Recently, the construction of large datacentres has led to intense societal debate in the Netherlands. Political decision making preceding the building of these centres is usually done at a decentralized governance level. However, at that level, it appears to be challenging to balance the relevant interest with integrity, and the living environment of citizens is easily overlooked. At the core of this debate lies a systemic challenge that comes with the changing role of the local government. Driven by privatization, globalization, digital transformation and citizen emancipation, the identity of governments transforms. Consequentially, governments are not only legislators and policy makers, but also – and increasingly – business partner, shareholder and client. Local politicians struggle with combining and switching between these roles. The case of datacentres is the embodiment of these challenges, and it takes a powerful, hybrid government to address these challenges in a meaningful manner and adopt a more active role for civilians in line with the new Dutch spatial planning law. Above all, it is necessary to focus on acting as a professional and stable partner. This is not only in the interest of citizens, but also in the interest of the related private organizations.

At the beginning of the corona crisis, there was a real wave of solidarity actions, for example people helping each other in villages and neighbourhoods, and buying food from close by. At the same time, opinion articles appeared about the historical-social context in which the COVID-19 virus could have such a rapid impact on society. These two observations have led to this research into the potential of citizen collectives in times of crisis. First, it was shown that, in combating the pandemic, governments paid little or no attention to the possibilities of citizen collectives to reach citizens in villages, districts and neighbourhoods through direct, personal channels. In contrast, the analysis of 20 opinion articles from the period March-June 2020 shows that the value shifts that most authors consider desirable to address the big issues in society are a good fit with the values that citizen collectives represent. For three domains – care and housing, work and food – this is illustrated with existing practices and new needs. Their conclusion is that the government would do well to make a strong appeal to the organizing capacity of active citizens, their networks and community strength when tackling major social challenges related to climate, energy, care, food and housing.

Research integrity has received increased attention, in the literature as well as in policy. A host of initiatives is supporting its promotion. However, misconduct will not cease to exist and needs to be reported, by whistleblowers. It takes a lot of courage to blow the whistle as it can have an enormous impact on the whistleblower’s career and personal well-being – and that of colleagues and researchers associated with the perpetrator. Therefore, it is important to be cognisant of the stressful process that accompanies the act of whistleblowing, to provide clear and accessible procedures to report misconduct, and to support whistleblowers throughout the process. Furthermore, it is essential that appropriate whistleblower protection measures are in place and enforced. Based on the current review of the literature, we provide some recommendations for policy and argue that an obligation to report scientific misconduct would currently do more harm than good.

This article describes the relationship between central government and municipalities and to what extent this relationship has an impact on local decision-making. The commonly used characterization of this relationship as a principal-agent relationship offers many leads but has some shortcomings. That is why this is compared with the stewardship theory, assuming a more equal and constructive cooperation. Both theories have been incorporated into a broader model on management styles, which creates a more nuanced description of the cooperation in public administration. The article focuses on the case of Rotterdam in 2015, at a time of political turmoil in the Netherlands about the shelter of people without residence permit. The analysis is carried out using a measuring instrument for policy freedom, as policy freedom is a good determinant for which management style is used. The research is conducted from a local perspective, with emphasis on the position of councilors. The national government sometimes profiles itself as a principal to them, but in practice council members resist and turn the relationship around, hereby holding the government accountable for its role and responsibility.

The underrepresentation of women in politics is a worldwide phenomenon and the Netherlands fit the pattern: about 39% of the Dutch MPs are female. Based on social role incongruity theory, it is expected that female politicians are evaluated more negatively than male politicians since women do not fit the dominant male politician role. However, most research is conducted in the United States, that is, a candidate-centred system where individual characteristics play an important role. This article focuses on the party-centred parliamentary context in which we examine (1) whether gender stereotypes are present among citizens and (2) to what extent these stereotypes influence the evaluation of politicians. We do this by conducting an experimental vignette survey design. We find that at the mass level there is no difference between the evaluation of male and female politicians, although gender stereotypes are present.

Following the municipal elections in the Walloon Region (Belgium) on 14 October 2018, 189 political groups won an absolute majority. Twenty-two of these decided not to exercise power alone, but favoured the formation of an oversized coalition by integrating a minority partner. The aim of this article is to identify the motivations behind the formation of a local coalition when one of the partners has an absolute majority. Semi-structured interviews with mayors and leaders of political groups in these municipalities make it possible to identify the motivations for, first, the choice to open and, second, the choice of a minority partner. By distinguishing between necessary and supporting motivations, this article shows that the search for greater representation is a necessary motivation for the choice to open, whereas personal affinities and memories of the past are necessary motivations for choosing minority partners. By prioritising motivations, this article shows that.

Partly as a result of major problems on the housing market and in particular the large housing shortage, there is now a lot of attention for housing in both the press and politics. After many years of focus on more market forces and decentralization, the national government recently seems prepared to take more responsibility. In this contribution we try to interpret this turnaround by successively considering the main problems in the housing market, the development of government policy and possible solutions to the problems that have arisen. The emphasis is on the role of the national government. We conclude that, in view of the many spatial claims and the major investment tasks, it is important that the national government takes control and makes clear choices, which can then be worked out at regional and local level. By subsequently closely monitoring the developments and intervening if necessary, the central government can make adjustments on the intended housing policies.

The underrepresentation of women in politics is a worldwide phenomenon and the Netherlands fit the pattern: about 39% of the Dutch MPs are female. Based on social role incongruity theory, it is expected that female politicians are evaluated more negatively than male politicians since women do not fit the dominant male politician role. However, most research is conducted in the United States, that is, a candidate-centred system where individual characteristics play an important role. This article focuses on the party-centred parliamentary context in which we examine (1) whether gender stereotypes are present among citizens and (2) to what extent these stereotypes influence the evaluation of politicians. We do this by conducting an experimental vignette survey design. We find that at the mass level there is no difference between the evaluation of male and female politicians, although gender stereotypes are present.

From 1964 (until 1990 globally) political science would become the dominant approach within the (local) administrative sciences in the Netherlands. This position took over from the legal approach. During this period, the concepts of politics, policy and decision-making were central to research and theory formation. In the period since 1990, we have seen a broader perspective emerging on institutions, management and governance in which Public Administration will increasingly profile itself as an independent discipline. This essay harks back to the importance of the legal approach for (local) administrative sciences from the time of the man who is regarded in the Netherlands as the founder of the discipline of Public Administration: Gerrit van Poelje. More specifically, the author addresses the question of the relationship between Public Administration and legal science in the more than one hundred years of (local) administrative science. After Gerrit van Poelje (his dissertation from 1914 is an important milestone in that history), the author discusses eleven other key persons who have made their own contribution to that history at various universities based on their legal expertise (in the broad senseHe concludes the essay with a brief discussion of the relevance of law and legal science for the future of public administration (the field) and Public Administration (the discipline).

Local policy freedom is often equated with the formal policy freedom of municipalities and thus with the formal boundaries that determine the local playing field. In this article, we question this approach. It is not clear to what extent formal policy freedom is a good measure for the ‘real’ policy freedom of municipalities, and thus for the policy freedom that municipalities use in policy implementation. Does more formal policy freedom necessarily lead to more used policy freedom? Moreover, not every municipality uses formal policy freedom in the same way. To indicate variance in policy discretion used, reference is often made to official capacity, scale and political changes. However, it is unclear to what extent these variables have an impact on local policy freedom. The authors investigate the link between formal and used policy freedom, official capacity, scale and political change on the basis of Flemish policy reform. Based on an analysis of financial data, they conclude that more formal policy freedom can be an incentive for more used policy freedom, but also that the explanatory power of administrative capacity, scale and political change is limited. In both research and policy, we need more attention for the value of social interaction, soft skills and networking.

How did Flemish and Dutch mayors experience the first months of the corona crisis? To find out, the Flemish and Dutch authors of this article first zoom in on the local government system of Flanders (Belgium) and the Netherlands in which these mayors operate. That system differs between the Low Countries from a functional, territorial and political perspective. However, a thorough document analysis and a series of interviews teach us that the position and leeway of mayors is quite similar in full corona time and during the corona struggle. Crisis decision-making is centralised in both Flanders and the Netherlands. Mayors therefore quickly made a significant shift in terms of (1) power and authority (respectively to the provincial governor and the federal level and to the regional mayor and the national level); (2) tasks (prioritising crisis management over other tasks); and (3) roles (increased importance for the executive role with impact on the ‘mayor father’ or ‘mayor mother’ role). And, with that, this contribution shows that Flemish and Dutch mayors, and if they are extended, local authorities, are indispensable for these days tackling a crisis, even if it extends far beyond their own borders.

Local political parties are clearly on the rise in the Netherlands in both the municipal council and the municipal board. Their average percentage of council seats increased from 25% in 1998 to 37% in 2018 and the percentage of councillors from 21% to 32%. This coincided with a greatly increased fragmentation. For example, the average number of political parties on the council rose from 6.5 in 1998 to 8.0 in 2018 and the number of parties providing one or more aldermen increased from 2.8 to 3.4 during this period. Fragmentation expressed in the number of effective parties shows a similar trend. If we use the Chapel Hill score, it appears that the average political colour of both the municipal council and the alderman part in the municipal board has shifted to the right. This is mainly because political parties are becoming increasingly right wing according to this index and not so much because there are more local votes for right-wing parties. Significant differences in the representative representation are also noted. The local parties as well as the Socialist Party (SP) are less successful than average in converting their seats on the council into councillor seats, while the three large traditional (and especially the CDA) and smaller Christian parties have succeeded above average in this.

Because local political parties are by definition only active in one municipality, the assumption is that they are less effective compared to national parties because they have no representation at other levels of government and in other municipalities. It is then expected that aldermen of local parties will have more difficulty advocating the interests of their municipality in the region or province, the national government or the European Union. Interviews with aldermen of local parties and a survey among aldermen show that this picture needs some nuance. Aldermen from local parties say they can compensate for the lack of party political contacts by investing in personal relationships. It is striking that the non-partisan role of these aldermen also benefits them: because they do not have to take party political interests into account, they can more forcefully propagate the interests of their municipality if they are at odds with provincial or national policy. Because of their party-politically neutral role, they also acquire key positions more quickly in the region. The only disadvantage that aldermen of local parties do experience is the lack of support in the form of professionalisation and of knowledge exchange. They see that aldermen of national parties, who usually receive support from their national party bureau, sometimes have an advantage in this regard. This sheds new, and relatively little mentioned, light on the importance of party-political contacts.

The history of local parties in the Netherlands is quite a mystery. Since their first appearance at the dawn of the twentieth century, local parties were founded sooner or later in all municipalities. They seemed to have served as an addition to local representatives of national parties. Despite the variety in their ideologies, shapes and modi operandi, they could be qualified and studied as ‘niche parties’, offering an alternative to the viewpoints and divisions of the traditional (national) party politics. With this article, the authors aim to contribute to a better understanding of Dutch local parties, whose origins and development have largely remained a black box due to the scarcity of sources and studies. They do so by adopting a partly quantitative, partly qualitative or narrative approach, while looking at the election results of local parties in the past century, including salient regional differences, and by comparing these to the success of national parties in local elections. Within the boundaries of their research, their hypothesis seems to hold true that the popularity of local parties, as ‘niche parties’, depended largely on the strategies of national parties, which justifies the assumption that these two types of parties have acted as communicating vessels.

In this study, the authors analyse the development of the 46 Dutch local parties that received at least ten per cent of the vote in the 2014 municipal elections as a new party. The aim is to determine which factors are most relevant to the successful entry and survival of this group of parties. To this end, they conduct interviews with leaders of these parties, but also, for comparison, with the leaders of parties who failed to win a seat. An important common feature of the most successful local parties is that they express dissatisfaction with local politics in an appealing way and offer voters perspective. They do this by putting people on the list who are known in the small communities and who are actively involved. The following factors are present in varying compositions among the parties that even exceeded their election victory four years later: unity in the party or at least no ‘hassle’ visible to society, visible and appealing to residents, having clearly achieved something and being able to transmit that to society. Most founders of the most successful newcomers were previously politically active for a local branch of a political party. It is also striking that three quarters of the most successful newcomers come from municipalities with a maximum of 40,000 inhabitants.