In the Netherlands there is an ongoing discussion on the preferred or even necessary scale of government. Basic assumption in this decades-long discussion is that the mere seize of government affects the functioning and quality of government. This article questions that specific assumption, by applying two criteria; government performance and democratic legitimacy. It is concluded that the supposed relationship between seize and quality hardly exists, theoretically nor empirically. Recent government proposals for further up-scaling are being critically assessed. Main conclusion is that thinking in terms of scale and seize is no longer feasible in a modern network society.

New means of communication, especially social media, dramatically alter the relationship between citizens and government. The internet is a platform for political discourse now in which citizens not only interact with governments but often play a leading role. This demands of government to learn how to act in a more responsive fashion. In this issue, we focus on the practical effects of web 2.0 for various governmental organizations and draw up a research agenda.

Relations between government and news media are often complex and contradictory. In order to shed light on their interactions, this review essay discusses four recent books on the tensions between government and the media. Discussed are Schudson's Why Democracies Need an Unlovable Press, Prenger et al's Gevaarlijk spel, Cook's Governing with the News and Keane's Life and Death of Democracy. Three general issues are discussed: the ways in which journalists and policy actors behave towards each other; the implications for the daily practices of journalists and policy actors and, on a more abstract level, the implications for the democratic system. It is argued that critical and inconvenient news media fulfil a crucial role in a vital democracy, as essential checks for those in power. The news media facilitate the interaction between the fragmented parts of a monitory democracy and thus enhance a well-functioning government. In order to cope with media pressure, government pr-officials try to pacify journalists, but at the same time, government and public organizations should be wary of the incorporation of media rules in their own processes as this may lead to a mediatisation of politics.

In this literature review we present and discuss the key concepts of this symposium issue: (good) governance, (public) values, and the management of tensions between public values. The article concludes with an overview of strategies on how to deal with public values as a prelude to the remainder of the symposium, and discusses the implications of the distinguished strategies for public administration practice.

Whilst embedding democratic innovations that increase and deepen citizen participation in decision making now is a common policy of governments in many countries, and theorists in democratic theory also tend to emphasize how good citizen participation is to democracy, the empirical evaluation of democratic innovations is still a rather unexplored area of research.

This article evaluates two types of democratic innovations, participatory governance and deliberative forums in the Netherlands and a large number of other Western countries. The findings show, for both types of innovation, that citizen participation contributes to the quality of democracy in several ways. The analysis also makes it clear that different designs produce different democratic effects, which also reflects tensions between democratic values; participatory governance projects are better at giving citizens influence, whereas deliberative forums appear to be better at promoting the exchange of arguments. Also, whereas cases of participatory governance are more open than deliberative forums, representation is higher for the deliberative type of cases. As a consequence politicians and policy makers can have a major impact on democracy; by choosing for a specific design of citizen participation they may encourage certain aspects of democracy more than others.

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

Behind many notions of ‘governance’, there lies the image of a ‘modest’ or ‘retreating’ state. The assumption is that local and national authorities can only perform effectively if in cooperation with other public and private actors. Generally, it is said, governments increasingly lack the legitimacy for top-down interventions and hence the need of including participative citizen involvement in policy making and implementation. In recent years this democratic image has been disputed in scientific debates because of its lack of attention for new forms of interventionism by the state in societal processes, e.g. crime, youth care, immigration and integration. In this article, we aim to contribute to this other understanding of modern governance by analysing Dutch political discourse between 2001 and 2010 on (implicit) notions of the role and responsibility of the state. We show how the idea of ‘responsibilisation’ of citizens is turned into an argument for more instead of less state involvement in societal processes and citizens’ lives. By emphasizing ‘shared responsibilities’ between government and society, a tricky picture of parity is sketched of this relation. Dutch government presents itself as ‘an ally’ of citizens in fighting pressing social problems, but in the meantime an ideal of ‘responsible behaviour’ is constructed, namely, citizen behaviour in concordance with government’s policy ambitions. Within this political discourse, the socio-liberal idea of ‘responsibility’ turns into ‘responsibilisation on government’s terms’ and ‘irresponsible’ behaviour becomes a legitimate focal point for deep state interventions through techniques of governance.

In the past decades, employment and incomes were on the rise, social spending remained high while passive welfare states were progressively transformed into so-called ‘investment states’. Despite these favourable conditions, however, contemporary welfare states did not succeed in reducing poverty and inequality. What lies beneath the disquieting poverty standstill and how did welfare states miss this ‘window of opportunity’? In this article, we aim to shed more light on this question. We identify three structural trends behind the poverty standstill: rising employment has benefited workless households only partially; income protection for the working-age population out of work has become less adequate; social policies and, more generally, social redistribution have become less pro-poor. In other words, the reorientation of social expenditures to the employed occurred at the expense of those at risk in the labour market. The success of future poverty-reducing strategies will depend on the way policies aimed at labour market inclusion will be implemented and the emphasis on redistributive policies.

In their book Diploma Democracy Mark Bovens and Anchrit Wille state that positions in the field of politics are dominantly held by people with higher levels of education. Because of diverging political preferences between citizens with a higher level of education and those with a lower one this results in a lack of representation of the latter, they argue. Karsten replies to this position from a perspective of educational theory.

In their book Diploma Democracy Mark Bovens and Anchrit Wille state that positions in the field of politics are dominantly held by people with higher levels of education. Because of diverging political preferences between citizens with a higher level of education and those with a lower one this results in a lack of representation of the latter, they argue. Tonkens replies to this position from a perspective of active citizenship.

In their book Diploma Democracy Mark Bovens and Anchrit Wille state that positions in the field of politics are dominantly held by people with higher levels of education. Because of diverging political preferences between citizens with a higher level of education and those with a lower one this results in a lack of representation of the latter, they argue. Hakverdian et al. reply to this position from a perspective of political science.

In their book Diploma Democracy Mark Bovens and Anchrit Wille state that positions in the field of politics are dominantly held by people with higher levels of education. Because of diverging political preferences between citizens with a higher level of education and those with a lower one this results in a lack of representation of the latter, they argue. De Lange replies to this position from a perspective of political science.

In their book Diploma Democracy Mark Bovens and Anchrit Wille state that positions in the field of politics are dominantly held by people with higher levels of education. Because of diverging political preferences between citizens with a higher level of education and those with a lower one this results in a lack of representation of the latter, they argue. In this section five authors critically replied to this position from a variety of disciplinary perspectives. In this contribution Bovens en Wille answer their critics.

In their book Diploma Democracy Mark Bovens and Anchrit Wille state that positions in the field of politics are dominantly held by people with higher levels of education. Because of diverging political preferences between citizens with a higher level of education and those with a lower one this results in a lack of representation of the latter, they argue. Van Oenen replies to this position from a perspective of social and political philosophy.

In their book Diploma Democracy: Concerning the Tension Between Meritocracy and Democracy Mark Bovens and Anchrit Wille state that positions in the field of politics are dominantly held by people with higher levels of education. Because of diverging political preferences between citizens with a higher level of education and those with a lower one this results in a lack of representation of the latter, they argue. In this section five authors reply to this position from a variety of disciplinary perspectives. This section is the result of a debate that took place 17 January 2011 organised by B en M and USBO – University Utrecht.

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