The urbanisation of society is a well-known fact. It is perhaps less well known that this process is accompanied by the emergence of ‘city gurus’. By this, the authors mean advisers, scientists and other authors who have an international influence on the thinking and actions of city administrators and other urban policymakers. City administrators nowadays often find their intellectual inspiration from ‘contemporary city gurus’. They are usually not public administration experts; instead they come from the fields of urban geography, urban economics, or urban sociology. Their ideas do however resonate in administrative practice. The questions that the popularity of contemporary city gurus raise are: is this a hype or is it really about thoughts that have a lasting impact on ‘urban development’ and city management? Which city gurus are we actually talking about? There are several of them, but in this essay the authors highlight a few that can be counted among the favourite speakers among the ‘science and advisor conference goers’ in recent years: Richard Florida, Bruce Katz, Richard Sennett, Benjamin Barber and Jeb Brugmann. The city gurus ask us to have an eye for the city. But the authors of this essay believe that that also means that we must be aware of differences, because every city and every city dweller is different, and that requires an interpretation of the ‘city of difference’. The popularity of the city leads to an increase in those differences and they present us with various considerations and management issues.

In the light of the broader debate on the mediatization of politics, this study wants to better understand how the media perceptions and media behaviour of politicians are related to their appearances in the news. We opt for an innovative actor-centred approach to actually measure the views and actions of individual politicians. We combine surveys conducted with 142 Belgian representatives with data on politicians’ external communication behaviour and on their appearances in television news, newspapers and news websites. The results show that media behaviour is not so much related to beliefs of media importance. We do find a significant positive relationship between strategic media behaviour and media attention suggesting that politicians who put in more effort appear more often in various news media. However, this positive relationship depends on the specific form of strategic communication and the political position of the legislator. Our study adds to the mediatization literature by showing how and when politicians are successful in obtaining media attention.

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.

Theorieën en methoden uit de gedragswetenschappen betreden steeds nadrukkelijker de beleidsscene. Gedragsinzichten en nudging beloven beleid te verrijken en te versterken. Het begin van deze gedragswetenschappelijke omslag of behavioural turn laat men doorgaans samenvallen met de publicatie van het boek Nudge van Richard Thaler en Cass Sunstein in 2008. In dit artikel plaatsen we nudging in perspectief en argumenteren we dat het concept zowel een zegen als een vloek betekent, en zowel een katalysator als een rem is voor de bredere toepassing en verankering van gedragsinzichten in beleid. Ondanks het aantrekkelijke narratief botst nudging op functionele limieten en ethische bezwaren. Om de gedragswetenschappelijke, experimentele en evidence-based beleidsbeloften alsnog in te lossen, zien we een strategie van steeds verdere verbreding. Het programma van de Behavioural Insights-beweging op basis van vijf pijlers leek in eerste instantie een oplossing te bieden, maar kampt door een eendimensionale interpretatie met interne spanningen. De nog bredere en ambitieuzere Behavioural Public Policy-agenda biedt nieuwe perspectieven, maar moet op functioneel en ethisch vlak nog verder onderbouwd worden.

Technological advancements in the field of data analytics, algorithms and AI have dramatically increased opportunities for workplace monitoring. In this article, we discuss some of these digital technologies, and examine their impact on employment relationships and the quality of work. Based on desk research, literature review and interviews, the Rathenau Institute examined a wide range of digital instruments, their scientific basis, implications for the quality of work and relevant legal frameworks. Digital monitoring technologies often quantify work activities. We argue that it is important for organisations to realise that such quantification often negatively impacts both job quality and employment relationships. Responsible use of digital monitoring tools not only requires a broad societal and political dialogue about privacy, discrimination and workload but also a critical reflection on the aim of organisations to use data to understand workers, while not everything of value can be captured in data.

Recent developments on the Dutch labour market raise questions about the emergence of new social dividing lines. In this paper we discuss two cases. Both address labour market disadvantages which can easily deepen and sharpen with unchanged policies. The first case shows that there are groups that are less able to respond to the defined trends in the labour market due to a lack of education or disabilities. In the second case we focus on the question of sustainable employability as such that creates dividing lines. A first conclusion from our contribution is that a thorough analysis of existing dividing lines in the labour market is crucial for effective policy, but that knowledge about deepening old and creating new dividing lines is at least as relevant. A second conclusion is that the outlined assumptions in policies around self-reliance of, for example, people with a disability or the possibilities of employers to realize sheltered work and to focus on retraining, for example outside working hours, are not always realistic. Much more will have to be done to match the real possibilities of people and organizations to achieve this. Financial, but also organizational and personal. The motivations and behaviors of employees, employers and educational authorities appear to be very relevant explanatory factors in practice, which are often not sufficiently taken into account. Recent experiences with the Participation Act and lifelong learning show us that. More interaction is needed in the coming years between research, policy and the practice of the labour market.

Over the past four decades of its existence, Dutch public administration has developed into a science which mainly produces knowledge that either caters to a very specific scientific niche or aims to optimize policy processes in an instrumental fashion. This type of knowledge is not well equipped to provide answers or improve understanding of the challenges of our time. We argue that public administration needs to shift its focus more towards producing reflexive knowledge in the form of what we would call critical public administration. Based on the contributions in this special issue, this article outlines what the contribution of such a critical public administration could be. The article shows that, even though it is theory driven, critical public administration is close to policy practice and can fuel a productive public debate by imagining alternative futures.

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.

This article tackles the particular issue of split-ticket voting, which has been largely overlooked in Belgian election studies thus far. We contribute to the literature by answering two particular research questions: (1) to what extent and (2) why do voters cast a different vote in the elections for the provincial council as compared to their vote in the elections for the municipal council?
The article draws on survey data collected via an exit poll in the ‘Belgian Local Elections Study’, a research project conducted by an inter-university team of scholars.
Our analysis shows that nearly 45% of the total research population cast a split-ticket vote in the local elections of 2018. However, this number drops to one out of four if we only consider a homogenous party landscape at both levels by excluding the numerous votes for ‘local’ lists (which occur mostly at the municipal level). This finding underlines the importance of accounting for the electoral and institutional context of the different electoral arenas in research on split-ticket voting in PR systems. In the Belgian context, split-ticket voting in 2018 also differed between the different parties and regions. Furthermore, it was encouraged by a higher level of education and familiarity with particular candidates. This candidate-centred and strategic voting was matched by party identification and the urban municipal context favouring straight-ticket voting. Other factors such as region, a rural municipal context and preferential voting seemed more relevant to determine voting for local parties than using the instrument of split-ticket votes as such.

Positive Public Administration (PPA) encourages scholars to examine governance success. The appreciation of successes, however, is not new. During previous decades, awards were bestowed for exceptional performance. We analyse whether two important awards in the Netherlands and Flanders are an expression of PPA. Firstly, we find that successes are interpreted differently: in the Netherlands, one-off, trendy performances are rewarded, while in Flanders the focus is on consolidated results of long-term change processes. Secondly, we see that ‘clean’ success criteria promote a suggestion of ‘control’, whilst public settings are ambiguous and unpredictable. Finally, we conclude that prizes are primarily celebrations; little evidence is found of systematic knowledge exchange, learning and professionalisation.

Overheidsbeleid heeft steeds meer te maken met digitalisering en data-ificering van de samenleving en het menselijk gedrag. Dat betekent uitdagingen voor beleidsevaluatoren. In dit artikel gaat het om éen van de daarmee gepaard gaande verschijnselen: Big Data en Artificiële Intelligentie (BD/AI). Het artikel stelt, na erop gewezen te hebben dat de evaluatieprofessie langere tijd niet erg actief op digitaal gebied is geweest, ten eerste de vraag wat BD/AI te bieden hebben aan evaluatieonderzoek van (digitaal) beleid. Vijf toepassingsmogelijkheden worden besproken die de kwaliteit, bruikbaarheid en relevantie van evaluatieonderzoek kunnen bevorderen. De tweede vraag is wat evaluatieonderzoek te bieden heeft, als het gaat om het analyseren/onderzoeken van de betrouwbaarheid, validiteit en enkele andere aspecten van Big Data en AI. Ook daar worden verschillende mogelijkheden (en moeilijkheden) geschetst. Naar het oordeel van de schrijver is het enerzijds dienstig (meer) gebruik te maken van BD/AI in evaluatieonderzoek, maar doen onderzoekers er ook goed aan (meer) aandacht uit te laten gaan naar: de assumpties die aan BD/AI ten grondslag liggen (inclusief het ‘black box’-probleem); de validiteit, veiligheid en geloofwaardigheid van algoritmes; de bedoelde en onbedoelde consequenties van het gebruik ervan; én de vraag of de claims dat digitale interventies die mede gebaseerd zijn op BD/AI effectief (of effectiever zijn dan andere), onderbouwd en valide zijn.

Reflection and debate initiates academically inspired discussions on issues that are on the current policy agenda.

With her chair in urban development management, Ellen van Bueren investigates policy, governance and management issues. Cities, as economic and cultural centres in our society, are major consumers of resources. They not only contribute to problems such as climate change, but also experience the risks and consequences thereof. Technological solutions to these problems are difficult to implement. They require larger-scale system changes, or encounter resistance. Making cities sustainable not only requires technical solutions, but also institutional innovation. A socio-technical-ecological system approach to cities shows the coherence and complexity of issues. Issues play on multiple scales, are cross-sectoral, and require an interaction of citizens, companies, and governments. Moreover, the playing field between these groups of actors is changing rapidly, technological empowerment in particular has made the citizen a much more equal player alongside the government and business. Existing instruments and approaches are not sufficient to approach sustainability issues. To identify and address these issues, cooperation between science and society is necessary. Multi- and transdisciplinary learning environments enable researchers and students to identify issues, to answer questions and to try out solutions together with stakeholders. Such environments are indispensable for the development of sustainable cities.

In this special issue, recent public sector reforms in South Africa, Denmark, Belgium, Mexico, Singapore and Denmark are analysed. Reforms in the public sector are by and large explained as a chronological development from traditional bureaucracy, via New Public Management to New Public Governance. This is also the way the many administrative reforms in the Dutch public sector are often explained.
The articles give insight in the administrative developments in these countries and their background. They also offer the opportunity to make comparisons with administrative developments in the Netherlands, and to draw lessons. The analyses show that the dominant explanation of reforms in the public sector (from traditional bureaucracy, to New Public Management to New Public Governance) is helpful in making sense of administrative developments, but they put this explanation into perspective too.
For the Dutch situation yet another insight came to light. We often complain that the Dutch processes are cumbersome, take long and involve many -if not all- stakeholders. A close reading of the contributions from abroad must inevitably change this pejorative view on our national sport: the cumbersome process provides valuable checks and balances, that will help to fight the drawbacks and risks that we have seen in the international cases.

The European project currently faces not only an economic crisis, but a moral one as well. The economic growth model of social justice combined with market-oriented policies, also referred to as the European social model has lost much of its meaning after ten years of austerity and financial calamities. In 2012 ECB President Draghi says in the Wall Street Journal that the European social model is “gone”, a thing of the past. While only a couple of years later the European Pillar of Social Rights is put in place. What is happening with ‘Social Europe’? And how do trade unions, as a historical motor of social policy in the member states, relate to the European social model, especially since the financial crisis. This article deals with the position of trade unions vis-à-vis European social policy and the European institutions. The European social model, economic governance and the collective bargaining system are discussed as examples of post-crisis European social policy. It will be argued that although the European Commission gives institutional space to social policy and to a role for trade unions, it has always been subordinate to economic integration. And moreover that the recent economic crisis is used at the European level to obtain almost complete control over social policy in the member states.

According to the outgoing European Commissioner Pierre Moscovici, the European Union (EU) has made more progress in tackling tax avoidance and evasion in the last five years than in the twenty years before that. This article argues that although several targeted measures have indeed been adopted, such as automatic exchange of tax rulings and limitations on interest deductions, this has not led to a structural change in EU corporate tax policies, nor in underlying power relations. The article discusses the politics of a number of recent policy developments related to tax avoidance and evasion by transnational corporations. It argues that the adoption of targeted measures, and the simultaneous stalling of more comprehensive approaches – in terms of tax transparency or a common consolidated corporate tax base – can be explained by recent tax controversies, international politics, and the dynamics within and between EU institutions. Particular attention is paid to the role of the European Parliament that is formally limited, but still houses progressive forces that have continuously pushed for a clampdown on tax avoidance. Finally, the article pleads for more transparent EU decision-making, specifically concerning discussions with and within the Council, in order to improve the democratic legitimacy of EU corporate tax policies and processes.

Lijphart (1999) argued that citizens tend to be more satisfied with democracy in consensual democracies than in majoritarian democracies and that the gap in democratic satisfaction between the winners and the losers of elections is smaller under consensualism. Twenty years on since then, this article takes stock of the literature on consensualism and political support. We find considerable ambiguity in the theoretical arguments and empirical evidence provided in this literature. Finally, we speculate on possible reasons for this ambiguity.

Belgium has long been described as a typical case of a consociational or consensus democracy. This article aims at identifying whether political parties in Belgium share the internal characteristics of parties in consensus democracies: passive mass memberships, the importance of purposive and material incentives for joining, and representation of a clear subculture in the social and attitudinal profiles of their members and via overlapping memberships with related organizations. We mobilize longitudinal party membership data and party member surveys conducted in three different time periods. We show that pillar parties still exercise their role of mobilization and representation of societal segments, but these segments tend to become smaller over time. New parties offer alternative options of mobilization and representation, although not always in line with the specific institutional arrangements of consociational democracy.