Lobbying by interest groups and the formation of governments both are established themes of empirical research, but not much is known about their linkage. This article presents an exploratory study of organizations and groups with interests seeking influence on the political agenda at the earliest stage of a governmental life cycle: its formation. From the theoretical perspective of the politics of attention, an empirical study is made of the lobby papers that government informateurs receive from business, non-profitorganizations and ngo’s, public organizations and citizens or citizen groups. By comparing the lobby agenda of these diverse organizations and groups to the coalition agreement, it is possible to draw some preliminary conclusions about whose issues and themes become visible and prominent on the governmental agenda, and whose topics obtain lower priority. This research is a basis for further analysis of the impact of lobbying on the policy agenda.

This article studies the extent to which differences or inequality in policy congruence between higher and lower educated voters are moderated by policy domains. Instead of measuring inequality across all areas of policy, this study takes a policy domain-specific approach. The analyses are based on a dataset containing voters and party positions on 50 policy statements, gathered in the run-up to the 2009 regional election in Belgium largest region, Flanders. We find, overall, only small and unsubstantial, though significant, differences, in policy congruence between higher and lower educated voters, in favor of the former. However, we find a much larger representational bias towards higher educated when we look at transportation, culture and media, immigration, taxand budgetary policy, and economic policy. At the same time, differences in policy congruence are lower as regards spatial planning. Studying inequality in policy congruence across policy domains thus hides more complex patterns of representational bias.

This article shows that the economic left/right dimension does not always suffice to understand the social-economic policy positions of political parties. It focuses on social-economic decision-making in the Netherlands in 2012. The increase of the government pension age, which was championed by parties of the left and the right and opposed by parties of the left and the right, is taken as a prime example of an issue where decision-making did not follow the left-right line of conflict. The article continues to show that party policy positions on a number of more important welfare state reforms do not follow the left/right line of conflict, but rather a reform line of conflict that divides parties from the left and the right into pro-European reformers and Eurosceptic defenders of the existing welfare state.

This article examines the impact of the Flemish municipal decree on the administrative power of Flemish municipalities. The general goal of the Flemish municipal decree was the strengthening of administrative power by changing political-political relations, political-administrative relations and the supporting policy and management cycle. This article shows the limited meaning of the political component for this strengthening. Changes in the administrative organization of Flemish municipalities on the other hand are looking more promising, although scale and different types of municipalities continues to stay an important factor.

Nowadays, municipalities form strategies and interact with the challenges and opportunities offered by the context in which they operate. From now on, Flemish municipalities are even obliged by the municipal decree to draw up a multiannual strategic plan (albeit in a transitory phase for the current legislature). That plan must formulate a coordinating strategy for the municipality and must contain guidelines for policy. In our contribution we want to examine on the one hand the particular meaning of this strategic plan for local governments. Which contents are given to these plans? How did these plans came about? What is the further course of these plans? What is the possible infl uence of local finances? Etc. On the other hand, we also want to take a broader look: how do we place the strategic plan in the light of the challenge of broader strategy formulation and decision-making which plays a vital role in contemporary local government?
Starting from a case study in the city of Kortrijk that incorporates both research perspectives, we consecutively conduct an exploring study into this young practice of strategic planning in all Flemish municipalities. Thereby we use in both cases opinion research by interviewing/surveying some key actors (politicians and/or civil servants). They help us to (re-)construct a provisional picture of the contents, the lay out and the future possibilities of strategic plans in contemporary local government.

The EU is increasingly developing a grand strategy for framing its external policies in a coherent way. The European Security and Defence Policy offers the EU access to military instruments, enabling it to conduct civilian and military operations. This article investigates to what extent the EU can be qualified as a strategic actor, i.e. having a clear vision of how to act in the security domain and the will to do so. Furthermore, we evaluate whether past practices are leading to the framing of a EU strategic culture. As a test case we offer an in-depth analysis of the planning of EUFOR Tchad/RCA – the most recent and largest autonomous military operation the EU has conducted so far. This shows the progress the EU has made in developing its external posture, but also makes clear there exists a conceptual gap in terms of military strategy, where operational planning remains plagued by ad-hoccery.

In this article, we argue that there are indications for the emergence of a third phase in the idea of global governance. After the phase of extensive state intervention and etatism (1945-1980) and the phase of deregulation and marketization (1980-now), this third phase aims at restoring typically governmental functions (e.g. social cohesion, financial stability, public health). Indications are international measures against the drawbacks of globalization (e.g. financial instability), the eroding legitimacy of the market-oriented WTO regime, the formulation of new security concepts establishing links between national interest and transnational problems and the enhanced interest in global policy coordination (e.g. UN Millennium Development Goals). Yet today, unlike in 1945-1980, globalization and complex interdependence are accepted as facts, and we also witness attempts to realize ‘governmental’ functions at the global level. But the direction which global governance will follow the years ahead, remains to a large extent a matter of political choice.