Universidade de Coimbra

Post-Doc, Centro de Estudos Sociais

About

I hold a PhD in Political Science from the Department of Political Studies of the University of Torino (January 2009). From 2009 to 2011 I have been lecturing Public Policy Analysis to undergraduates and graduates students and research methodology to graduate students.



During the period May 2011 – 2013, I will be post-doctoral fellow at CES - Centro de Estudos Sociais, University of Coimbra. I live in Portugal, between Coimbra and Lisbon.

My research has been focusing on the contested Italian water management reform (1994-referendum 2011), having two main goals: i) to explain how water actors interpreted the margins of flexibility provided by the new regulations of the 1994, ii) to explore the 20 years old controversy around the reform by delving into the different ways of conceiving the “water problem” in the national context.

While I am still working on this last topic, during my post-doc at CES I will develop a new research projects exploring – both theoretically and empirically – the role of expertise in decision-making processes. Following “interpretive approaches” for policy studies and the literature of the Science and Technology Studies, the research will address the relation between knowledge production and governance production by focusing the reproduction of the scientific cultures in environmental policies.

I am also interested in research policies, particularly within the European Research Area. in collaboration with Irene Bono at the research association Twai - Torino World Affairs Institute (www.twai.it), I am working on the research project OMERA Social Sciences (Observatory of Mobility in Social Sciences in the European Research Area) addressing the funding of social sciences’ research and the narratives of research mobility.
The website of the project has been launched in November 2011 http://www.omerasocialsciences.org.

Among my publications: Decisional rounds and local modes of governance in Italian water management reform in Water Policy (2011), La riforma dei servizi pubblici locali. Il caso dei servizi idrici, in Stato e Mercato (2011), Privatising local public services between industrial legacy and political ambitions, in Local Government Studies (2010), I referendum del 2011. Una vittoria a metà, in Politica in Italia 2011 (Il Mulino, forthcoming 2012).

More details on my personal page at CES http://www.ces.uc.pt/investigadores/index.php?action=bio&id_investigador=592

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