New means of communication, especially social media, dramatically alter the relationship between citizens and government. The internet is a platform for political discourse now in which citizens not only interact with governments but often play a leading role. This demands of government to learn how to act in a more responsive fashion. In this issue, we focus on the practical effects of web 2.0 for various governmental organizations and draw up a research agenda.

Twitter offers the police a wide range of opportunities for improving communication with citizens. The police can inform large groups of citizens about activities through brief messages and ask citizens for information. In this manner, Twitter can be expected to contribute to police investigations and community policing. In view of these opportunities, it is not surprising that many police departments and individual police officers have started to use Twitter for communicating with citizens. The fact that police Twitter accounts have thousands of followers shows that many citizens are interested in these messages. This article explores current police practices of using Twitter and highlights the expected benefits, possible limitations and perverse effects.

The digital revolution enables civil servants to create innovation with others, across organizational boundaries and with larger groups. Traditional bureaucracies are challenged to put additional conditions and incentives in place to make this possible. The program ‘civil servant 2.0’, aimed at enabling and awareness raising among civil servants, itself also makes use of modern possibilities. One example is Pleio, a digital meeting place for civil servants and other officials and persons who want to share knowledge in a thematic, transboundary way. A dilemma civil servants face is that the hierarchy and the political leadership have to be open to opportunities and input generated from outside. The level of hierarchical support can be discovered when the opportunity emerges. This takes entrepreneurial civil servants: taking initiative with the aim of discovering emerging opportunities in the outside world before it is known how these will be evaluated by the hierarchy. Other enabling conditions are that this activity needs to be possible without taking-up too much of their time, a culture of transparency, the possibility to link with the world through modern ICT (despite possible risks), a safe hierarchical environment, and novel ways of accounting for their output.

Not only companies and citizens, but also governmental agencies are exploring the possibilities of new technologies to communicate with citizens. This article analyzes the challenges, risks and dilemmas of social media for Dutch civil servants. The theoretical framework that is used consists of a classical and a modern approach to public administration. In the classical ‘Weberian’ model, politicians are responsible for policy-making (and communication about it) and civil servants have to implement policies (‘the primacy of politics’). This principal approach implies a limited role of civil servants in social media. However, the modern approach to civil servants highlights their expertise and distinctive responsibilities. The pragmatical approach leaves more space for active participation of civil servants on the internet. Nevertheless, a fundamental reflection about the primacy of politics, the role of governmental communication and culture in the social media landscape remains necessary.

The co-production possibilities brought on by web 2.0 has meant that media are no longer a one-way stream, with citizens as passive consumers of information. This has also had an impact on the way public organizations account for their actions. In this article we describe Open Data and various other emerging forms of dynamic accountability which in recent years have cropped up alongside the more traditional horizontal and vertical accountability mechanisms. Dynamic accountability uses the technical possibilities of web 2.0 to put an end to accountability as a one-way stream: citizens now have the possibility to react and actively hold their government to account. We reflect on this emerging trend by exploring which questions this raises for Dutch governmental organizations.

In this concluding article of the special issue on web 2.0 we critically discuss several of the effects of this trend. Is it always a good idea to let citizens participate in policy making through social media? Will Open Data only lead to positive effects? And will the co-creation possibilities of web 2.0 really dramatically alter the ways in which bureaucracies function, as its advocates believe? We also draw up an agenda for future research on the governmental effects of web 2.0.

Before 2010, the Netherlands Antilles were an autonomous country within the Kingdom of the Netherlands. This structure was often cited as a barrier to effective governance and led to calls for the ablishment of the Netherlands Antilles. This article examines whether this step has led to good governance in the case of the new country of Curaçao. The author comes to the conclusion that political culture has a bigger effect on good governance than institutional arrangements.

Recently climate change has been the focus of increased attention by scholars in the field of public administration. In this article the practice of implementing particular climate mitigation policies at the local level is highlighted. More specifically, attention is paid to the appliance of renewable and other non conventional energy systems in refurbishment projects in Dutch residential areas. A comparative case study analysis of eleven cases was conducted to answer the question which factors influence the adoption of innovative energy systems. The results show that the use of subsidies and supportive communicative policy instruments are of great importance. Other factors also stimulate adoption: the presence of environmentally motivated advocates in housing associations and in particular network characteristics. Strikingly, climate policy output by local authorities and the presence of urban renewal activities in the project area exercise a negative influence. Because of these insights, the article contributes to the Dutch debate on governance aspects of climate policy issues.

Governance networks are characterized by complex interaction and decision making, and much uncertainty. Surprisingly, there is very little research on the impact of trust in achieving results in governance networks. This article asks two questions: (a) Does trust influence the outcomes of environmental projects? and (b) Does active network management improve the level of trust in networks? The study is based on a web-based survey of respondents involved in environmental projects. The results indicate that trust does matter for perceived outcomes and that network management strategies enhance the level of trust.

Relations between government and news media are often complex and contradictory. In order to shed light on their interactions, this review essay discusses four recent books on the tensions between government and the media. Discussed are Schudson's Why Democracies Need an Unlovable Press, Prenger et al's Gevaarlijk spel, Cook's Governing with the News and Keane's Life and Death of Democracy. Three general issues are discussed: the ways in which journalists and policy actors behave towards each other; the implications for the daily practices of journalists and policy actors and, on a more abstract level, the implications for the democratic system. It is argued that critical and inconvenient news media fulfil a crucial role in a vital democracy, as essential checks for those in power. The news media facilitate the interaction between the fragmented parts of a monitory democracy and thus enhance a well-functioning government. In order to cope with media pressure, government pr-officials try to pacify journalists, but at the same time, government and public organizations should be wary of the incorporation of media rules in their own processes as this may lead to a mediatisation of politics.