Citizens and scholars excel in identifying and analysing government failure. It is important indeed to understand public sector, but while governments in the Low Countries are doing well on average and very well from an internationally perspective, most attention is focused on the errors and mishaps. This article argues for a robust positive perspective on the public sector as a complement to existing research. From a scientific perspective, public administration must set itself the ambition to connect and aggregate existing positive insights even better. From a social perspective, the discipline must prevent the gap from being filled by a wholesale rejection of democratic government or the use of unproven miracle cures. This article elaborates the starting points for Positive Public Administration, arguing that this perspective should be comprehensive, context related, inter-subjective, learning-oriented, and robustly scientific in nature. The article also introduces the other contributions in this special issue, which together give an initial interpretation of positive public administration.

Positive Public Administration (PPA) encourages scholars to examine governance success. The appreciation of successes, however, is not new. During previous decades, awards were bestowed for exceptional performance. We analyse whether two important awards in the Netherlands and Flanders are an expression of PPA. Firstly, we find that successes are interpreted differently: in the Netherlands, one-off, trendy performances are rewarded, while in Flanders the focus is on consolidated results of long-term change processes. Secondly, we see that ‘clean’ success criteria promote a suggestion of ‘control’, whilst public settings are ambiguous and unpredictable. Finally, we conclude that prizes are primarily celebrations; little evidence is found of systematic knowledge exchange, learning and professionalisation.

Changing behavior is often necessary to tackle societal problems. Governments can change behavior via economic incentives (such as subsidies for electric cars), bans/mandates (such as prison sentences for drug smuggling), communication (for example information campaigns) and nudges (for example, being a donor by default). However, the government should not be a manipulator that applies the latest behavioral tricks without societal support. Public administration research shows that support cannot be taken for granted. If there is no support for behavioral change, well-intended interventions can even be counterproductive. I therefore develop a model for supported behavioral change. I provide five criteria that indicate when there is supported behavioral change: if the behavioral change is both effective (1) and efficient (2), and when there is support for behavioral change among politicians (3), among implementing organizations (4), and among citizens (5).

Reflection and debate initiates academically inspired discussions on issues that are on the current policy agenda.

Civil servants at the Dutch authorities increasingly make use of behavioural insights in the policy process. These insights are primarily put on the agenda at the level of the national government in the Netherlands. However, they also seem to be particularly useful at the local level. After all, behaviour-conscious policy focuses on behavioural change through the redesign of the direct environments of citizens, and local authorities have a clear view and control over these environments. In the light of this potential, this article explores the current rise and institutionalization of behavioural expertise in local government. The work practices of local behavioural experts are examined on the basis of three dimensions of local government: positioning, practices and politics. The findings show that local behavioural experts are still in an experimental and start-up phase, but at the same time are already working with a wealth of behavioural assignments. In doing so, they deal tactically with scarce resources, resistance and abrasive institutional logics. The article shows that behavioural insights and designs are also promising in local government, that a local administrative landscape of behavioural expertise is already being developed; and that making meters in the field of behavioural expertise calls for several forms of coordination.

In Dutch semi-public sectors of education, healthcare, and housing there is a tendency towards governance based inspection. The attention of inspectorates shifts from inspection on minimum quality standards to inspection on governance based quality improvement. The aim of this special issue is to learn more about the opportunities and risks of governance based inspection. The survey and sector articles show that governance based inspection (1) puts the responsibility of governors to stimulate quality on the agenda, (2) makes governors more aware of the quality targets they want to achieve within their organisations, and (3) has a deregulating effect. However, the risks are (1) reregulation via sector norms, (2) a lack of reality checks, and (3) a narrow focus on governors instead of the quality of public services. Consequently, inspectors have to learn new skills and competences. All in all, governance based inspection can complement but not replace other ways of inspection.

Since 2018, the Department of Public Administration of the Faculty of Behavioural, Management and Social Sciences (BMS) of the University of Twente, in close cooperation with the municipality Zwolle, the Province of Overijssel and BMC advice, have been organizing the yearly Van Poelje lecture (named after administrative scientist and founder of Dutch Public Administration Gerrit van Poelje). The first lecture took place on 29 January 2018 in the ‘Grote Kerk’ in Zwolle. The subject of the lecture was the secret of successful regions: which policy works? Otto Raspe of the Dutch Planning Agency for the Environment delivered the keynote speech. Presentations from the administrative field were given by Henk Jan Meijer (mayor of the municipality Zwolle) and Staf Depla (alderman of the municipality Eindhoven) who respectively addressed the cooperation in the regions Zwolle and South-East Brabant. Bert van Delden responded from the point of view of the Home Office (he deputized for his minister, Kajsa Ollongren). After a short debate, the afternoon was closed by Marcel Boogers (senior advisor at BMC and professor at the University of Twente) with a scientific reflection on the subject of the lecture. The main message of the keynote speaker Otto Raspe was that an urban region is successful if it is able to use its agglomeration advantages. This is possible by seeking connections between clusters and the knowledge infrastructure, and between human capital and a pleasant living and social climate.

Public value management encourages public organizations to move beyond existing frameworks and create value in flexible collaboration with societal partners. However, this approach creates problems for the accountability processes, because reports to politicians are often still directed at quantitative goals and rigid frameworks. This creates uncertainty and disagreement around the definition of value, the legitimacy of the new governance styles and the complexity of the new collaborations. This article describes the experiences of a large Dutch municipality where we conducted an experiment with an innovative accountability process for public value creation in the public health domain. Political administrators, council members, civil servants and societal partners have jointly assessed, through an interactive Public Value Table meeting format, what value their combined efforts in complex societal challenges have created. This experiment gives insight in the growing pains of public value creation, but also shows some possible solutions to address these tensions.

This article is about how education administrators value complex issues or dilemmas they are confronted with in their governance practices, and which strategies they adopt to cope with them. Professional governance of school organisations was introduced gradually over the past fifteen years, and at the same time governance in education has gained in complexity and raises considerable risks, requiring more time, knowledge and expertise of education administrators. We draw on the theoretical perspective of coping to investigate the potential of education administrators to deal with the complexity, impediments and social and regulatory pressure in their daily practice. Our study consists of a comparative case study of six education administrators in secondary education. Their agency has been researched qualitatively with the help of the hierarchical model of coping strategies of Skinner and colleagues. The results show that the issues and dilemmas education administrators find most complex are about educational innovation and numbers of students enrolled. Education administrators value these issues or dilemmas hardly as threatening, and they adopt various proactive coping strategies to deal with them, such as information seeking or bargaining.

This essay contains a short history of the municipal and other administrative sciences in the Netherlands. This history is divided into seven lives. Each life has its own specific characteristics and approaches. The story starts in 1914 with the dissertation of Gerrit van Poelje and the aldermanship of Floor Wibaut (for the Dutch Labour Party) in Amsterdam. Nevertheless, the authors make a plea to view 1921 as the actual starting point, because it is the year of the introduction to municipal administration written by Van Poelje and the first Dutch academic magazine on municipal administration (‘Gemeentebestuur’). This means that we can prepare for the celebration of 100 years of (municipal) administrative sciences in 2021. A great challenge for all universities, but certainly for the Public Administration programme of the University of Twente, which is now celebrating its 40^th anniversary. The challenge is to work on current topics such as the relationship between public administration and technology in smart, sustainable and resilient cities.

This article examines who ‘21^st century public managers’ are and which skills and roles they have to master to function effectively in the 21^st century. Based on a large scale analysis of literature and years of interaction with senior practitioners, seven key 21^st century demands for public managers are identified, each of which creates dilemmas as well as opportunities. 21^st century public managers utilize a combination of traditional and new roles, competencies, and values to turn demands into opportunities. The article concludes with implications for public administration research and education.

Policy evaluation has two main functions: it should lead to policy oriented learning and facilitate accountability. Rendering account is considered an important democratic duty but is not very popular with politicians and, hence, public officials. Learning is popular, but in practice it is often difficult to organize or, indeed, witness.
This contribution addresses the question how, in both functions, policy evaluation could be better utilized. As a starting point we the tension between scientific and political rationality and the barriers associated with these different worlds to the development of knowledge.
As indispensable for sound and productive knowledge management in government the article outlines the importance of societal values, policy effectiveness as a research angle, and the independence of researchers at major evaluations. In addition, relevant research questions, high methodological quality, responsiveness, good timing, and clear and accessible reporting are indispensable. It is argued that these are by no means abstract notions but can be brought into real day-to-day practice.
The conclusion is that a knowledge agenda for policy evaluation that is based on the search for effective policy interventions and societal values can help to bridge politics and science.

Een lerende overheid heeft behoefte aan beleidsevaluaties die niet alleen van betekenis zijn voor het onderwerp waarop deze primair gericht zijn, maar ook bijdragen aan bredere, systematische opbouw van kennis en ervaring. Het interdepartementaal verbinden van expertise verruimt daarbij het zicht op factoren die het leren bevorderen of belemmeren.
Een centrale vraag is of de door het beleid beoogde publieke belangen inderdaad bevorderd worden. Beleidsevaluatie moet dan niet alleen gericht zijn op effectiviteit en doelmatigheid ten aanzien van relatief gemakkelijk meetbare indicatoren, maar ook op lastig te kwantificeren essentiële waarden zoals subjectief welzijn, rechtvaardigheid en maatschappelijke aanvaardbaarheid. Het verdient aanbeveling kostbare evaluatie-energie te concentreren op belangrijke kwesties waarover vooraf discussie of onzekerheid bestaat.
Uit een oogpunt van doelmatige beleidsvoorbereiding, en omdat de uitwerking van wetgeving en beleid ex post niet altijd eenvoudig is vast te stellen, is veel aandacht nodig voor ex ante evaluatie. Van onderzoek naar werkingsmechanismen van beleidsmaatregelen wordt in dit verband terecht veel verwacht.
Er is sprake van een paradoxaal spanningsveld tussen verwetenschappelijking en politisering van beleid. Daarom is stevig verankerde, onafhankelijke en onpartijdige beleidsevaluatie onmisbaar. Hoge methodologische kwaliteit biedt extra houvast om deze functie geloofwaardig te kunnen vervullen.
In het streven naar systematische opbouw van kennis en ervaring naast dossier-specifieke doelbereiking kan het helpen als evaluaties zowel een specifiek als een breder geldend algemeen deel bevatten. Belangrijk is ook te sturen op een evenwichtige evaluatieportfolio per beleidsterrein, met aandacht voor ex ante en ex post methoden, uiteenlopende waarden, en verschillende informatiebronnen. Naast best practices moet daarbij ook minder geslaagd beleid in beeld worden gebracht. Voor de bruikbaarheid van evaluaties voor de praktijk is goede vertegenwoordiging van het bottom-up perspectief noodzakelijk.
Evaluatie van beleid vereist gedegen inbedding binnen de nationale kennisinfrastructuur, effectieve samenwerking met kennisinstellingen en het up-to-date houden van het evalueren zelf. Dat is cruciaal voor het evaluatievermogen van de lerende overheid.

With the term ‘system responsibility’ the authors (both working for the Dutch Scientific Council for Governmental Policy) mean the responsibility for the functioning of complex ‘administrative systems’. In these complex administrative systems supervision can have different roles: to assess the functioning one-sided from the perspective of the government, but also to put on reflective glasses (‘from afar glasses’) that aim at the bigger picture of divergent rationalities of the actors involved. In the second case, there is ‘system responsible supervision’. This essay explores the ‘what’ and the ‘how’ of the desirability of system responsible supervision in a society with complex, compound administrative systems. Such supervision can contribute to a somewhat better understanding of these systems and a somewhat better ability to adjust these complex systems. These supervisors can be seen as a necessary complement of the withdrawal of the government and the rise of ‘horizontal administration’, in which the hierarchical decision-power of the central government has gradually shifted to other actors. As unelected and as relatively independent actors they occupy a new, hybrid place in the ‘trias politica’, because on the one hand they have taken over functions of elected politicians and administrators and on the other hand they function in many respects as a quasi-judicial power.

Professional services such as educational services, are increasingly managed and optimized in order to improve performances. Performances of students, teachers and school (boards) are measured and evaluated. Increasingly, rules and systems focus on outputs and control. Consequently, the ‘freedom’ of professionals such as teachers is reduced, or is perceived and felt to be reduced. There have been growing debates on the problematic effects of performance pressures. Often, public professionals are seen as ‘defenseless victims’ of systems and pressures – they are ‘professionals under pressure’. In this paper, we introduce a more positive way of understanding professionals and professional action in changing contexts. We see professionals such as teachers as ‘active agents’ who can develop and regain control over their own situation. Professionals can deliver quality, in spite of bureaucratic burdens and managerial intrusions. We call this ability professional capability: ‘the ability to proactively deal with work-related expectations, tasks and burdens in dynamic stakeholder environments’. This paper combines research on public administration, organizational sociology and occupational psychology, to generate a more productive understanding of proactive coping of professionals in public domains. We define and operationalize professional capacity, we explore sources and effects, and we develop hypotheses for further research.

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.