The history of the opening-up of marriage in the Netherlands is mostly portrayed as a fight started by the Gay Krant in the 1980ies resulting in a clear victory in 2001, the ‘purple’ government of Social Democrats and Liberals being pictured as the heroes. This one-dimensional and triumphalist narrative needs correction. Already in the 1970ies the COC initiated a discussion on law reform for non-marital relationships, but rejected marriage as the model to be followed. In the 1980ies both the gay movement and the feminist movement demanded legal individualisation. This avenue was closed off by the review of the social security system in 1987. A clear defeat. The role of the ‘purple’ coalition also needs revision. It was a more traditional cabinet of Social Democrats and Christian Democrats that in 1994 tabled the first proposal, be it not for marriage but for registered partnerships for couples of the same sex. Consensual politics found its limits in the demand for marriage equality. But also the ‘purple’ cabinet had to be forced by parliament to table this new legislation. The acceptance of marriage equality by the Christian Democrats – a decade later – fits in with integration of same sex relationships in a society where heterosexuality still is the dominant organizing principle.

This research note presents new definitions, measurements and data of cabinet conflicts and conflict features. Particular attention is given to the ethno-territorial nature of conflicts. This approach can easily be applied to various sources, periods, policy levels and countries. As an example, this note describes a novel dataset that provides the most fine-grained picture of Belgian cabinet conflicts to date (N = 1,090; 1995-2018).

The housing crisis is a social, political and policy issue that has not been as topical in recent decades as it is today. Over the past 25 years, the housing crisis has grown from an orphaned dossier to a problem that even has people taking to the streets. Starting from the issue attention cycle, after the alarm phase we are now in the contemplation phase of this cycle. Although the diagnosis of the problem is shared in this phase and agreement begins to emerge about the solutions, we also see the beginning of reflections on the effectiveness of the intended policy instruments and doubts about the feasibility of the objectives. Nowadays, the question is regularly asked whether major institutional changes should not be made to tackle the housing crisis. This article uses the current contemplation phase to address important institutional issues. The conclusion is that without thinking about institutional transitions, no major breakthroughs can be expected in the housing crisis and related spatial issues.

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.

In 2015, the three decentralizations in the social domain took place, a transfer of tasks and resources from the national government to municipalities in the Netherlands. Since then, the Dutch municipalities have been responsible for tasks related to work, care and youth. How the municipalities have tackled these tasks? What is the situation in the social domain seven years later? And what is the relationship between municipalities and national government?
It appears that municipalities are struggling with their new tasks, mainly because of the insufficient financial resources and the limited freedom of choice. With regard to the characterization of the transfer of tasks, it is better to speak of the three deconcentrations, instead of the three decentralizations. Municipalities have received new tasks, but experience little policy freedom to tackle those tasks. In order to achieve the goals associated with the transfer to municipalities, it is necessary to increase the scope for municipalities to make their own choices. In this way, national government and municipalities can work on more equal relations.

What causes the delays in the building of sufficient new homes in the Netherlands? And why do housebuilding projects so often struggle with financial feasibility? The land market typically can be described as an imperfect market, while the performance of the land and housebuilding market are closely connected. This connection seems to cause, at least partially, delays in the building of new homes. To be able to build new houses, ownership of land is crucial. However, land does not always come available in time. Landownership also influences competition in the housebuilding market. Based on a review of scientific literature, policy documents and empirical research results, this paper discusses the performance of the land and housebuilding market and its possible impact on housing production. Additionally, the paper reviews recent proposals that have been suggested in the context of the on-going Dutch housing market debate that may improve the functioning of these markets. What might be the effects of these interventions on housebuilding production? The paper concludes with a couple of dilemmas governments face with regard to the functioning of the land and housebuilding market.

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.

Do the budgetary consequences of an acute crisis make us less willing to tackle long-term challenges? This paper asks whether the recent ­COVID-19 crisis has affected the willingness of parties to commit to so-called ‘policy investments’. These are policies where short-term costs are accepted in anticipation of higher benefits in the longer run. Theoretically, there is no unambiguous prediction as to whether the recent crisis plays a role in repositioning party preferences regarding policy investments. In light of this theoretical ambiguity, this article aims to provide an empirical answer by measuring and comparing party positioning regarding policy investments of Dutch parties during the two general elections for the House of Representatives (Tweede Kamerver­kiezingen) of 2017 and 2021 respectively. To identify which proposals qualify as policy investments, and measure the corresponding willingness to engage in them, the article builds on calculations of the budgetary impact of party manifestos provided by the Netherlands Bureau for Economic Policy Analysis (Centraal Planbureau; Keuze in Kaart). The subsequent analysis shows that overall willingness of parties to engage in policy investments has increased during the COVID-19 crisis; suggesting that the tension between addressing short- and long-term challenges is less strict that often suggested.

Governments around the world responded at roughly the same time but in several different ways to the emerging threat of COVID-19 in early 2020. This article sets out the nature of the different strategies that emerged over the course of the pandemic, focussing on the policy tools deployed. Some of these efforts were successful in containing the coronavirus while others were not, in some cases due to poor initial choices and in others due to poor implementation of the chosen strategy. Although the initial understanding each government had of the nature of the disease was the same, different state capacities and different levels of preparedness and effective leadership can be seen to have resulted over time in the emergence of six distinct approaches to the pandemic which, once deployed, proved difficult, although not impossible, to change as the pandemic unfolded.

Arthur Docters van Leeuwen was a legendary senior civil servant whose leadership in tough reform processes left many traces in Dutch public administration, even today. In my review of his 2020 memoires ‘Een Spoor van Vernieuwing’, I distil three broad lessons for change management and administrative reform, and administrative craftmanship in particular.

The Dutch digital fraud detection system SyRI was announced to set up to detect social security fraud quickly and effectively and by doing so, maintain support for the social security system. It was the formal position that for the sake of effectiveness, no information about the algorithm and very limited information about the application of the system should be shared. The authors argue on the basis of a policy analysis, a legal exploration and a literature study that the lack of transparency about the chosen method and the application of the digital fraud detection system in social security can have far-reaching consequences for both the individual and society . The information sharing and the use of algorithms can lead to suspicion of and declining confidence in the government, and a reduced motivation to comply with the prevailing rules. This could undermine the original purpose.

The cabinet has decided to set up a national inspectorate with the task of supervising the quality and the rule of law of the public services provided by the tax authorities. The reason for this is the persistent problems surrounding the Tax and Customs Administration for years (organization, management, IT, personnel) and more recently the crisis surrounding the supplementary child benefit. The Netherlands is not the first and will soon not be the only country with a special regulator for the tax authorities and which focuses on legal protection of taxpayers and the quality of the service. In this article, we ask ourselves how the institution of the new Dutch inspectorate relates to the situation in various foreign countries and we examine which dilemmas and policy questions these raise. We note that with this new inspection the Netherlands is in tune with the situation in various foreign countries. Regarding the relationship and cooperative relationship with the National Ombudsman, the guarantee of the independent and impartial exercise of inspection supervision and the increasing importance of a Charter of the rights of taxpayers, a few important policy questions remain in a comparative sense.

In this article we discuss the role and position of different types of low income households in Dutch renewable energy transition processes using the concept of energy poverty. We explore which benefits and/or (dis)advantages (unintentionally) result from energy policies and regulations. And to what extent the distribution of these (dis)advantages benefit the position of different types of households. To this end we present an analytical perspective that enables us to evaluate renewable energy transition policies and governance on procedural and distributional aspects: paying attention to issues of recognition, equity and justice. The perspective draws on ideas in environmental justice literature and on ideas in social resilience literature. Combining these ideas in a new analytical framework proved to be useful in articulating some major policy challenges in relation to energy poverty in the Netherlands today.

Recent research demonstrates that political parties in western Europe are generally structured along one dimension – and often take more or less similar ideological positions on the economic and cultural dimension – whereas the policy preferences of voters are structured two dimensionally; a considerable part of the electorate combines left-wing stances on one dimension with right-wing stances on the other. These ideologically ‘unserved’ voters are the main focus of this study. Using data from a large-scale survey in Flanders and Wallonia, we demonstrate how the salience of the two dimensions explains whether these unserved voters ultimately end up voting for a right-wing or a left-wing party. Specifically, we show that these voters elect a party that is ideologically closest on the dimension that they deem most important at that time. To summarise, the findings of this study confirm that salience is a key driver of electoral choice, especially for cross-pressured voters.

Changes in views on the management of non-profit organizations have implications for the role expected of administrators. This also has an important influence on the requirements placed on these administrators. In the Dutch context, it has not previously been investigated whether and how the requirements for administrators change, and to what extent this occurs in conjunction with changes in the views on the management of non-profit organizations. This is central to this study. By means of a content analysis, in which 363 recruitment texts from the period 1980-2010 were analyzed, the authors show that more and more divergent demands are made on administrators in non-profit organizations. With our study we also show that this accumulation is closely related to views on management. Regulators are advised to focus on optimizing requirements, rather than maximizing them. This allows for more targeted and more adequate recruitment. The study also shows that accountability has not previously been a specific requirement in recruitment texts, whereas this is desirable in the light of previous incidents. Our recommendation to supervisors is to pay more specific attention to this when drawing up job profiles. The relevance for practitioners is (a) that the study provides insight into the relationship between views on the management of non-profit organizations and the demands placed on directors by supervisors; (b) this also clarifies that there are or may be blind spots, as becomes clear with regard to accountability requirements; and finally (c) our study provides food for thought about the role of recruitment texts in the selection process, and whether the requirements set are really relevant to the organization.

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.

The Western European social security systems are founded on the need to offer universal social protection, as was for example advocated in the Beveridge report of 1942. The universalistic endeavour has led to the development of the all-embracing welfare states of today, but already for many decades dissatisfaction with the direction of the welfare state has led to a diversion of the universalistic pretention. In the current debate, universalism seems to be on the rise again. The Dutch think tanks CPB, WRR and SCP increasingly pay attention to the divide that is becoming manifest between those with better chances in the society and who are left behind. The think tanks have all formulated policy options in order to address this divide by offering better social security protection for excluded groups. In this article we discuss whether the options presented fall back upon the post-war notion of universality.