Samenvatting

The Dutch Municipal Act states that municipal clerks must assist the council and the committees set up by the council in the performance of their duties. The clerk is the lynchpin of local democracy. Yet many clerks are modest. We regularly hear them humbly say that they ‘support’ the council. That can be more active and assertive, that is what our local democracy is worth, and municipal clerks are obliged to do so in their position. In this essay, the authors describe how local democracy benefits from – or simply consists of – the coming together of four systems: politics, administration, organisation and community and that the clerk is a crucial catalyst in this. This essay focuses on the role of municipal clerks. But anyone who wants to know how local democracy can work better, or wants to become better at it themselves, can learn from this. Both the players themselves (council members, civil servants, council members and residents) and the people who work on local democracy from outside (academics, advisors, activists, etc.).