‘Green gas’ is a sustainable alternative to natural gas. It is produced by converting biomass into biogas, which can consequently be upgraded to natural gas standards. Expectations about green gas are high. According to the long term vision of Netbeheer Nederland, the representative association of gas grid operators, green gas will entail 50 percent of the domestic gas mixture by 2050. In line with this vision national government has adopted a green gas innovation support program. Production of green gas takes place in rural areas with abundant supply of organic production resources, especially manure. It is in demonstration projects that green gas niche development is to be proven. In this paper the central question is how green gas demonstration projects manifest at the local level. By conducting a stakeholder analysis, we take a ‘bottom-up’ research approach, which helps us to identify organizational and institutional barriers key local stakeholders have in relation to green gas demonstration projects. We judge this necessary to further understanding in green gas niche development. The results of the analysis are used to advice policymakers about design and use of policy instruments which can help to solve these barriers.

On January 1, 2013 an amendment entered into force, increasing the administrative fines in social security legislation and labor laws. The amendment also redesigned the way these fines were calculated. In this article these new fines are assessed for consistency. On the one hand consistency with the dominant tendency of localization of welfare states and on the other hand consistency with other penalties. Based on this assessments it is concluded that the new fines do not match the tendency of localization of the welfare state. Compared to other fines the increase itself suites the type of violation, but not with the type of offender. Moreover the amendment deviates with regard to the doubling of the fine, since the fine is based on the amount of the unduly paid benefits that have to be recovered as well. Finally the amendment deviates since the legislator obliges the administration to impose the fine: the administration has no discretion whatsoever.

This article points out some of the pitfalls and ambiguities involved in quantified cross-national policy comparisons by looking at the construction and use of standardized indicators in the field of pension policy. The empirical analysis looks at three cases where the OESO and EU use standardized pension indicators to score and rank the performance of national pension systems. The cases illustrate some of the problems associated with scoring and ranking the outcomes of unique and complex pension systems by means of internationally standardized indicators. Our results show that internationally standardised indicators for pension systems are not neutral in the sense that they favor countries with certain institutional pension policy mixes over others. When particular institutional characteristics are treated differently under the same metric, systematically distorted conclusions about the performance of national pension systems may, and likely do, result. Consequently, these observed biases hinder reliable cross-national comparison that is based on these indicators. The article concludes with some recommendations on the construction and use of international indicators in the field of pension policy. It also discusses where research on the process of commensuration – transforming qualities into quantities − in a comparative context should go from here.

Reflection and Debate initiates academically inspired discussions on issues that are on the current policy agenda.

Reflection and Debate initiates academically inspired discussions on issues that are on the current policy agenda.

Reflection and Debate initiates academically inspired discussions on issues that are on the current policy agenda.

In this feature authors discuss recent research findings that are of interest to readers of Beleid en Maatschappij.