Functional politicization – political activities and capacities taken on by bureaucrats within their administrative function – has received increased academic attention over recent years. Regardless, the factors and determinants behind this phenomenon remain a point of uncertainty and debate. Within this study, we explore whether increased political polarization and fragmentation in the Dutch political landscape from 2007 to 2019 and functional politicization are related. To do so, we analyze data from surveys conducted in 2007, 2013 and 2019 and semi-structured interviews conducted in 2019 to establish which skills – political-strategic insight, substantive expertise (Fachwissen), or procedural knowledge (Dienstwissen) – are perceived by senior civil servants to be the most prevalent in exercising their profession. The data depicts the prevalence of political astuteness in the profession and highlights three causal dimensions: institutional, organizational, and interpersonal dynamics. It however fails to highlight a cross-time evolution, which is hypothesized to be due to a ceiling effect of this competence having constantly been perceived as the most prevalent. The latter adds a theoretical dimension to the notion of functional politicisation, as it aligns with other academic findings that suggest senior civil servants are now subject to heightened pressures due to being increasingly monitored and in the (public) spotlight.

At the request of the General Administrative Service (ABD) of the Government in the Netherlands Mark Frequin developed a vision for public leadership. In his opinion it’s not about a paper-reality but about a movement to more leadership. For that reason he made a Compass for public leadership. If you want to set steps to more leadership it’s all about looking for direction. And despite what normally happens in the public sector, jumping to solutions, it’s therefore much more important to find out what are the dilemmas, the problems, the paradoxes, the puzzles…Mark is giving attention to some of them in this article: the need for more long-term-planning and at the same time short-term political promises; the importance of more knowledge in public on the one hand and the same time seeing more opinions in society and media; the information-paradox: not too much and not too little information; being in control and at the same time accepting uncertainty; and being a (civil) servant and also a (public) leader. The search for public leadership is understanding the difficulties. It’s therefore a search given the fact that there are not one-time answers.

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.

When the corona virus was reported in the Netherlands in March 2020, it also had a major impact on public administration. At that time it was still completely unclear which consequences would be temporary and which would be permanent, but it was immediately clear that it presented unique study material. There was every reason to quickly start describing, analysing and interpreting the first consequences of the fight against corona for politics, administration and policy, with a focus on local authorities. That is why in April 2020, with the support of the Dutch Ministry of the Interior and Kingdom Relations, the ‘Corona papers’ research programme was set up by the Thorbecke Chair (Geerten Boogaard), in which a number of renowned scientists took part. Platform31 (Rogier van der Wal) was also involved. It took care of the accompanying website and newsletters and organised the final conference. Five of these ‘Corona papers’ have been revised and updated for this special issue.

A crisis brings existing vulnerabilities to the surface and clearly shows where the strong qualities of a society and its governance can be found. In the Netherlands, the corona pandemic has also exposed strengths and weaknesses according to that pattern. An important example of this is the region’s strong and complex position in our domestic governance. The author points out three lessons from the long post-war history of failed attempts to adjust the administrative organisation of our country. This leads to three proposals for embedding the region in the existing administrative organisation. The three steps would not be necessary if there were political support for a small adjustment to the administrative structure of the Netherlands, namely a reduction of the provincial scale. A step-by-step, cautious adjustment in the eyes of the author therefore gives more chance of success than a radical administrative reorganisation, which is doomed to fail in this country. For example, the cautious steps could be a prelude to a new and smaller provincial scale.

This article examines the rally round the flag in the Netherlands during the first wave of the COVID-19 pandemic in the spring of 2020, i.e. the rise in trust in political authorities in response to the external threat. The authors use unique panel data to do this, the first of which took place in the days before the announcement of the first national lockdown (mid-March 2020), and the second shortly after the announcement of the reopening of schools (late April/early May 2020). This allows them to isolate the rally in time. Their research shows that the government in particular has gained confidence. Confidence in other political institutions rose to a lesser extent; confidence in the police and the judiciary did not increase. We can best understand the rise in confidence as a decline in cynicism: during the first wave, politicians were less often portrayed as incompetent, which proved to be a motivator for increasing confidence. Fear of contamination was an important motivation for increasing confidence. Under the influence of the external threat, people placed their hopes on political authorities. Both mechanisms may explain that confidence rose particularly sharply among voters of radical right parties, although radical right voters remained the least trusting voters.

The corona crisis has shaken up the tasks, roles and relationships in the Municipal Executive (B&W) in the Netherlands. The question is what this has meant for the role and for the position of aldermen: the relationship between aldermen themselves, their relationship with the mayor, the municipal council, the civil service and society. A digital survey was used to investigate whether and how the crisis measures have changed the role and the position of aldermen. In addition, questions were asked about policy changes as a result of the corona crisis. The survey was completed by 145 aldermen, bringing the response rate to 10%. The corona crisis had a major impact on the role and position of aldermen. Their contacts with civil servants have become more intensive across the board, their boards have become more collegial and their mayors have taken on a more guiding and coordinating role. Contacts with the municipal councils are less intensive as a result of the corona crisis, which does not apply to their own groups. Relations with companies and institutions have been strengthened; those with citizens have remained unchanged.

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.

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

In 2019, the Financial Intelligence Unit of the Netherlands (FIU-the Netherlands) celebrated its 25th anniversary. This article uses the occasion to reflect on the pivotal role of the FIU in financial surveillance and to describe its core practices of collecting, analyzing, and disseminating financial intelligence. What makes an FIU particularly interesting is that it operates at various intersections: not only on the nexus of finance and security, but also between private and public actors, by transforming unusual transaction information into suspicious financial intelligence. Given this pivotal position of the FIU, it is surprising that little is known about its core activities. Because its practices are often secret and its data are classified as state secrets, its daily operations and operational processes remain obscure. By drawing on interviews, public reports, and an online training programme this article aims to encircle the secrecy, zoom in on the case-study of FIU-the Netherlands and offer a fine-grained analysis of each of the three core FIU activities. Such a case-study is important not only for the study of finance and security as well as financial surveillance, but also for policy makers and the broader public who merit an understanding of how their financial behaviour is being surveilled.

Because of the existing conservative-religious set of values in a dominant bourgeois culture, as historian Von der Dunk concluded in 1975, a conservative political party never came to fruition. In this article the author examines this observation on the basis of politically pivotal years: 1868, 1917, 1950, 1972 and 2002. At these moments the connection of the conservative-religious values with the age-old regent administrative culture appears to be cast in iron.
The author considers Von der Dunk’s conclusion to be proven: in the Netherlands a conservative party has never been viable as long as the Christian political parties represent conservative values adequately. Today’s right-wing populist parties adorn themselves with conservative values, but are essentially and act non-conservative.

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.

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).

Euroscepticism has long been absent among Belgian political parties. However, since the start of the century, some Eurosceptic challengers have risen. This article examines the effect of Eurosceptic competition on the salience other parties give to the EU and on the positions these parties take in parliament. Using a sample of plenary debates in the federal and regional parliaments, we track each party’s evolution from 2000 until 2019. Our findings both contradict and qualify existing theories and findings on Eurosceptic competition. When facing Eurosceptic challengers, all parties raise salience fairly equally, but government and peripheral parties adopted (soft) Euroscepticism more often than other parties.

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.

This article provides a computer-assisted morality framing analysis of Vlaams Belang’s 2019 manifesto. The VB is regarded in the literature as a prototypical example of the Populist Radical Right (PRR). We first concisely review what PRR politics is and what it consists of, tentatively distinguishing four elements that we hypothesise will materialise in corresponding subframes running throughout the manifesto. We point to a mismatch between the omnipresent role of morality in all PRR subframes and the little attention devoted to the concept in the PRR literature. We introduce a useful theory from social psychology into framing literature to create a novel methodological approach to frame analysis that builds a bridge between a qualitative content and a quantitative context approach. The results support our hypothesis that populism, nationalism, nativism and authoritarianism can be distinguished from one another. Additionally, we detect a fifth PRR subframe, crimmigration, by its unique role of morality.

Both in a legal and in a practical sense, the tasks of executives in school boards are difficult to delineate. Consequently, credibility of boards and their members has become topical. What makes an executive board credible? How do executives become and remain credible? In this article we address these questions and present the results of our qualitative analysis of the way in which executives in primary education give meaning and substance to their efforts. Based on the empirical results, it appears that executives of the board are well aware of the need to be perceived credible. It also appears that they take this into account in their daily behavior and interactions.

Legislation is seen both as a problem and a solution for the lengthy process of spatial decision-making. The new Environment and Planning Act aims to speed up and improve decision-making on spatial projects. That sounds promising as an answer to the housing shortage. Can we indeed expect the Act to speed up housing projects? Will legal problems such as the protracted nitrogen crisis and appeals by opponents of new construction be prevented from now on? To answer these questions, this contribution first examines the (im)possibilities of using the instrument of legislation to tackle (spatial) problems. The subsequent analysis of accelerating measures in the Environment and Planning Act shows that a great deal of time is actually spent on activities that are not affected by legislative measures. High expectations of acceleration should therefore be tempered.

Public-private partnerships (PPS) are often used by public procurers. This article evaluates the application of PPS in the Netherlands by reflecting on the findings on a recently published report “Learning from 15 years DBFM-projects at the Directorate-General for Public Works and Water Management” (or “Leren van 15 jaar DBFM-projecten bij RWS” in Dutch).