We recommend the article by Irene Ponzo (FIERI), published in the magazine Autonomie locali e Servizi sociali (n.2/2025)

Abstract

The article aims to understand if the size of municipalities impacts policy learning processes in the field of migrant integration by comparing the setting up of one-stop shops for migrants in four Italian localities. It illustrates how the marginality of small municipalities within translocal networks hampers knowledge transfer, while emphasising that this is not an inescapable trap but rather a matter of policy and institutional planning. At the same time, the low involvement of small localities in formal translocal networks seems to hamper the shift from tacit knowledge to explicit knowledge, rather than totally cutting small localities off from knowledge transfer. A form of tacit policy transfer seems to be occurring, eluding the traditional analytical tools typically used in the study of policy learning, and highlighting the potential benefits of cross-fertilisation with organisational studies.