This article analyses the Dialogue Table (‘Dialoogtafel’ in Dutch) in Groningen, the most northern province in the Netherlands, as an example of connecting vertical and horizontal steering. The Dialogue Table was set up to supervise the spending of compensation money for the damage from the earthquakes caused by gas extraction in this province. The Dialogue Table combines vertical forms of governance, such as a unilateral imposition of the budget and the presidency of the Dialogue Table, and more horizontal forms such as equal deliberation between administrative bodies and stakeholders. The central questions are which tensions will occur in these two different logics of steering, how one deals with these tensions and which competences this requires from civil servants. An exploratory analysis of the case shows that tensions occur around (1) the starting conditions (costs, presidency, selection and representation), (2) the progress of the process (desired results, openness, inequality) and (3) the outcomes of the process (influence). On the basis of their research, the authors offer recommendations about the organization of such hybrid steering processes and indicate which competences are required in this respect from civil servants.

Citizens’ initiatives are the focus of public attention as part of the popular ‘do-democracy’ (associative democracy). However, it is not clear to what extent citizens are able to shape self-organization in a sustainable manner, what the important factors in this respect are and if citizens’ initiatives are the sole preserve of a better educated group of citizens. Through a secondary quantitative analysis of 56 citizens’ initiatives, this article offers an empirical contribution to answering these questions. The authors explore the effects of three possible factors on the sustainability of citizens’ initiatives: the network structure of the citizens’ initiative, the organizational design of the initiative and the revenue model. They show significant relationships between the organizational design of citizens’ initiatives and their sustainability. They also show a relationship between the network structure of these initiatives and their sustainability: initiatives that develop into a fully connected network or a polycentric network are more sustainable than initiatives with a star network. The personal characteristics of the initiators show a dispersal in age, descent, gender and retirement. Relatively speaking, many initiators have a high level of education: 80% has a higher professional or university education. But there are no significant relations between these personal characteristics and the sustainability of citizens’ initiatives.

Big Data is the new hype in municipal policy and the promise of Big Data is rationalization: better policy that is based on better information. In this article the authors investigate the extent to which the use of Big Data in municipal organizations results in a more rational policy process. Their empirical research was held in two Dutch municipalities: Tilburg, in the south of the Netherlands, and Assen, in the north of the Netherlands. They investigated how Tilburg deploys Big Data for the fight against crime and Assen is trying to improve its traffic management with Big Data. Their analysis shows that policy, more so than in the past, is being steered by specific information because Big Data is being used. The rationalization of policy, however, is limited by the possibilities of Big Data and by political dynamics. Their final conclusion therefore is that the uncertainty, unfamiliarity, complexity and constant change are partly made manageable and controllable by the use of Big Data in municipal organizations. Politics is also partly ‘tamed’ because politicians have to relate to ‘objective data’ from information systems.

During the first decades after World War II income policy was an important topic of public debate in the Netherlands. This changed in the eighties and nineties when gross wages were ‘demoralized’ and taken off the political agenda. Income policy was deemed pointless, inefficient, or superfluous. Moreover wages were determined according to technocratic schemes designed by consultancy firms. These schemes encourage employees to compare themselves with people with a comparable education in other organizations rather than with coworkers in their own organization thus fostering a caste mentality.
However, following the financial crisis a cry for remoralization was launched which ended in a new law which determined that civil servants and top administrators in public organizations should never earn more than a government minister (178.000 euros per annum). In this article it is argued that such a partial remoralization of the highest wages in the public sector is unsatisfactory. It is argued that wages at large should be a moral topic for organizations that should explain their reward policy for their highest and lowest employees, thus encouraging workers to see themselves as members of their organization rather than their educational caste. Public administration scholars should play a role in this debate.

As long as the existence of public administration, there is discussion whether public administration should focus on practice or mainly be a purely scientific field. Opinions of public administration scholars are divided on the matter. Moreover, the question is whether public administration is a discipline in itself or part of other disciplines such as political science, law or the management sciences. This article shows how public administration scholars see the discipline and the developments therein, based on a survey among scholars. Dutch public administration scholars are compared with their European colleagues. There are major differences between the Netherlands and the rest of Europe with regard to the status of the discipline. Firstly, as a separate discipline, public administration in the Netherlands is more important in comparison with other European countries. In the rest of Europe, in particular political sciences play an important role. Secondly, regarding the tension within the discipline, the public administration in the Netherlands is developing less towards practitioners than public administration in other European countries.

In this article we discuss the influence of external policy advisors on the policy process. In the Dutch context, little is known about the role, function and influence of external policy advisors (like consultants) who are hired on a temporary basis by the government. Based on a survey (N = 378) this study provides a profile of external policy advisors and the nature of their advice work. An interesting result is that external advisors generally conduct process-related policy work, but may also provide policy substance. Furthermore, the article develops an empirically and theoretically informed research agenda as a starting point for additional research.

We are only fully aware of our dependency on large scale technical infrastructure systems when they fail to provide reliable services. Yet, at the same time we have witnessed the dismantling of the organizations providing these services due to privatization and liberalization policies. In this article we provide insight into the complexity of managing these now networked systems, consisting of several private and public organizations, by looking at the Dutch railway system. More specifically we analyze a case in which the decision to take several railway tracks and switches out of service resulted in a large scale disruption during rush hour in one of the busiest parts of the Netherlands. With the concept of sensemaking we show that the different actors involved were unable to create a common understanding of the situation to enable coordinated action.

Governments throughout the whole world feel the need to cut spending due to the current financial crisis. The Netherlands are no exception in this matter. Top civil servants are up to the task to implement these cutbacks within their own organizations. However, not much is known about what influences their choice for certain implementation strategies. One factor of interest are the values of top civil servants, which are supposed to be influenced by their work experience. This is a relevant factor, since the introduction of New Public Management made it more common for managers from the private sector to reach the higher echelons of government. Top civil servants with different backgrounds and from different Dutch ministries were interviewed for this study. It seems that using across-the-board cuts are present within Dutch ministries, sometimes combined with targeted cuts. Surprisingly, no differences in values and implementation strategies were found between managers with and without experience in the private sector, contrary to expectation. The implementation strategies used seem mainly influenced by values such as soberness and thrift, values which are not present in current public values literature.

This article is about one of the experiments in local democratic renewal: MyBorne2030 (in Dutch ‘MijnBorne2030’). The aim of the project was to develop a communal vision for Borne (a relatively small suburban municipality of 20.000 inhabitants in the East of the Netherlands) for the year 2030. A steering committee of 20 local organizations has worked out four scenarios on the basis of three building stones: an identity study, a research of societal trends and the formulation of ambitions. These four scenarios have been submitted to the citizens of Borne in a referendum. The scenario that has received the most votes (‘Dynamic villages’) is further elaborated in a new vison for the future called MyBorne2030. Institutionally the decision-making process in Borne can be described as a mixture of participative (deliberative), associative and direct (plebiscitary) democracy. The authors conclude that it was a successful experiment, that has produced broad support for the vision of Borne for the future and a solid basis for the implementation of this vision. Participants (as well as non-participants) think this approach can be repeated not only in Borne, but also in other municipalities. The authors add that this could also be the case for the level above of cooperating municipalities.

The first contribution to this special issue on local democracy in the Netherlands is the inaugural speech of Job Cohen (the former mayor of Amsterdam) held on January 9th 2015 at the University of Leiden as extraordinary professor at the prestigious Thorbecke-chair. His field is the theory of the municipality as an administrative, political and legal system. The title of his inaugural speech was ‘The fourth D’, in which the first three D’s stand for three different decentralizations of tasks to the Dutch municipalities and the fourth D for democracy. In his speech Cohen advocates a deliberative form of democracy, because it doesn’t emphasize differences and the exaggeration of differences, but emphasizes what the members of a community have in common. Deliberative democracy wants to create space for this common interest through the establishment of an arena for dialogue. Job Cohen is particularly taken by the ideas of the Belgian writer David Van Reybrouck about lottery selection and citizen participation and corresponding initiatives like G1000: a civic-summit, a form of deliberative democracy that generates new ideas, opens new perspectives and increases trust in the democratic process. The element of lottery selection (that was previously put on the agenda by the American professor James Fishkin) is essential for these results, because it creates a maximum of diversity and real involvement of all layers of the population: full citizen participation.

This article is about local referenda in the Netherlands. Based on extensive empirical research the authors make clear how the local referendum in the Dutch democracy has developed not only in time and practice, but also how we can interpret the referendum theoretically. They show how in scientific literature, but also in practice, they are still looking for the meaning of the local referendum for Dutch local democracy. The authors also show that the practice of Dutch local referenda is searching, varied and in continuous development. Since 1906 193 local referenda are organized in the Netherlands. By far most referenda took place after the nineties of the last century. Local referenda are a local democratic ‘domain’, that will be explored in the Netherlands in the coming years. Last year a lot of attention has been given to the (local) referendum in the domain of legislation. The process of legislation has not been finished yet. The authors believe this offers an unique opportunity to share the available knowledge and experience about referenda and debate the adequate filling in and anchoring of the (local) referendum. This is a task for scientists, administrators and politicians alike.

Surveys show that Dutch people want more options with regard to the own pension. Can freedom of choice be combined with collective organised solidarity within supplementary pension schemes? To answer this question the article discusses the pros and cons of options of workers and employers within and between pension schemes. The theoretical and empirical consequences of choices in the Dutch supplementary pension schemes are reviewed. The neo-classical economic theory, the neo-institutional theory and behavioral economic theory are applied to supplementary pensions. In addition, lessons are learned from the experience in the Netherlands with choices within pension schemes and with choices in other areas. Only a very small minority will use the new options in the supplementary pension schemes. Unlike the neoclassical economic theory, the neo-institutional theory and behavioral economic theory recommend to extend the compulsory supplementary pension to all employed persons. The welfare gain of more choices is questionable. Lifting the mandatory participation will affect the relative success of the Dutch pension system: large numbers of insured workers and relatively cheap and a relatively high pension as a result of this supplementary pension.

Citizen participation is firmly on the agenda of many Western policy makers. Numerous opportunities for individuals to participate in public decision-making have been created. However, few citizens use these opportunities. Those who do are often the highly educated, white, middle and upper classes that also tend to dominate other democratic spaces. Opportunities to become active can increase inequalities in terms of whose voices are heard in public decision-making. This fundamentally challenges the central democratic value of equality. Nevertheless, others can represent the interests of those who remain silent. Using the concept of representative claim this paper explores a variety of forms of representation (electoral, formal non-electoral and informal self-appointed) in the domain of social policy which is currently decentralized in the Netherlands. We conclude that especially informal self-appointed representatives such as medical professionals, churches and patient organizations can potentially play an important role in representing groups who often remain unheard in the public debate. They can therefore play an important role in ensuring the democratic quality of the decentralization process.

Continuing debate concerning the functioning of advisory boards to the Dutch central government seems hindered by lacking historical insight and insufficient empirical data. Especially the period until 1970 and so-called state committees (an important type of advisory board) have been neglected. This article therefore presents findings from historical research into Dutch state committees between 1814 and 1970. We provide a hitherto lacking overview of their origin, numbers, composition, functioning and topics. We also provide a first quantitative analysis to investigate the question what state committee activity tells us about continuity and change of the task perception of subsequent Dutch governments in this period. We argue that the so-called ‘night watchman state’ of the long 19th century (in which government did as least as possible) does become apparent from the number of state committees over time but that it seems never to have existed when we look at the topics they dealt with. Furthermore, the Dutch welfare state (said to have existed from the 1930s onwards) shows much less state committee activity then one would expect. We conclude with urgent questions for future research into advice and advisory boards in The Netherlands and introduce a digital database to facilitate such work.

In the Netherlands citizens increasingly unite in cooperatives to realize common facilities and services in their neighborhood themselves. Apparently neither markets nor governments succeed in providing all the public goods and services that citizens strive for. Although these forms of self-organization are still young and their success is far from sure, they are seen as sources of social innovation and new ways of organizing that inspire many. Their example is followed widely: cooperatives seem to be rapidly emerging almost everywhere. Yet not much systemic knowledge is available on their nature, drivers, and impacts, nor on the conditions under which they flourish. In this special issue the state of the art regarding these cooperatives is examined in the areas of energy, care, broadband connections and housing. The various contributions show that the main challenge that cooperatives have to deal with is finding the balance between the ambition to preserve their identity as grass root organizations and the need for professionalization. Also they have to learn to build and maintain relationships with other organizations and actors in their environment on which they are dependent: governments, private parties and professionals.

There is a growing interest for cooperatives in housing. Recently a new housing law was signed that stimulates the rise and creation of citizen cooperatives in this sector. It is argued that in this way people, especially in the low- and middle-income category, get more opportunities to influence their own living situation. Some housing cooperatives have existed for years, but recently we have seen the rise of dozens of cooperatives. The knowledge network Platform31 has initiated an experimental program to facilitate the implementation of cooperatives in housing in the Netherlands. An important condition is that the cooperatives need to develop a strong business case. Cooperation with established housing corporations in the sector is also of vital importance. Moreover, a helping hand from municipalities is needed and some local governments have already developed policies and undertaken actions. Yet there are still bottlenecks in policy and law that needs to be solved. A paradigm shift is needed to make cooperatives in housing feasible.

Currently, in the Netherlands there are about 150 energy co-operatives are actively working on the promotion of energy use reduction and renewable energy production. Among them are 15 experienced wind energy co-operatives that started almost 25 years ago, but the majority started in 2007 or later. Their aim is to mobilize investments in local renewable energy and social projects, and to use the revenues to enhance the local economy and social cohesion. The members of the co-operative become co-owners of the production units and collectively decide about the allocation of the revenues for new energy projects.In practice, new, inexperienced co-operatives in particular have difficulties realizing larger projects like wind turbines and solar parks. Fierce resistance from the local community is hampering wind projects, while limited financial support (i.e. subsidies) is the main obstacle for the realization of solar parks. In our view, it would help Dutch co-operatives if local politicians were to take a clear position on wind energy and act accordingly, and if the Dutch government were to broaden the financial support schemes for cooperatively owned and financed solar parks.