although policy analysis typically represents policies by their stated objectives or formal instruments, the actual demands, enablers, and constraints of a policy are determined by the operative choices that give instruments their concrete form. This seminar presents a systematic framework for the often-neglected layer of policy design: its micro-dimensions. The framework models policy as a "delivery package" consisting of two types of operative choices: goal specifications, which determine what the policy aims to achieve and for whom; and instrument calibrations, which determine how stringently, visibly, and through which arrangements the policy is delivered. The framework serves two purposes. First, it makes policy change and innovation measurable by distinguishing nominal reforms, in which labels shift while operative content remains the same, from substantive reforms, in which delivery packages are genuinely reconfigured. Politically, it shifts the focus of analysis to the delivery package, where distributional settlements are encoded, and the distance between the announcement and the effect is determined. Accountability must therefore extend to this level. Examining the micro-dimensions of policy design in relation to stated objectives reveals the logics, dynamics, and stakes of political conflict that remain invisible at the macro and meso levels. The talk argues that the micro-level is not a residual of design (and related political processes), but rather, its constitutive substance.

Giliberto Capano is Professor of Political Science and Public Policy. He has been (2003-2009) the Dean of Bologna University's II Faculty of Political Sciences (located on the Forlì campus). He has been the Editor of the Rivista Italiana di Politiche Pubbliche (Italian Journal of Public Policy) and he is co-editor of Policy & Society. He has been member of the Executive Committee of the International Political Science Association (2009-2014) and of the Executive Committee of the European Consortium of Political Research (2018-2024). In 2014 he has been one of the 12 founders of the International Public Policy Association. Read more