Considerations on the use, misuse, and abuse of social indicators in the formulation and assessment of local public policies

Abstract

There has been a growing interest in the use of social indicators for public policy making on the local level, as a result of the democratization, the administrative and budget decentralization, and the establishment of local planning brought by the 1988 Constitution. This paper offers a few conceptual and methodological contributions to the discussion on the use of social indicators in this process. It discusses the definition of social indicator, its properties, its classification systems, and its data sources. It analyzes the characteristics and limitations of the human development index in the policymaking process. It concludes by urging for a more critical and reflexive approach to the current custom of mythicizing the technical aspects of public policy making and assessment, to the detriment of a more profound analysis of the process.