In recent years few political ambitions enjoyed so much political support as the striving to let the welfare state become more of a ‘participation society’. This ‘participation society’ should be a society with self-reliant citizens; before turning to the state for support, citizens should first of all look at their own capacities, and only in the last case ask the state for help. The premise is promising: collective well-being. However, the fundamental assumptions behind this notion do raise questions. This article argues that the notion for citizens to be self-reliant easily builds on questionable assumptions; these assumptions on the one hand raise hope for collective well-being, but on the other hand easily catalyze citizens’ contemporary uncertainties. It indeed is desirable to restate the relation between state and citizens, but the contemporary focus on citizens’ self-reliance should watch for building on unstable foundations to easily.

In this very personal narrative, Gabriël van den Brink analyses why many citizens seem to oppose change instigated by government. In his view, this is due to government and society elites embracing a paradigm of change which is based on an unrealistic view on modernity. He analyses what this means, what its effects are and proposes a new way to go forward.

In this feature authors review recently published books on subjects of interest to readers of Beleid en Maatschappij.

Many tasks will be decentralized to municipalities in the Netherlands in the coming years. To deal with these challenges, central government encourages municipal mergers, while municipalities often prefer a light form of cooperation. Since municipal boarders are converging less and less with the boarders inhabitants experience in their daily lives, municipalities feel free to cooperate in a variety of ways with other partners. This poses new challenges to democratic legitimacy, effectiveness and the role local authorities play. Local governments therefore do not need new regulations or legal forms of co-operations, but rather a repertoire fitting their role. We argue that local governments need to analyse their tasks, choose the form of cooperation that fits best and develop a repertoire for their cooperation. Light forms of cooperation are very important for developing a variety of cooperative forms and roles local governments need to play.

In this feature authors review recently published books on subjects of interest to readers of Beleid en Maatschappij.

The social security system provides some form of protection for its citizens. The social security system depends on public support in society. Support is crucial for legitimacy of the social system. To date, it remains unclear whether social policy preferences will be affected by changes on the labour market. In this article we aim to increase our understanding of individual reactions to increasing labour flexibility and the impact on social policy preferences. From the results of our study, we draw the general conclusion that employees with flexible labour contracts as well as the self-employed do not reject the idea of social security.