With the local elections in 2006, new organisational schemes have been applied by the Flemish government to the 308 municipalities. These schemes included institutional reform aimed to change the outset of local government. In this article we studied the influence of these reforms in practice. Are they actually carriers of change? We thereby focused on the direct aspects linked to these reforms. While many instruments of reform had indirect intended effects, acceptance and action among key decision-makers (both voters and local governors to the extent of their discretion) to use them directly becomes crucial. Our analysis has shown that, with some exceptions, direct autonomous space for action was only limitedly used, hence reducing the chances for indirect change. While it is still too early to fully assess the foreseen indirect effects, in our opinion it is crucial to understand the nature of these local reforms within the central (Flemish) bargaining arena. The latter seems to have transformed the new schemes of local governmental organisation to the path-dependent art of the political feasible.

Although the 2006 local elections can hardly be described as ‘historical’, there is sufficient evidence to distinguish remarkable characteristics associated with this elections. For the first time in decades, turnout has been growing. This evolution can be explained by several factors. This article emphasizes besides the impact of changes in the electoral rules, transformations in demographic structure of the population and the stake of the elections the importance of the media campaign surrounding the elections. However, in spite of this (national) campaigns, there are more than enough indications that local politics keeps its local ‘nature’. Secondly, the 2006 elections were the first ones organised after the transfer of the responsibility for municipality legislation from the federal state to the regions. This means that each region designed its own local government architecture and electoral rules. Yet, in practice, the consequences of this transformations seem to be very limited. Thirdly, and particular in the Flemish region, ‘strong mayors’ arose from the ballot stations (with the Antwerp mayor as the most spectacular case). The consequences of this trend will in the future be the issue of a new debate concerning the relations between council, board of alderman and mayor.

The last local elections in Wallonia were marked by the introduction of a new legislation concerning the way mayors are appointed. Before 2006, mayors were appointed by the regional government. Since the last elections, a new decree institutes that is automatically appointed mayor the candidate having most preferential votes from the list having most seats. In this article, we explore how the new legislation has affected the way voters behave in 2006 and also how it has affected parties when it comes to coalition agreements. What appears is that the new legislation has a fairly limited impact. Voters did not cast more preferential votes in 2006 than in 2000. The logics of coalitions have not been changed significantly. Finally, the only notable – even if not spectacular – impact of the new Walloon decree is that the elections have been much more focused on the candidates that were leading their list, the ones that were presented by their party as their candidate to become mayor. These candidates have more often been appointed mayors in 2006 than in 2000 and the proportion of preferential votes that they have received is higher in 2006. In that sense, even if the degree of change must not be exaggerated, Walloon local elections are slightly turning into a horse race between candidates leading their list.

Together with the city council elections, the citizens of Antwerp elected on 8 October 2006 for the second time their district councils. This new decentralised political level is primarily initiated to restore the confidence of the citizens in the city (and district) government(s). By analysing the results of the city and the district elections we try to find indications whether citizens feel closer to their new district governments or not. Firstly district elections resulted definitely not in less blank votes. Secondly, the number of list votes is higher on the district elections than on the city elections, while we would have expected a higher number of preferential votes. Thirdly, we see that the differences between the electoral results of the city elections and the district elections are becoming more pronounced. Although this last result seems to support the legitimacy of the decentralised district they merely reflect changes in the logic of the city elections. Mainly as a result of media coverage the city elections were direct elections of the mayor. Therefore voters used the district elections to vote for their preferred political party. This was not always possible at city level, because some parties did not have an eligible candidate for mayor. Generally spoken, we can conclude that the district elections do not give much proof of a closer connection between the citizens and the city government.

This article is based on a definition of political and civil servant leadership as a behavioral steering style towards the realization of organizational goals. By means of a grounded theory methodology we get some insights in the characteristics and the interaction between both leadership styles in Flemish cities. This two-faced leadership is depicted by means of a tandem metaphor. First, we identify the relevant dimensions to describe the leadership tandem. It becomes apparent that political leadership styles differ greatly both in time and in scope. Civil servant leadership is generally characterized by a weak but presumably growing impact. This combination results in considerable leadership tensions, which is reinforced by several contingency factors: i.e. the influence of the dominant alderman model, the financial situation, the number of staff, the tendency to professionalize, the dominant political and civil servant culture and the structure of central government (e.g. on a Flemish, Belgian and European level).

The relationship in political terms between the Brussels Capital Region and the Brussels communes is characterized by the cumulation of mandates. On average 68% of the members of the Brussels Regional Parliament simultaneously held an office in one of the 19 communes. At the regional elections of 2004 even twelve of the 19 mayors were directly elected into the Brussels Parliament. This feature of intertwining mandates was mainly valid for the French liberal party, the FDF and the Frenchspeaking Christian-Democrates. In this manner not only did the Brussels communes have access to the Parliament but to the Brussels Regional Executive as well. The cumulation of mandates is though but one example of the intertwining of the Brussels Capital Region and its communes.

At least four criterions/methods to measure mechanical effects of electoral systems can be distinguished: measuring disproportionality, the reduction in number of parties, the party advantages and the threshold percentages. In this manuscript we focus on the thresholds. We first concentrate on a description of legal, theoretical, and empirical thresholds as measures of mechanical effects. Further, we analyse the relationship between (the natural logarithm) of district magnitude and the empirical threshold and between the empirical threshold and the effective number of parties. As starting point we take districts in Spain, Portugal and Hungary as the level of analysis. We clearly show that there is a negative causal connection between district magnitude and the threshold percentage and between threshold percentage and the number of parties.

Op 22 maart 2005 sneuvelde het Wetsvoorstel introductie gekozen burgemeester (TK 2003-2004, 29 223 nr. 1) in de Eerste Kamer. De direct gekozen burgemeester is in Nederland echter niet dood en begraven: de discussie is nog steeds springlevend. Invoering van de direct gekozen burgemeester is een ingrijpende operatie; de kwaliteit van het bestuur kan in het geding komen. In de discussie verdient de integriteit van de direct gekozen burgemeester de nodige aandacht. Door het kabinet is dit in het Wetsvoorstel onderkend: ‘Politieke ambtsdragers dienen van onbesproken gedrag te zijn. Dat geldt ook voor de gekozen burgemeester’ (TK 2003-2004, 29 223 nr. 1: 30). In de Verenigde Staten is men al sinds jaar en dag gewend gezagsdragers rechtstreeks te kiezen. De vraag is wat de Amerikaanse praktijk ons op dit vlak leren kan.

Op verschillende manieren en om uiteenlopende redenen zijn in de afgelopen vijfentwintig jaar in Nederland pogingen ondernomen de taak en rol van de (rijks)overheid te verlichten. Privatisering is daarvan een voorbeeld. Aan analytische handreikingen ter ondersteuning van beslissingen over taakreallocaties binnen het publiek domein ontbreekt het niet. Daarentegen evenwel is nog betrekkelijk weinig systematisch onderzoek verricht naar de effecten van die reallocaties. Voorzover resultaten van dergelijk onderzoek voorhanden zijn, zijn de oordelen gemengd; niet uitsluitend blijkt van baten sprake. Dit nu lijkt in het bijzonder samen te hangen met de taaiheid van instituties en de logica van het politieke proces. Anders dan de universele roep om ‘de markt’ doet geloven, is er geen ‘one best solution’.

On May 29th 2005, 54.8% of the French population rejected the Treaty establishing a Constitution for Europe in a referendum. Three days later, no less than 61.8% of the Dutch voters followed suit. In the following days, commentators wrote that the French non and the Dutch nee made the EU face its biggest crisis ever. EU President Juncker stated that the EU did no longer inspire “dreaming”. Commission President Barroso warned of “permanent crisis and paralysis” in the EU. At the European Council meeting of June 16th and 17th 2005, European leaders agreed to insert a one-year period of reflection in the ratification process. Moreover, the idea of a deadline for ratification was abandonned. After EU members states also failed to agree on the 2007-2013 budget, a higly disappointed Juncker concluded that the EU found itself in a “deep crisis”.
In comparison to the spring of 2005, the problems the EU faced in 2004 looked relatively easy to solve. However, this is not to say that 2004 should be seen as the calm before the storm. Indeed, the accession of ten new member states and the political agreement on a constitutional treaty made 2004 a milestone in recent EU integration history. Starting from the policy measures taken by the EU members states in the aftermath of the terrorist attacks in Madrid, this contribution focuses on the major political and economic developments in the EU in 2004. Special attention is paid to the elections for a new European Parliament, the Barroso-Commission taking office and the approval of the Treaty establishing a Constitution for Europe.

Onderzoek naar het maatschappelijk middenveld bevindt zich in een permanente identiteitscrisis, omdat het een vaag afgebakend en veranderlijk tussendomein in de samenleving betreft. Juist door deze eigenschappen kan het middenveld, nu hybridisering een steeds wijder verbreid fenomeen is, een inspiratiebron voor de bestuurskunde worden. Op termijn zal het proces van hybridisering de in beleid en bestuur nog veelvuldig gehanteerde traditionele ideaaltypen van markt, overheid en middenveld en daarmee verbonden coördinatiemechanismen steeds minder bruikbaar maken. Hybridisering dwingt de bestuurskunde uiteindelijk tot conceptuele vernieuwing.

‘Sehr selten ist Handeln, insbesondere soziales Handeln, nur in der einen oder der andren Art orientiert. Ebenso sind diese Arten der Orientierung natürlich in gar keiner Weise erschöpfende Klassifikationen der Arten der Orientierung des Handelns, sondern für sociologische Zwecke geschaffene, begrifflich reine Typen, denen sich das reale Handeln mehr oder minder annähert oder aus denen es -noch häufiger- gemischt ist’ (Max Weber).

Verschillende ontwikkelingen in het laatste decennium, zoals de vervaging van de reeds troebele scheidslijnen tussen de publieke en private sector en de introductie van bedrijfsmatige principes in overheidsorganisaties, vergroten de behoefte onder academici, bestuurders en politici aan heldere morele scheidslijnen en richtlijnen. Deze ontwikkelingen echter bemoeilijken nu juist een dergelijke verheldering. In dit artikel worden de genoemde ontwikkelingen beschreven en hun invloed op het denken over ambtelijke waarden geanalyseerd. Met behulp van twee cases wordt de morele verwarring in het openbaar bestuur zichtbaar gemaakt. Tevens worden suggesties gedaan voor een heldere publieke waardeset en verder onderzoek naar waarden.¹

De erosie van de klassieke dichotomie tussen publiek en privaat heeft tot het ontstaan van een groot aantal hybride organisaties eleid. Deze combineren de culturen van staat en markt. De meningen over deze ontwikkeling zijn verdeeld. Het Nederlandse debat over hybride organisaties is gepolariseerd. Aan de ene kant van het spectrum wordt vooral aandacht gevraagd voor de negatieve neveneffecten van hybriditeit. Maar er is ook een benadering die nadruk legt op het ontstaan van synergie door hybriditeit. Beide benaderingen zijn vooral normatief gekleurd en nog weinig systematisch empirisch onderbouwd. In dit artikel ligt de nadruk op de culturele hybriditeit.

Er bestaan duidelijke parallellen tussen de begrippen hybriditeit en netwerken en de daaraan gerelateerde discussies. Beide hebben betrekking op de fenomenen differentiatie en integratie, waarin ze in zekere zin elkaars spiegelbeeld zijn. In deze bijdrage wordt betoogd dat zowel de analyse van hybriditeit vanuit een netwerkperspectief als de analyse van netwerken vanuit een hybriditeitsperspectief interessante inzichten oplevert. Beide perspectieven zijn samen noodzakelijk om een gegronde analyse te maken van een hybride publiek bestel.

Op 1 december 2003 werd in de Tweede Kamer teruggeblikt op tien jaar interactief besturen. Interactief besturen is een bekende vorm van netwerksturing en kan gezien worden als een van de dominante ontwikkelingen in het openbaar bestuur in het afgelopen decennium. Interactief besturen wordt ingezet in alle fasen van de beleidscyclus en kent - opmerkelijk - wisselende successen: aansprekende doorbraken naast pregnante mislukkingen. Het lijkt als concept over zijn hoogtepunt heen. De achterliggende beweging zal waarschijnlijk onder andere, wisselende, noemers de komende jaren verder doorzetten. Dit artikel concentreert zich op de vraag wat een mogelijk productieve rol van de volksvertegenwoordiging is bij interactieve processen.