In managing new cleavages between conflicting values (such as materialism and post-materialism), we cannot simply fall back on a classical approach to cleavage management. The segments surrounding the new cleavage are clearly more fluid than those surrounding the religious or socio-economic cleavages from consociationalism and neo-corporatism, such as is rightly emphasised in the network approach. In the conflict between the materialist and post-materialist value pattern, representation logic is not a given certainty. Not only the facts, but also the negotiating players and the decision-making arenas are the subject of negotiation and strategic action. This is reflected in the new forms of consultation politics. Similarly, consensus formation cannot make do with the (party) political integration of the segments because, given the conditions of post-materialism, this integration can only be partial. It seems important in the new cleavage management to devote attention to the existence of several arenas in which political interests are weighed up. For the players involved in a particular policy issue, this means the lure of strategic forum shopping and thus complication of the conflict-resolving ability of each of the forums.

Dutch housing policy has been reformed dramatically over the last fifteen years. The reforms were preceded by an equally dramatic policy crisis during the 1970s and 1980s. This article attempts to explain the development of both the crisis and the subsequent reforms. An important explanatory variable is the logic of provision, relating to the fact that housing comes in the shape of stock and capital. However, the institutional logic of Dutch housing policy, notably the fact that most social housing providers are traditionally private nonprofits, has also proved of vital significance in determining the outcome of the reform process. Distinguishing the effects of the logic of provision and the institutional logic enables an analysis of how policy feedback, the inheritance from previous policies, may cause both policy crisis and policy reform.

This article examines government communication on two large-scale Belgian governmental reforms: the Federal Administration and the police forces. Using Lees-Marshment's typology of marketing processes, we identify the marketing of the changes by the Federal Administration as sales-oriented: a finished product or an expert-developed administrative reform project to be sold to the public. Declining enthusiasm for communication and growing product disagreement gradually forced this reform to disappear from the market. The police reform followed a market-oriented marketing process. It responded to public outrage. The Government merely reacted to external information. This explains why it failed to deal with a changed market situation. A content analysis of articles in both popular and quality newspapers examines the representation of both reforms in the media and seems to confirm our observations. This article shows that marketing reforms are extremely difficult when there is no shared understanding of the product to be marketed.

Cities and regions have long captured the imagination of sociologists, economists, and urbanists. From Alfred Marshall to Robert Park and Jane Jacobs, cities have been seen as cauldrons of diversity and difference and as fonts for creativity and innovation. Yet until recently, social scientists concerned with regional growth and development have focused mainly on the role of firms in cities, and particularly on how these firms make location decisions and to what extent they concentrate together in agglomerations or clusters. This short article summarizes recent advances in our thinking about cities and communities, and does so particularly in light of themes advanced in my recently published book, The Rise of the Creative Class, which focuses on diversity and creativity as basic drivers of innovation and regional and national growth. This line of work further suggests the need for some conceptual refocusing and broadening to account for the location decisions of people as opposed to those of firms as sources of regional and national economic growth. In doing so, this article hopes to spur wider commentary and debate on the critical functions of cities and regions in 21st century creative capitalism.