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.

Belgium is probably the world’s best known case of where caretaker governments reside. Yet a clear scholarly definition and measurement of this concept is missing. Based on a detailed analysis of the Belgian federal cabinets, this research note explores the main characteristics and measures the length of the various caretaker periods. We find that Belgium was governed for no less than 1,485 days by a caretaker government between 2007 and 2020, which equals more than four full calendar years. This research note also presents a novel typology of caretaker periods based on the institutional and political practice within the Belgian legislative and executive branches. This typology can be used to assess caretaker periods at other levels of government as well as in other countries in order to improve our understanding of the many ‘faces’ that a caretaker government can take on.

This article scrutinises local-national linkage in Belgium to better understand territorial power relations in multilevel parties. Drawing on a survey of local chairs of national parties, it adopts an innovative, informal and bottom-up approach. The descriptive analysis reveals two central axes in the morphology of linkage: scope (downward support and upward influence) and surplus (benefits versus costs). However, (the valuation of) this interdependence appears as a matter of degree. The explanatory analysis therefore probes into the effect of macro- (between environments), meso- (between parties) and micro- (within parties) level factors. It demonstrates that variance is explained by different parameters. For scope, differences between parties trump those within them. For surplus, specific differences between parties as well as within them matter. The answer to our guiding question is therefore variegated: it depends on for what and for whom.

After a year’s delay, the new Dutch Environmental Act will enter into force on January 1, 2022. Within this new legal framework, municipalities are expected to develop an environmental vision through policy integration and citizen participation. This new working method raises some questions. This article focuses on the quality of policy considerations with regard to vulnerable spatial domains and in particular religious heritage. It answers the question about the quality of policy considerations in municipal environmental visions and then examines whether policy integration and participation have contributed to this. An analysis of 33 municipal environmental visions shows that the quality of policy considerations for religious heritage is low in almost all municipalities. Interviews with nine municipalities provide a more complete picture and make it clear that the real quality of the policy considerations is higher than what can ultimately be found in the visions. However, these findings raise doubts about the future protection of the religious heritage in the further elaboration of the environmental vision in the environmental plan. In connection with this, two calls are made: (a) as a municipality, ensure that the subject of cultural heritage is on the political-administrative agenda; (b) ensure that cultural heritage is not only part of history, but also of the future.

While many new churches were built in the Netherlands sixty years ago to meet the demands of religious communities for space for their worship, the situation in 2020 is completely different. It is true that a church is sometimes built here and there in the Netherlands, but the general picture is that many churches have been withdrawn as places of worship in recent years, that a number have been demolished and that many have been given a new designated purpose. The fate of a church building often evokes many emotions in people. For example, we experienced this when we, together with the Parisians, watched in disbelief as fire destroyed parts of Notre Dame. This is related to the fact that for many people churches are more than just ‘beautifully stacked stones’. They are directly linked to the highs and lows of people’s individual and collective lives. People were baptized and married in that church, funeral services of loved ones were held there and the church is still a familiar part of the image of city or village. Rightly so that churches are also seen as ‘affective monuments’. The central question, however, is how to deal with religious heritage (policy related) now that churches are emptying? In this article the authors first give a brief outline of the background, nature and scope of what they call the ‘church problem’. Then they discuss the ‘battle for churches’ associated with this problem, which they subsequently try to interpret from a number of Public Administration theories. The role of certain individuals and organizations in the ‘battle for churches’, the so-called ‘entrepreneurs’, is further explored. They pay specific attention to the role of the municipality in this as a whole and call on all parties involved to deal (politically) with the ‘church problem’ rather than ‘spasmodically’.

Participatory and responsive approaches to research strive to be democratic, inclusive and impactful. Participatory researchers share a commitment to epistemic justice and actively engage citizens and users as well as other stakeholders in the co-creation of knowledge for social change. While more and more researchers and policymakers feel attracted to these approaches in practice, the normative ideals of social inclusion and justice are sometimes hard to realize, because of established interests, power relations and system requirements. In this article I argue that participatory researchers and evaluators have a moral responsibility to do ‘ethics work’. This is more than just following ethical principles and codes of conduct. ‘Ethics work’ entails the labour and effort one puts into recognizing ethically salient aspects of situations, developing oneself as a reflexive practitioner, paying attention to emotions and relationships, collaboratively working out the right course of action and reflecting in the company of critical friends. In this article I present the theory and ethics of participatory approaches, illustrate ethical issues and ethics work related to collaboration, politics and power, and share lessons based on ten years of practice in the field of health and social well-being.

The collaborative relationship between the appointed mayor and the non-political highest administrative official is a crucial one in Dutch local government. It aligns two different domains or spheres: the political, decision making domain on one hand, and the administrative, executive domain on the other. Since research points out that 25% of these collaborative relations fail, the need for insight in the factors that shape the relations and the success of it emerges. Non-successful collaboration between public top-officials usually results in financial, societal or personal costs or damage. In this research, 17 factors were indicated that influence the (perceived) collaborative success, divided in three levels: external factors, functional factors and personal factors. Within the success factors, several ‘critical’ factors were determined, without which a successful collaborative relationship never is possible. On the functional level the critical factors are trust, role convergence and shared understanding, and on the personal level consistency and integrity. Best guaranty for a successful collaborative relationship is when both actors adapt their roles to each other’s liking, reciprocally building trust and shared understanding by using open communication, while being consistent and maintaining their integrity.
Finally, officials are being called upon to open their doors, and share valuable experiences.

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.

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.

The extensive growth of urban tourism has influenced the living environment of urban citizens worldwide, which is among others due to changes in the range of commercial amenities. As a manifestation of this development, the existing supply of retail and hospitality services gradually changes from a focus on inhabitants to the tourist. As a result, the call for municipal intervention grows. However, little is known about the steerability of this development. In this article we therefore asses how tourism affects the range of commercial amenities in city streets, and what local policy responses are most suitable. The research builds on the concepts of tourism gentrification and different types of ‘policy-instrument fit’. Our case study of the city centre of Amsterdam, including a media and policy document analysis, as well as in-depth interviews with stakeholders, show that some problems caused by mass tourism require ‘hard’ forms of government control, while others require a ‘softer’ process approach, linking local parties to jointly improve a city street. The presented steering perspectives are not only relevant for the city of Amsterdam, but also for many other towns within, and beyond, the Netherlands, that have been struggling with the growth of tourism. The open attitude towards urban mass tourism has come up for discussion and urban (tourism) policy calls for reconsideration.

The discipline of public administration is critiqued for its lack of social relevance. Three issues prevent public administration scholars from social relevant research: (1) the assumption of universal knowledge; (2) the assumption of neutrality; and (3) distance from practice. These issues obscure the role of power processes in both the administrative practice under study and in conducting research, while paying attention to power processes is key to a more socially relevant public administration. I propose a phronetic research approach as an alternative to research that lacks social relevance. Phronetic public administration (1) acknowledges and deliberately uses the complexity of different perspectives of actors; (2) makes power processes visible; and (3) chooses a position in a dialogue about the problem under study by imagining alternative future scenarios. Phronetic research offers a promising, critical perspective on public administration by specifically aiming for a social contribution.

Objective: there are regional differences in the organization of local Youth Teams, that have been given a crucial role in delivering Youth Care since the transition of Youth Care in 2015. The aim of this article is to examine the influence of the organization of Youth Teams on several aspects of their functioning.
Method: self-managing teams in Holland Rijnland and teams in The Hague that are led by a team manager are compared on several aspects of team functioning. This mixed-methods study is based on an online questionnaire among 237 professionals and interviews with 32 professionals. Quantitative data have been analyzed by conducting a t-test of group means, qualitative data by means of framework-analysis.
Results: the organization of Youth Teams seems to influence certain aspects of the perceived team functioning. For example, professionals in the self-organizing teams Holland Rijnland experience more self-management and more informational elaboration. However, there are also similarities on several aspects. Professionals from both regions have similar expectations of leaders.
Discussion: municipalities and Youth Care organizations should be aware of the influence of the organization of Youth Teams on team functioning. Future research must demonstrate which aspects of team functioning contribute to improved care for families.

Information platforms can facilitate data sharing and make new applications possible. It is essential to connect a wide range of both public and private parties to a platform if real data-based transformation is to get off the ground. However, organizations are reluctant to share data if they do not know exactly what it can be used for or if they have no direct interest in it. Achieving a good solution requires a lot from the innovation process itself and the way it is managed. This article uses three innovation perspectives for the analysis of a logistics information platform. This analysis shows that different stages in the development of an information platform can be distinguished, each with its own dynamic. For local government the involvement of and connection to local parties is important, while innovation as a whole benefits from the link with an overarching agenda that transcends the local level.

Modern technology will lead to fundamentally different models for policy and governance. The impact of this on existing government bureaucracy is strongly underexposed within the current discourse on digital transformation. This essay, based on practical experience, wants to make clear (a) that this impact is indeed there; (b) that this impact affects all processes of the government organization; and (c) that this impact is not something that will emerge in the long term, instead it is already evident. So it is now time for administrators, policymakers and managers to put this topic on the agenda, otherwise the disruptive soup will soon not be as hot, but even hotter, when eaten.

The goal of citizens participation increases the moments of contact between politicians, policy makers, welfare professionals and citizens. The shared responsibility for local decision making is not an easy task. Often conflicts emerge between parties with opposing needs and interests. Citizens oppose decisions or organize protest. These moments do not only challenge the goal of participation, they also jeopardize the quality of democracy. The democratic value of contentious moments, however, is often neglected. How can public professionals deal with the dilemma’s and chances that emerge during interactions that happen unexpectedly at the street-level? I answer that question by applying the agonistic approach to democracy to the action repertoire of public professionals dealing with conflict. A dramaturgical analysis of contentious interactions provides insights in how we can recognize and acknowledge contentious citizenship.

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.