De facto autonomy, the actual potential of regulatory agencies to go about their daily work, is often conceived to be more important to explain regulatory capacity than its formal autonomy and responsibilities. In this article we investigate whether external context factors, such as the financial and economic crisis have an impact on de facto autonomy. More specifically, we investigate whether the de facto autonomy varies after the crisis and distinctively so for specific subsets of employees within regulatory agencies. According to literature, mid-level managers of agencies are key to de facto autonomy and building a secure reputation for the agency in question. We test these external and internal effects on de facto autonomy with a survey among employees of the Dutch Financial Market Authority (N = 248). The findings show that the perceived influence of stakeholders is relatively constant, but that it is more dynamic for European stakeholders. Both middle managers and employees working at strategic and policy departments of the agency conceive the impact of European stakeholders as increasing in nature. The findings have important implications for our studies of de facto autonomy of regulatory agencies as well as reform potential after major institutional crises.

Strengthening European citizenship is often considered as a ‘cure’ for the democratic deficit and the lack of legitimacy of the European Union. The present article focuses on the identity component of European citizenship, which is a core component of European citizenship. We distinguish two possible ways to strengthen European identity: a cognitive one (more knowledge about the EU leads to a stronger identity) and a utilitarian one (living in a member state that benefits more from its EU-membership leads to a stronger European identity). We test both explanatory models using a multilevel analysis on the data of the International Civic and Citizenship Education Study. 70,502 adolescents from 21 European member states were questioned in this study. Results indicate that knowledge about the EU only has a limited effect on European identity. The degree in which a member state contributes to the European budget does not seem to have an effect on the strength of European identity at all.

In this feature authors discuss recent research findings that are of interest to readers of Beleid en Maatschappij.

The social security system provides some form of protection for its citizens. The social security system depends on public support in society. Support is crucial for legitimacy of the social system. To date, it remains unclear whether social policy preferences will be affected by changes on the labour market. In this article we aim to increase our understanding of individual reactions to increasing labour flexibility and the impact on social policy preferences. From the results of our study, we draw the general conclusion that employees with flexible labour contracts as well as the self-employed do not reject the idea of social security.

In this feature authors discuss recent research findings that are of interest to readers of Beleid en Maatschappij.

In this feature authors discuss recent research findings that are of interest to readers of Beleid en Maatschappij.

This paper reports on a qualitative interview study into the prioritization and interpretation of public values government elites in the Netherlands, comparing value preferences between political and administrative elites. Based on 65 in-depth interviews with MPs, ministers and senior civil servants, statements on four public values (responsiveness, expertise, lawfulness, transparency) that have been deducted through a substantive literature review, are coded and categorized. Overall, political and administrative value preferences in the Netherlands turn out to be more similar than they are different. However, mutual perceptions emphasize differences and contrasts. Theoretical and practical implications of the results are offered and hypotheses are formulated for future studies.

The assassination of Pim Fortuyn and the electoral breakthrough of his Lijst Pim Fortuyn sent shockwaves through the Netherlands in May 2002. This article assesses the influence Fortuyn has had on Dutch politics and society. It provides an overview of the research that has been conducted on this topic over the past decade and relates the findings of previous studies to research on the consequences of the emergence of radical right-wing populist parties on West European party systems.

In this paper we analyze Fortuyn’s political inheritance in the Netherlands. Going beyond the mere electoral popularity of his neo-rightist successors, we analyze the changing political culture since Fortuyn entered the political stage. More specifically we show that his ideological beliefs – Fortuyn voiced an unprecedented combination of liberal views towards homosexuals and gender equality with critical views pertaining to immigration, and he was critical of political and administrative elites – caught on in current Dutch politics. Moreover, his highly personal communicative style, placing him outside the inner circle of Dutch politics underscoring his adversity to these political elites, also caught on in mainstream political campaigning. This new personal style, however, did not mean a demise of ideology. On the contrary, Fortuyn actively tried to appeal to the electorate with ideals and ideology – hence marking the rebirth of the so-called ‘fact-free politics’ after the de-ideologized purple governments in the Netherlands. Since Fortuyn, mainly parties on the right side of the political spectrum have followed this path of re-ideologization. The paper ends with a comparison of the counterculture originating in the 1960s and post-Fortuyn right-wing politics, which surprisingly shows great continuity. We therefore argue that we are currently witnessing a veritable counterculture 2.0.

For several years, Dutch and international survey research programmes, such as the European Values Studies, the Eurobarometer, and the Dutch Parliamentary Elections Studies, have registered the judgements of (Dutch) citizens regarding a wide variety of topics. The Legitimacy-monitor Democratic Governance (Hendriks, Van Ostaaijen & Boogers, 2011) assembles those statistics that together present a layered picture of the legitimacy of democratic governance in the eyes of Dutch citizens. For this article, we review those statistics and take the ‘Fortuyn-year 2002’, the year in which Fortuyn shook up Dutch politics, as a demarcation point. Among the many continuities in pre- and post-Fortuyn statistics, we register a number of marked changes in the judgements of citizens regarding democratic governance in the Netherlands. The most salient, we conclude, is the growing thirst for vigorous ‘leadership’, which not only breaks with the trend of several decades (ever weaker preference for strong leadership), but also the logic of Dutch consensus democracy (many hands and not one head).

The Dutch electorate is the most volatile of Western Europe. At its height in 2002 more than 30 percent of the seats in the Dutch Lower House changed to another party. But what does the increased electoral volatility mean? Are volatile voters whimsical, behaving randomly like drift-sand? Or are volatile voters emancipated, no longer committed to a single political party but still loyal to their own preferences?We answer these questions by analysing the 1VOP panel data set, which covers 55.847 adult respondents who participated in at least 2 of the 58 waves between November 2006 and June 2010.First, we assess the presence, frequency, and direction of changes in voters’ party preferences. More than half of the respondents (52 percent) changed party preference at least once. However, they mostly stick to one of two ideologically coherent party blocks.Second, we explain why some voters are more likely to change party preference than others. Especially middle groups are volatile: people with modal income and average levels of education, and people who position themselves in the political center. However, the lower educated are more likely to switch between dissimilar parties. These findings support the view that increased volatility reflects voter emancipation.

In deze bijdrage plaatsen we de gezagscrisis van de hedendaagse wetenschap in cultuur en politiek in een breder, cultuursociologisch perspectief.

In this paper we study both long term and short term individual effects of political participation at the local level. Participatory theorists argue that political participation could lead to individual emancipation in terms of a rise of political knowledge and, in the long term, political trust. Indeed, in the short term the increased political knowledge associated with participation might enable citizens to better define their self-interest, which may be inconsistent with actual policies pursued by the local authorities and thus might be conductive to distrust. In the empirical part we will test these assertions using two-wave panel data for a random sample of 457 individuals in the district of Deurne (Antwerp – Belgium). Our results suggest that in the short term participation leads to more local political knowledge and distrust in the local administration. However, we do not find a significant increase in political trust in the long term.

This paper reviews developments in political-administrative relations in Dutch central government from 2002-2012. It highlights the strengths/weaknesses of Dutch structures and processes in managing the interface between ministers and the public service. It signals a number of key trends in the political context of executive government that are going to put pressure on the status quo, and examines the much more centralised and politically orchestrated Australian system for pointers towards possible ways in which these contextual changes are going to be.