This article assesses the size and diversity of Belgium’s interest group population by triangulating four data sources. Combining various sources allows us to describe which societal interests get mobilised, which interest organisations become politically active and who gains access to the policy process and obtains news media attention. Unique about the project is the systematic data collection, enabling us to compare interest representation at the national, Flemish and Francophone-Walloon government levels. We find that: (1) the national government level remains an important venue for interest groups, despite the continuous transfer of competences to the subnational and European levels, (2) neo-corporatist mobilisation patterns are a persistent feature of interest representation, despite substantial interest group diversity and (3) interest mobilisation substantially varies across government levels and political-administrative arenas.

Both education and housing are highly regulated sectors in the Netherlands. According to various stakeholders, regulations and formal and informal rules hinder the development of new initiatives aimed at providing attention to personal needs and wishes of children (in education) and older people (in housing). This article focuses on founders of initiatives in both sectors that, despite institutional obstacles, dare to do things differently. We adopt a rebellion perspective, which focuses on how individual and collective actors aim to create favorable circumstances for providing better services, even if this means they have to disrupt existing institutions. In-depth interviews were conducted with 22 founders of rebellious initiatives in education and housing for older people. According to the founders, what makes them different from others is having a dream, learning by doing, and critically assessing rules and regulations. Founders in both sectors not only interpret rules differently, but also try to change them. In order to do so, they need supportive internal and external contexts, which they create through personal contacts and social media. Although rebellion in both sectors has many similarities, sector-specific institutional settings and past events do shape its appearance.

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.

This study investigates how protest attitudes and ideological considerations affected the 2019 election results in Belgium, and particularly the vote for the radical right-wing populist party Vlaams Belang (VB) and for the radical left-wing populist party Partij van de Arbeid-Parti du Travail de Belgique (PVDA-PTB). Our results confirm that both protest attitudes and ideological considerations play a role to distinguish radical populist voters from mainstream party voters in general. However, when opposed to their second-best choice, we show that particularly protest attitudes matter. Moreover, in comparing radical right- and left-wing populist voters, the article disentangles the respective weight of these drivers on the two ends of the political spectrum. Being able to portray itself as an alternative to mainstream can give these parties an edge among a certain category of voters, albeit this position is also difficult to hold in the long run.

The concept of self-reliant citizens reflects an ideology of citizenship that is multiple and flexible. It could be regarded as a ‘plastic’ word, malleable and adjustable according to convictions, needs and purposes. This study shows the importance of considering the way in which ideological views on citizenship are transferred, adjusted and enacted in an organizational context. On the basis of a case study at the Dutch Tax and Customs Administration (DTCA), we contribute to knowledge on the way processes of framing interrelate on micro, meso and macro levels. We found that frames on self-reliance are enacted in a way that tensions and dilemmas are neutralized or reduced. In a dynamic context of conflicting goals and limited resources, DTCA-employees create meanings of self-reliance which legitimate practices and policies. By doing this they reproduce both organizational and social perspectives. Accounts of citizenship play an important role in this process. Self-reliant citizens are presented as active and responsible. The need of help is imagined as a normal and yet an atypical situation. This study promotes attention to the possibility that organizational systems reproduce perspectives in a way that alternative views remain unnoticed, whereas organizational choices are silently accepted as natural facts.

This essay is written on the occasion of the appearance of the Dutch translation of Richard Sennett’s new book Building and dwelling. Ethics for the city. For more than half a century Sennett has been occupied with the position of man in the changing society in general and with the life of people in the city in particular. Apparently he doesn’t stop thinking and writing about it. His central thesis is that in the past decades, we have worked from the vision of the ‘closed city’, a city that was conceived and designed by professionals in advance, while for the future there is a need for an ‘open city’, a city where not everything is carefully planned in advance, but where there is room for unpredictability and coincidences. That sounds and is very abstract indeed, but it is a signal that is being delivered in the direction of a city nowadays controlled by state and capital, that should make room for a city that is more inspired by civil initiatives and civil involvement. A statement that is, moreover, largely at odds with the current practice of urban design and spatial planning in the present era. Does this mean that Richard Sennett’s central message has actually been said in advance against ‘deaf ears’? Is the chance that ‘his mission’ ends up in the right place already gone in advance? When we talk about the city Sennett distinguishes between two (and inseparable) dimensions: the city as a physical space (‘ville’) and the city as a whole of people of flesh and blood (‘cité’). It is a fascinating quest for the phenomenon of city: an ‘academic pilgrimage’ to an uncertain urban site, an ‘open city’, undergoing the purification of talking with the great figures in the history of (urban) sociology and urban planning.

The impact of residualisation on social work has so far hardly been explored. Based on existing literature and recently started empirical research in Amsterdam we analyze several consequences. Residualisation refers to the process whereby urban social housing is strictly allocated to the lowest income groups. What does this concentration of disadvantaged households mean for the role of social workers? Firstly, for community workers residualisation mostly implies a renewed role as instigators of residents’ participation in urban renewal trajectories for social mix. Furthermore community activities are increasingly used to offer safe havens for new and old groups of residents and also to prevent expensive treatments for several residential groups. For social workers focusing on individual support or casework residualisation results in an increasingly complex caseload. Residualisation does not imply extra formation for social work, but rather extra attention for the effortful coproduction of welfare between formal and informal actors. Within this playing field, we distinguish link work as vital for both formal and informal social work. Link work is about establishing vertical and horizontal connections between different worlds, across sectoral, professional or trust gaps. We expect that in areas of residualisation successful urban social work is dependent on strong linking skills.

This article examines the economic agenda of the Dutch Freedom Party. It finds that this party mixes left-wing and right-wing policy positions. This inconsistency can be understood through the group-based account of Ennser-Jedenastik (2016), which proposes that the welfare state agenda of radical right-wing populist parties can be understood in terms of populism, nativism and authoritarianism. Each of these elements is linked to a particular economic policy: economic nativism, which sees the economic interest of natives and foreigners as opposed; economic populism, which seeks to limit economic privileges for the elite; and economic authoritarianism, which sees the interests of deserving and undeserving poor as opposed. By using these different oppositions, radical right-wing populist parties can reconcile left-wing and right-wing positions.

Every now and then the question whether or not civil servants are allowed to wear religious and ideological signs divides the minds of the people, and leads to societal and political controversy. In this article we examine this controversy by contrasting two different conceptions of neutrality, an inclusive and an exclusive account. We illustrate why the former is to be preferred and hence that a neutral government should not necessarily ask its servants to abstract from religious and cultural expressions. This however does not imply that all kinds of expressions should be allowed. In order to prevent a slippery slope, we formulate a number of formal criteria that can help to separate the proverbial wheat from the chaff: (1) the interpretation of neutrality in relation to a minimum and objective review; (2) the proportionality criterion; (3) the functionality criterion; and (4) the criterion of contact with the public.

When scientific values like objectivity, validity and reliability are inadequate for designing research that enables society’s capacity for dealing with unstructured problems, which values or criteria should we use for designing adequate knowledge practices? Based on the articles in this special issue we answer this question by analysing the methods researchers have used for selecting stakeholders, knowledges, synthesis, context and outcome in new knowledge practices. Although a common language for comparison and documentation is lacking, the analysis provides recommendations for better designing interaction between scientific and other practices. The most important message however is that we need a designated platform for exchanging and evaluating experiences and discussing methods and the outcomes they yield.

Although in many Western European countries women have entered the workforce in large numbers this has not resulted in an equal representation in senior positions. Little is known about how organizational policies could be changed and what initiatives have proven to be effective in raising the number of women in the top of organizations. This article examines the effectiveness of measures taken by organizations to increase the number of women in senior management positions. We have reviewed literature regarding the effects of various types of measures on realizing more women in senior positions. The outcomes of this literature review have been used as a framework for an empirical analysis of the effectiveness of measures taken by companies. Data from the Charter Talent to the Top show that adopting a broad range of measures at the strategic level leads to a higher share of women in senior management positions. HR instruments and communication strategies also affect the proportion of women at the top. More specifically, facilitating flexible work options, external communication about the organization’s diversity goals, and increasing women’s visibility within the organization all have positive effects on the share of women in the top.

In many European countries immigrants play an important role as employees in the elderly care sector. They are employed by a care providing organisation, or directly by a family as private care assistant. By contrast, in the Netherlands such a development is hardly visible. This article investigates why relatively few migrant workers are employed in Dutch elderly care. The Dutch situation is compared with developments in Italy, Great Britain and Austria. I assess explanations based on demand side, supply side and cultural factors and conclude that especially the large public investments in Dutch elderly care can explain the limited demand for migrant workers. A restrictive immigration policy and language and historical factors play only a minor role. Whether a larger demand for migrant workers will emerge in the future, therefore depends on developments in public elderly care policy.