Beleidsonderzoek is een vak dat in de afgelopen vijftig jaar geleidelijk is ontwikkeld tot een echte professie. In dit essay wordt de eerste helft van deze periode beschreven en op diverse punten vergeleken met de huidige situatie. De terugblik bestaat uit drie onderdelen: professionalisering; relatie met opdrachtgevers; ambachtelijke aspecten.

In this editorial the former chief-editor Bas Denters and the new chief-editor Marcel Boogers of this magazine ‘Bestuurswetenschappen’ (the Dutch word for Administrative Sciences) are interviewed on the occasion of changing the guard. This change is a good opportunity to highlight the views of both prominent figures on developments in public administration, in local and regional government, as well as on the role and significance of our magazine. With its new chief-editor, it is entering a new period. The third decade of the new millennium will prove to be just as unsettled, and possibly even more turbulent, as the previous period. Social developments are unfolding rapidly. Public Administration must provide answers to these developments, but also act as a guide. Not from an inapproachable seat, but from a position that puts local and regional government in the midst of citizens and private initiatives.

From 1964 until roughly 1990, political science would become the dominant approach within the (local) administrative sciences in the Netherlands. This central position was taken over from the legal approach. Important impulses from political science for Public Administration came only from the second-generation political scientists: Gijs Kuypers at the Free University Amsterdam, Hans Daudt at the University of Amsterdam and Hans Daalder at the University of Leiden. In their footsteps, a political scientist emerged who, through his contribution to several universities (the Free University, the University of Nijmegen and the University of Twente), had a great deal of influence on the further development of Dutch Public Administration: Andries Hoogerwerf. Two other approaches emerged from political science that were important for the development of modern public administration in the Netherlands, namely policy science and the new political economy (public choice). In this essay the author outlines the input of the main figures from political science, policy science and public choice until 1990 in various stages that are most relevant to Public Administration. These stages take us to various cities and universities in the Netherlands. In addition, we see important cross-fertilization between the institutions through the transfer of people from one university to another. After 1990 however, Public Administration would increasingly profile itself as an independent inter-discipline.

Overweight children are less fit than their peers, are bullied more often and face physical problems. It is therefore important for municipal administrators to devise and implement strategies to tackle youth obesity. Increasingly, the importance of measures in the physical environment is emphasized. However, a healthy living environment does not arise automatically. It requires an integrated and interactive policy approach. Vague policy language, stubborn ideas between public and private and divisions between policy areas stand in the way of measures taken by municipalities to achieve a healthy living environment for young people. To give such a working method a chance of success: (a) more knowledge has to be gained and made accessible about health-promoting policies; (b) professionals from the social and spatial domain must be better attuned to each other; and (c) administrators must commit themselves to an institutional context in which they work integrally and interactively.

The vast majority of Dutch municipalities organize part of their activities on a smaller scale than those of the municipality as such: it is called intra-municipal organization. In this article an inventory is made of the existing knowledge about the effects of various forms of intra-municipal organization in the Netherlands. On the basis of recent research, this knowledge is supplemented and it is also made clear which forms of intra-municipal organization are currently used. An analysis is also made of what legal leeway Dutch municipalities have in this regard. A new and richer typology of intra-municipal organization is also being developed. Finally, the authors place the results of the research reported here in a broader perspective. In particular, they reflect on two presuppositions under many forms of intra-municipal organization, namely that activities are location specific and democracy must necessarily be of the ‘representative’ type. Its relevance for practitioners is that the article provides insight into the legal leeway for intra-municipal organization and into the design of intra-municipal organization. It also contains a reflection on the design of the intra-municipal organization.

In many Dutch municipalities, a ‘local external (in)formateur’ is deployed after the municipal elections. Local (in)formateurs guide the process of coalition formation. They investigate which political parties and political groups want to work together and try to bring them closer together. They can also play a role in the board formation, such as selecting alderman candidates and allocating portfolios. External (in)formateurs come ‘from outside’. They do not have an official political or official position in the municipality where they do their work at the time of their deployment as informateur. In 2014, forty percent of the municipalities made use of such an external (information) officer. However, we still know relatively little about the work of these local external informateurs, their background and results. The authors try to fill that gap on the basis of a literature study, interviews with stakeholders and a survey among 115 local external informateurs. They also consider the added value of local external (in)formateurs for local democracy. The work of local external (in)formal formateurs can contribute to a stable and well-functioning municipal executive. Nonetheless, they tend to have a rather one-sided socio-demographic profile and the desired party political experience and involvement with the municipality can be at odds with the desired independence and objectivity.

Despite the enduring importance of Lijphart’s work for understanding democracy in Belgium, the consociational model has come under increasing threat. Owing to deep political crises, decreasing levels of trust in elites, increasing levels of ethnic outbidding and rising demands for democratic reform, it seems as if Lijphart’s model is under siege. Even though the consociational solution proved to be very capable of transforming conflict into cooperation in Belgian politics in the past, the question we raise in this article is whether and to what extent the ‘politics of accommodation’ is still applicable to Belgian democracy. Based on an in-depth analysis of the four institutional (grand coalition, proportionality, mutual veto rights and segmental autonomy) and one cultural (public passivity) criteria, we argue that consociational democracy’s very nature and institutional set-up has largely hollowed out its potential for future conflict management.

Preference votes constitute one of the key features of (open and flexible) PR-list electoral systems. In this article, we give an extensive overview of studies conducted on preference voting in Belgium and the Netherlands. After elaborating on the definition and delineation of preference voting, we scrutinize studies about which voters cast preference votes (demand side) and about which candidates obtain preference votes (supply side). For each of these aspects, both theoretical approaches and empirical results are discussed and compared. At the same time, we also pay attention to methodological issues in these kinds of studies. As such, this research overview reads as an ideal introduction to this topic which has repercussions on many other subfields of political science.

This article analyses the visual communication of the Flemish populist right-wing party Vlaams Blok/Vlaams Belang, and investigates whether or not the party uses a specific populist communication style in its campaign posters, whether or not its visual style evolves over time and how the party distinguishes itself from other (right-wing) parties in its use of images. To do this, the image use will be compared with the CVP/CD&V and the Volksunie/N-VA. This use of images will be investigated by analysing election posters from 1991 to 2018. The analysis shows that there is indeed a ‘populist visual style’. These items consist mainly of (negative) metaphors, false dilemmas, caricatures and the use of so-called ‘agonic’ visual techniques.

The theoretical assumptions of deliberative democracy are increasingly embraced by policymakers investing in local practices, while the empirical verifications are often not on an equal footing. One such assertion concerns the stimulus of social learning among participants of civic democratic deliberation. Through the use of pre-test/post-test panel data, it is tested whether participation in mini-publics stimulates the cognitive and attitudinal indicators of social learning. The main contribution of this work lies in the choice of matching this quasi-experimental set-up with a natural design. This study explores social learning across deliberation through which local policymakers invite their citizens to participate in actual policymaking. This analysis on the District of Antwerp’s participatory budgeting demonstrates stronger social learning in real-world policymaking. These results inform a richer theory on the impacts of deliberation, as well as better use of limited resources for local (participatory) policymaking.

Q-methodologie is een nog relatief onbekende onderzoeksmethode, met veel potentieel voor beleidsonderzoek en -analyse. De benaderingen, doelen en onderzoeksvragen in verschillende toepassingen lopen uiteen, maar vertonen ook duidelijke overeenkomsten. In dit artikel beschrijven we de belangrijkste theoretische en analytische bouwstenen van de methode, en een praktijkgericht 10-stappenplan waarmee men snel zelf aan de slag kan met Q-methodologie. Op basis van een aantal toepassingen van Q-methodologie in Nederland en Vlaanderen laat dit artikel op inzichtelijke wijze zien wat Q-methodologie toevoegt aan de toolbox van beleidsonderzoekers. Naast de theoretische achtergrond van de methode biedt deze bijdrage een praktisch stappenplan voor het gebruik van de methode in de praktijk.

Information platforms can facilitate data sharing and make new applications possible. It is essential to connect a wide range of both public and private parties to a platform if real data-based transformation is to get off the ground. However, organizations are reluctant to share data if they do not know exactly what it can be used for or if they have no direct interest in it. Achieving a good solution requires a lot from the innovation process itself and the way it is managed. This article uses three innovation perspectives for the analysis of a logistics information platform. This analysis shows that different stages in the development of an information platform can be distinguished, each with its own dynamic. For local government the involvement of and connection to local parties is important, while innovation as a whole benefits from the link with an overarching agenda that transcends the local level.

Digital transformation offers provinces both opportunities and threats. A long-held wish that social tasks (and the demand from citizens and companies) can be put at the center seems to be fulfilled. But, in addition to opportunities, the transformation also provides the necessary risks for, for example, the privacy of citizens and companies, but also due to the disruptive nature of digital transformation. This contribution looks at the digital transformation from a provincial perspective. The data vision in the making of the Dutch province of Noord-Brabant forms the basis for this essay, but what emerges applies broadly (with differences in emphasis) to several provinces. The author also gives a number of suggestions for the implementation of the transformation.

Modern technology will lead to fundamentally different models for policy and governance. The impact of this on existing government bureaucracy is strongly underexposed within the current discourse on digital transformation. This essay, based on practical experience, wants to make clear (a) that this impact is indeed there; (b) that this impact affects all processes of the government organization; and (c) that this impact is not something that will emerge in the long term, instead it is already evident. So it is now time for administrators, policymakers and managers to put this topic on the agenda, otherwise the disruptive soup will soon not be as hot, but even hotter, when eaten.

This article presents a normative framework for good local governance in the digital society. We build on the five principles of Frank Hendriks (laid down in an article in Urban Affairs Review in 2014): participation, effectiveness, learning ability, procedural justice and accountability. An analysis of these five principles leads to the refinement of these principles for the digital society. The overarching points are that attention is needed for the possibility of human contact, that avoiding discrimination must be central, that higher demands are made with regard to speed of action, that the principles increasingly apply to networks of organizations, and that the principles increasingly apply to the design of systems. This overview thus provides concrete tools for organizations that want to reflect with citizens and stakeholders on the extent to which they are able to achieve good local governance in the digital society.

On 1 April 2019 in the town hall of the Dutch municipality Zwolle the second Van Poelje lecture (named after the founder of Dutch Public Administration, Gerrit van Poelje) was held. The lecture is organized by the Department of Public Administration of the Faculty of Behavioural, Management and Social Sciences (BMS) of the University of Twente, in close cooperation with BMC advice, the municipality of Zwolle and the province of Overijssel (of which Zwolle is the capital). The subject of this second lecture was ‘Regional development: task-oriented operating and cooperating ’. The keynote speech of the lecture was delivered by the minister of Home Affairs Kajsa Ollongren. The coreferents were Andries Heidema (the King’s Commissioner in the province of Overijssel) and Bas Denters (professor of Public Administration at the University of Twente). Marcel Boogers (the new chief editor of this magazine, Bestuurswetenschappen) acted as chair of the day and as moderator of the discussion between the attendees and the speakers. In his opinion a clearly different wind is blowing from the Home Office, with more attention for regional differences, which demands more tailor-made work from municipalities and provinces. The minister’s main message was that, because not all provinces have the same position and the problems also differ per province, the tasks must be the guiding principle and the scale must be adjusted accordingly. Therefore, administrative culture and style must be central in the present discussion in her opinion, and not so much the administrative structure.