Samenvatting

Various advisory councils for the government advocate a retreat of government. This can take the form of less government, i.e. abandoning certain public tasks, or a more modest government. This retreat of government is said to be necessary to give space to initiatives from society – which are now hampered by policy makers – and because of the failure of both the state and the market to perform public tasks adequately. Yet, it remains to be seen how realistic this call for the retreat of government is. In addition, it is unclear whether this process is already taking place (descriptive) or whether it concerns a desired situation to be achieved in the future (prescriptive). What does a facilitating government actually look like? The advisory rapports discussed in this paper share a thorough line of argumentation analysis which is plausible at first sight. At the same time, they miss out in the practical application for policy makers, they seem to be overly optimistic in their assessment of the role of citizens. Moreover, all advisory councils shy away from making fundamental choices about which tasks governments should discontinue and hand over to societal initiatives.