Societal challenges are increasingly requiring cooperation and solutions on a regional scale. The recently formed metropolitan regions around Amsterdam, Rotterdam-The Hague and Eindhoven are examples. This essay serves as the introduction to a symposium on regionalization and the substantive and institutional questions that regionalization raises. It deals with the growing differences between regions and the call for a differentiated response. It also discusses the drivers for regional cooperation and the constraints of focusing on administrative structures. The essay exposes a number of tensions regarding the external profiling of regions, the benefits of regional cooperation, and the pursuit of broad societal goals. At the same time, it puts forward suggestions for follow-up research.

How do you profile a diverse region? Based on what story, and under what name? The Southern Randstad, a conglomeration of large cities, medium-sized cities and villages in the Netherlands, wishes to make a name for itself worldwide as a metropolitan and innovative region. In this article, we will discuss how such a profiling strategy is realized. We will use insights from public administration, geography and those obtained from forty interviews with regional stakeholders. Selecting a new regional profile is a complex matter and sometimes even inappropriate. From the case study, it will be evident that in a pluralistic region collective profiling is only promising if it does not function as a replacement but as an enhancement. Furthermore, it will become clear that an area reference that refers to the two largest cities (Rotterdam and The Hague) in the region name is the most preferable. Finally, municipalities have to ‘play with scales’,i.e. they will have to align their profiling to suit the scale level at which they are presenting themselves.

E-democracy incorporates digital tools, the internet and social media to enhance democracy. There are many of these tools available to improve governmental responsiveness, transparency, and accountability, but also to support the inclusiveness, representativeness and influence of citizens’ participation. Examples are online petitions, apps for neighborhood watches, wikiplanning and social media monitoring. Web 3.0, which is more interactive and less location specific, enables governments to take a more personalized approach. It also allows for participation across administrative and geographical boundaries. In this symposium two contributions address the question of the influence of e-democracy on the democratization of governmental decision-making, information and service delivery, and of citizens’ participation.

Social media monitoring is a topical and relevant phenomenon. It enables civil servants and politicians to gauge the sentiments voiced on social media, on the basis of which they are in a better position to take into account the wishes and needs of citizens. Social media monitoring is primarily used for rational and strategic purposes. In terms of democratic legitimacy, it may enhance the quality of the processes on the output side of the political system, i.e. authorities can be more responsive and can fine tune public policies. There also threats for the relation between citizens and government. When citizens communicate on networks they perceive as private, social media monitoring can be seen as an intrusion into their private sphere. This not only concerns individual privacy but also an interpersonal private sphere in terms of the right that people have to define a domain within which they can exchange experiences with peers. Transparency and accountability are therefore important conditions for the application of this instrument.

E-democracy incorporates digital tools, the internet and social media to enhance democracy. There are many of these tools available to improve governmental responsiveness, transparency, and accountability, but also to support the inclusiveness, representativeness and influence of citizens’ participation. Examples are online petitions, apps for neighborhood watches, wikiplanning and social media monitoring. Web 3.0, which is more interactive and less location specific, enables governments to take a more personalized approach. It also allows for participation across administrative and geographical boundaries. In this symposium two contributions address the question of the influence of e-democracy on the democratization of governmental decision-making, information and service delivery, and of citizens’ participation.

Various Dutch municipalities hire municipal law enforcement officers from private security companies. This process of outsourcing sometimes meets political resistance, because safety and security are central tasks of government that should not be carried out by commercial parties. At the same time, little is known about the actual pros and cons of private law enforcement officers in relation to their public colleagues. From the literature we expect differences in cost, flexibility, local knowledge, professional autonomy, job satisfaction and cooperation with the police. Our empirical research shows that these differences are smaller than initially assumed. Private law enforcement officers work longer hours under more or less the same working conditions (salary) as public law enforcement officers. Their turnover rate is also higher compared to public law enforcement officers, because of their lower career expectations. Overhead costs, including the costs of outsourcing processes, remain unknown.

While existing research shows that politicians fulfil many of their election promises, voters remain very sceptical about pledge fulfilment. A possible explanation is that the media report critical about election pledges. That is why, in this article, the occurrence of media logic is analysed in the coverage of election promise fulfilment in two countries: the Netherlands and the United States. The results indicate that media logic is indeed ubiquitous in the coverage of election promises, but also that there is a difference in media coverage during governing periods and campaign periods. In addition, the results show that, in contrast to what the existing literature suggests, coverage on election promises is more negative in the Netherlands than in the United States. The media evaluate Dutch politicians’ pledge fulfilment more critically. This result offers the valuable insight that citizens and the media may take a negative view of the traditional way of making policies through compromise in consensus democracies because it forces politicians and governments to break their election promises. This, in turn, can fuel political cynicism.