Samenvatting

This article presents the effects of an evaluation study of different municipal amalgamations in the past ten years in the Dutch provinces Gelderland, Limburg and Overijssel. It is an evaluation that passes through two tracks; we investigate by written sources and evaluation studies of specific amalgamations its gains, but we also by the method of a survey-feedback have asked the opinions on the amalgamation of a considerable group of people involved in the amalgamation. Would they do it again this way years after the amalgamation and they do have a positive or negative assessment of the amalgamation as a whole afterwards? The answer to this question is surprising: a lot of people involved are quite positive on a municipal amalgamation and would choose for it again in the same circumstances. They also think it is an alternative to be preferred over piling up arrangements of municipal cooperation. There is also a remarkable small difference between the assessment afterwards of a voluntary or a ‘forced’ amalgamation. That difference of assessment can be felt intensively in the process before and during the amalgamation, but afterwards the respondents are also positive about amalgamations that have been imposed ‘top-down’. This result suggests that the proverb of a ‘bottom-up amalgamation’ needs relativisation and the provinces and the central government can play a more active part in the process of amalgamation.