In the past decade, large infrastructure projects in the Netherlands have often been implemented through Public-Private Partnerships (PPPs), specifically using Design-Build-Finance-Maintain (DBFM) contracts. While the decision to implement projects through PPPs is based on expected advantages for internal parties – the public and private partners in the PPP –, there is a call for more focus on the advantages and disadvantages of PPPs for external stakeholders. External stakeholder management in DBFM projects is based on a contractual division of risks and responsibilities between the partners. However, it is clear from the literature that the contract does not guarantee successful stakeholder management. Relational aspects are important. Little research has been done, however, into the interplay of contractual and relational aspects in achieving successful stakeholder management. This article addresses this research need. A comparative case study was conducted into the PPP projects A9 Gaasperdammerweg and A16 Rotterdam. The study first shows that sanctions, when combined with a relational approach, have a positive effect on the relationships with stakeholders. Second, external stakeholder management cannot be simply outsourced to the private partner and continuous involvement of the public partner is important for success.

Subsoil interventions in the Netherlands are crucial elements in the transition to a sustainable energy future. These subsoil interventions concern reduction of fossil energy mining, extraction of thermal energy, energy storage and CSS storage. These geo projects cause tensions. Planning under the mining law leads to local resistance, debate and often delay or cancelling of initiatives. The central characteristics of this planning are an important cause. As the transition to sustainable energy asks for more interventions in the subsoil, these tensions get problematic, and hinder the transition. In this article we investigate this problematic nature of planning under the mining law. In examples we show the problems, and accordingly we analyse them. We explore a more prominent role of local actors, using localism and soft power. With this article we want contribute to national and international discussions about the planning and governance of subsoil initiatives and strengthening of local involvement in these.

From 1964 (until around 1990), political science became the dominant approach within (local) administrative sciences in the Netherlands. This position was taken over from the legal approach. In this period, the concepts of politics, policy and decision-making were central to research and theory. In the period up to 1990, we still see a predominantly administration-centric or government-centric perspective among these political scientists, although we already see incentives from different authors for a broader perspective (the politics, policy and decision-making concepts remain relevant however) that will continue in the period thereafter. This broader perspective (on institutions, management and governance) took shape in the period after 1990, in which Public Administration would increasingly profile itself as an independent (inter)discipline. This essay tells the story of the (local) administrative sciences in this period as envisaged by twelve high-profile professors. The story starts in 1990 in Leiden with the (gradual) transition from classical to institutional Public administration, as is revealed in the inaugural lecture by Theo Toonen. This is followed by eleven other administrative scientists, who are divided into four ‘generations’ of three professors for convenience. In conclusion, the author of this essay argues that there is mainly a need for what he calls a (self-)critical Public Administration.

As a response to the perceived legitimacy crisis that threatens modern democracies, local government has increasingly become a laboratory for democratic renewal and citizen participation. This article studies whether and why local party chairs support democratic innovations fostering more citizen participation. More specifically, we analyse the relative weight of ideas, interests and institutions in explaining their support for citizen-centred democracy. Based on the Belgian Local Chairs Survey in 2018 (albeit restricting our analysis to Flanders), the central finding is that ideas matter more than interests and institutions. Ideology is alive and kicking with regard to democratic innovation, with socialist and ecologist parties and populist parties being most supportive of participatory arrangements. By contrast, interests and institutions play, at this stage, a minor role in explaining support for participatory innovations.

Compared to regular contracts, infrastructure development and management through Public-Private Partnerships (PPPs) is expected to lead to better cost and time performance. However, the evidence for this performance advantage of PPPs is lacking. This article analyzes the performance differences of projects with a Design-Build-Finance-Maintain (DBFM) contract (a type of PPP) and a Design-and-Construct (D&C) contract. Project performance data were collected (N = 65) from the Project Database of Rijkswaterstaat and analyzed using non-parametric tests. Rijkswaterstaat is the executive agency of the Ministry of Infrastructure and Water Management. The results show that DBFM-projects have a significantly higher cost performance than D&C-projects. In particular, DBFM-projects have less additional costs related to technical necessities in the implementation phase. Regarding time performance, DBFM-projects seem to perform better although the difference with D&C-projects is not statistically significant. The article discusses explanations for the performance advantage of PPPs, rooted in principal-agent theory. From this discussion, an agenda is presented for further research into the performance advantage of Public-Private Partnerships.

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.

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.

South Africa underwent an unprecedented transition in 1994. The country changed from the Apartheid regime into a system founded on the principles of the rule of law and equal treatment for all. Along with this political regime change, a wide range of social rights were included in the Constitution, which grants al citizens a constitutional right to a wide range of social services. Moreover, the system of governance and organisation of services was designed according to the latest insights from the then emerging new public management paradigm. Now, twenty years later, the system is crumbling; many of the basic services are not properly provided to citizens. Partly, this is a consequence of a basic absence of integrity in parts of the political class and in elements of the civil service. However, as we illustrate in a case analysis of the Water Boards in the Western Cape Province, the problem is also a consequence of the design of the system of governance. The combination of unlimited constitutional access to services and a stringent regime of new public management principles in the organisation of service provision has led to a serious crisis of performance. Therefore, the solution for the problem may be to redesign the system according to other governance principles, such as learning governance and networked governance.

In the past years, Flemish municipalities have been confronted with a plethora of new public management reforms. The two probably most salient reforms include the introduction of a strategic planning system entitled the policy and management cycle (PMC) as well as the provision of financial incentives for municipalities that undertake a merger. These reforms are not unique to the Flemish context. Indeed, similar reforms took place in the Netherlands, where policy and management instruments (PMI) – a strategic planning system – were introduced in the eighties and municipal mergers have been part of the political agenda for several decades. But similar reforms also took place in, for instance, the United Kingdom (i.e. the best value regime in 1999) as well as Denmark (i.e. the municipal mergers in 2007). In this essay, these Flemish reforms are critically evaluated, taking into account following question: which public values are triggered through these reforms, and what might this imply for the Flemish and Dutch local public sector? This essay uses new public governance principles such as strategic thinking and the learning organisation to answer this question.

In this special issue, recent public sector reforms in South Africa, Denmark, Belgium, Mexico, Singapore and Denmark are analysed. Reforms in the public sector are by and large explained as a chronological development from traditional bureaucracy, via New Public Management to New Public Governance. This is also the way the many administrative reforms in the Dutch public sector are often explained.
The articles give insight in the administrative developments in these countries and their background. They also offer the opportunity to make comparisons with administrative developments in the Netherlands, and to draw lessons. The analyses show that the dominant explanation of reforms in the public sector (from traditional bureaucracy, to New Public Management to New Public Governance) is helpful in making sense of administrative developments, but they put this explanation into perspective too.
For the Dutch situation yet another insight came to light. We often complain that the Dutch processes are cumbersome, take long and involve many -if not all- stakeholders. A close reading of the contributions from abroad must inevitably change this pejorative view on our national sport: the cumbersome process provides valuable checks and balances, that will help to fight the drawbacks and risks that we have seen in the international cases.

In Nederland komen tal van wicked problems (WP) voor. Ze worden ook wel aangeduid als weerbarstige problemen. Kenmerkend is het unieke karakter, het feit dat kennis over probleemaspecten beperkt is en verschillende perspectieven op een probleem en meerdere waardenoriëntaties een rol spelen. Naast cognitieve en normatieve complexiteit bestaat er ook nog sociale complexiteit. WPs zoals voetbalvandalisme spelen zich af in een beleidsnetwerk met tal van elkaar afhankelijke actoren. Kennis, preferenties, handelingsvermogen en middelen blijken gespreid en niet in de hand van één actor. Om toch tot een bevredigend resultaat te komen moeten de actoren gezamenlijk optrekken. Daarom is interorganisationeel netwerkmanagement en deliberatie met burgers een wenselijke responsestrategie. Bij WPs zijn actoren dus tot elkaar veroordeeld. Centralistische besluitvorming werkt niet. Een centrale actor kan overigens nog wel een rol vervullen als initiator, facilitator of regisseur van overleg en discussie; als arbiter bij botsende perspectieven; of beslisser na netwerkberaad en inbreng van burgers.

Wicked problems ask for new, smart forms of governance beyond a singular focus on hierarchy, market or community. Based on the case studies presented in the individual articles of this special issue, this concluding article describes what smart governance could entail and discusses its strengths and weaknesses, both as a concept and a practical tool.

Traditional state-centered governance systems have failed to effectively tackle the transnational problem of the sustainability of global value chains (GVCs). To fill this ‘institutional void’, industry and NGOs established a series of global partnerships that designed standards and certification schemes for global commodities. This paper uses different theoretical lenses to address the question as to what extent these arrangements can be evaluated as smart, and for what and for whom they are smart? Despite their relative success, these partnerships face some serious challenges. Consequently, smart governance also requires adaptiveness and the prevention of path dependencies.

In the Netherlands, the Dutch government public private partnerships (PPP) using DBFMO contracts has become the default option for realizing complex public infrastructures. DBFMO contracts imply the integrated outsourcing of the design (D), building (B), financing (F), the maintenance (M), and also often the exploitation (O) of projects to private actors. The general idea is that by bundling public and private resources, the increasing complexity of today’s public infrastructure projects can be tackled more easily. However, reality is contumacious. As a consequence of several problems related to DBFMO collaborations, the Dutch highway and water management agency Rijkswaterstaat and several private actors recently put forward a new market vision. This vision is a call to reinvent the dominant collaboration practice between public and private actors: relational aspects should be central. In managing projects, more attention should be given to the quality of relations, attitudes, openness and trust. Recent research confirms that the success of DBFMO projects is not only contingent on contractual aspects but also, and maybe even more importantly, on relational aspects. Smart governance involves a shift from the current dominant financial economic-oriented contractual approach to PPP towards a more sociologically inspired relational form of governance.

Lack of safety leading to death or injury has many aspects: personal violence, traffic, accidents at home or the work place, not to mention other external sources as radiation and fine dust or internal sources like diseases. In this paper we restrict ourselves to the lack of safety in traffic as a system, and address the following questions: (1) Is traffic a system with one dominant responsible actor (Ministry of Traffic)? (2) What explanations are offered for the lack of safety? (3) Who is responsible for safety? (4) What sort of interventions are suitable for enhancing safety? and (5) What type of process/consultancy is most appropriate for answer the preceding questions?
The paper arrives at its conclusions via an indirect way, namely a short analysis of what a system comprises and what constitutes an explanation, responsibility and effectiveness. It appears that we are all causally involved in the lack of safety, and we are all responsible at all levels of society: micro-individual, meso-organizational and macro-societal. Therefore a promising route to maximize safety is a governance perspective comprising multiple stakeholder co-responsibility. It remains to be seen whether this perspective should replace the predominant command and control governance or complement it.

Er is de laatste tijd veel aandacht voor het omgaan met onzekerheid en dynamiek in beleid. Zo is er recent de roep om leren door doen, door een overheid die samen met de samenleving het experiment aan durft te gaan. Zo’n benadering van beleid als gezamenlijk experiment is veelbelovend, maar vergt ook passende methoden voor beleidsevaluaties. Adaptief beleid speelt hierop in. De laatste jaren is een belangrijke stap gezet in de ontwikkeling van methoden waarmee adaptief beleid ontwikkeld kan worden. Voor de evaluatie en de rol van evaluaties heeft dit belangrijke implicaties. In dit artikel wordt hierop verder ingegaan, op basis van ervaringen met adaptief beleid en beleidsevaluatie binnen het Nederlandse Deltaprogramma.