Samenvatting

Our research question is: how do Dutch municipalities practice their local steering role within climate mitigation policy? Policy documents of twelve municipalities have been analysed and corresponding policymakers have been interviewed. Our research illustrates that the Dutch government is struggling with the changing relations with society and the growing dependency on it for reaching policy targets. According to literature, the governmental steering role of process management is expected to be more effective in situations of high dependency. However, the policy strategies of municipalities meet characteristics of project management. Meanwhile, the project targets are not controllably formulated and rely solely on actions of other local parties. The ministry has assigned municipalities to use this project management style, to implement the projects in a top-down manner, and to find partners after the implementation phase. Municipal policymakers indicate that they are facing problems afterwards, because the ‘partners’ have interests that do not correspond with the projects as formulated by the municipalities. It is more effective to negotiate with the other parties. This is necessary in order to formulate collective policy targets that meet the interests of all of the participating parties in accordance with the theory of network governance and process management.