The death of Andries Hoogerwerf (1931-2024) prompted us to inquire about the fortunes of one of the other pioneers in the Netherlands of (local) administrative sciences with a background in political science, also born in 1931, Jan Kooiman. There was nothing to be found about this on the Internet. Contact with people who knew him well revealed that he died on January 9, 2016. Jan Kooiman was editor-in-chief of our journal Bestuurs­wetenschappen (Administrative Sciences) between 1975 and 1992 (until 1990 together with the lawyer Jimmy Polak). Sufficient reason for us to pay attention to his life and work in this editorial. His influence is complementary to that of his contemporary Andries Hoogerwerf. While Hoogerwerf had a lot of influence nationally, Kooiman was particularly influential internationally as one of the founders of governance theory. Between 1975 and 1996 he was professor of Public Administration at the Interuniversity Institute of Business Administration in Delft and professor of Public Management at the Faculty of Business Administration at Erasmus University Rotterdam. His work clearly shows the development from governmental steering to interactive governance.

Dutch mayors are considered guardians of the democratic constitutional state at local level. This raises the question to what extent the office of mayor itself, formally and in fact, meets the ideal of the democratic constitutional state. In order to determine this, the authors first develop a yardstick for the democratic constitutional state in this article. They then use this yardstick to answer the central question in this article: to what extent do the method of appointing mayors and the way in which the office of mayor is filled meet the requirements of the democratic constitutional state? Their conclusion is that the current method of appointing mayors and the way in which the office is filled have both advantages and disadvantages in the light of the yardstick, with the proviso that quite a lot of data on this is lacking. Bottlenecks occur in the combination of roles in the executive branch (chairman of the board; independent body in the field of public order and safety) and the legislative branch (chairman of the council) and in the integrity monitoring of other political office holders at local level. The article also discusses the advantages and disadvan­tages of alternatives to the current method of appointing mayors and certain aspects of the way in which the office is filled. The authors conclude that the developed measuring stick has added value in the systematic examination of political and administrative offices and institutions in local government and other administrative levels.

An election victory is no guarantee of a place in the executive board of a Dutch province, as populist parties such as SP, PVV and FVD show: after their respective election victories in 2007, 2011, and 2019, they hardly secured any board seats. In the years that these parties have been successful, there are few provincial boards that are a reflection of the provincial councils – boards where the seats of the provincial executive are divided proportionally on the basis of the seats of the council. Coalition formation at provincial level is studied by determining whether there is a board that is a reflection of the provincial council or a minimally winning coalition. The authors do this for all election years between 2007 and 2023. The data show that the rise of populist parties often leads to a decrease in boards that are a reflection of the provincial councils. The minimum winning coalition is a better explanation. The rise of BBB in 2023 shows that a party that opposes the board is still included in many executive boards. This seems to be the case because without BBB many parties are needed to form a majority council.

The ‘step forward’, as stated by the Association of Dutch Municipalities (VNG) in its strategy for 2030, is the ultimate example of classic, organic relationships within public administration. The idea of the VNG is to reverse co-governance (‘medebewind’), because ‘municipalities identify social challenges and propose solutions themselves’. This relies on everyone’s independent development power. However, due to the instrumentalisation of co-governance by the government, the scope for creativity of the municipalities is becoming increasingly smaller. Redistribution of tasks and additional conditions are therefore necessary to prevent the VNG’s step forward from having, in retrospect, only accelerated the instrumentalisation of co-governance. In this essay the author (the current holder of the Thorbecke Chair in Leiden) analyses the implications of the instrumentalisation of co-governance. Without the correct constitutional conditions for organic relationships, a joint policy step forward may actually accelerate the instrumentalisation of co-governance. The VNG’s plans will soon only have to be included by the legislator in a national program and a target regulation. That is why, in addition to the content, the conditions must also be on the table, to prevent the VNG and the central government from playing chess on a completely different board.

The concept of ‘Broad Welfare’, later known as ‘Broad Welfare including the SDGs’, has been given a more or less permanent place on the Dutch government’s policy agenda. It is seen as a good indicator of the state of the country when it comes to welfare in the broadest sense of the word: the well-being of citizens. Through fairly complex calculations, dozens of aspects of our existence are brought into figures, diagrams and cartograms, taking into account more than just economic values. The question, however, is whether all this measuring makes us much wiser, after all, is measuring still knowing? What people want to know is well-being, which cannot be measured in any other way. In this essay the author argues for a simpler way of measuring well-being, which can also easily be carried out by municipalities themselves. This method also forms a good basis for a municipal welfare policy. This can be done by asking citizens to assess their ‘life satisfaction’ and using this data for policy.

Until recently, maintaining international relations (also in the Netherlands) was the preserve of national governments, the building blocks of the current multilateral system. In recent years, however, the international activity of cities has accelerated because more and more global issues are manifesting themselves at urban level and urban interests therefore also have to be represented internationally. Cities are working together and are increasingly demanding a ‘place at the table’, with varying degrees of success. Challenges lie not only abroad, but also in our own city. Building political and public support for international work is therefore essential. Cities must involve residents, companies and civil society organisations in international initiatives and effectively communicate the benefits of global involvement. Only with this awareness can cities develop into a full partner in the international arena.