Computational Social Science, the Evolution of Policy Design and Rule Making in Smart Societies

Nicola Lettieri
Additional contact information
Nicola Lettieri: ISFOL, Institute for the Development of Vocational Training, Corso d’Italia 33, 00198 Rome, Italy

Future Internet, 2016, vol. 8, issue 2, 1-17

Abstract: In the last 20 years, the convergence of different factors—the rise of the complexity of science, the “data deluge” and the advances in information technologies—triggered a paradigm shift in the way we understand complex social systems and their evolution. Beyond shedding new light onto social dynamics, the emerging research area of Computational Social Science (CSS) is providing a new rationale for a more scientifically-grounded and effective policy design. The paper discusses the opportunities potentially deriving from the intersection between policy design issues and CSS methods. After a general introduction to the limits of traditional policy-making and a brief review of the most promising CSS methodologies, the work deals with way in which the insights potentially offered by CSS can concretely flow in policy choices. The attention is focused, to this end, on the legal mechanisms regulating the formulation and the evaluation of public policies. Our goal is two-fold: sketch how the project of a “smart society” is connected to the evolution of social sciences and emphasize the need for change in the way in which public policies are conceived of, designed and implemented.

Keywords: computational social science; policy modeling; rule making; smart society; social simulation (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: O3 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2016
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (3)

Downloads: (external link)
https://www.mdpi.com/1999-5903/8/2/19/pdf (application/pdf)
https://www.mdpi.com/1999-5903/8/2/19/ (text/html)

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:gam:jftint:v:8:y:2016:i:2:p:19-:d:69912

Access Statistics for this article

Future Internet is currently edited by Ms. Grace You

More articles in Future Internet from MDPI
Bibliographic data for series maintained by MDPI Indexing Manager ().