The Dutch government aims at a participatory society, for example by striving for a larger amount of self-responsibility in providing social care, since the introduction of the Societal Support Law (in Dutch called ‘Wet maatschappelijke ondersteuning’ or in short Wmo). Does public opinion in the Netherlands reflect this change of mentality? This article investigates (a) how far public opinion on responsibility for social care for the elderly has changed between 2003 and 2010, (b) which factors explain why some people put most responsibility on the government and others on the family and (c) which factors explain intra-individual changes of attitude. This research has used survey data from the Netherlands Kinship Panel Study (2003, 2006/07, 2010). A shift in public opinion appears to have taken place in line with government policy: less responsibility for the government and more for the family. However, a majority of the Dutch population still puts most responsibility on the government. Attitudes appear to be connected with normative motives rather than with utilitarian motives. Intra-individual changes in attitudes in the direction of less government responsibility are mainly explained by normative factors and not by factors related to self-interest.

While the belief in a socially engineered society has been renounced to a large extent, in cities actors continue to struggle with the question how their plans can be steered on goal achievement. This article addresses a steering philosophy that is based on an emergent adaptive urban development process. This means that urban strategies adapt during the process by connecting to initiatives from the market and civil society. The central question of this article is how specific projects are ‘made’ in accordance with the intentions of the actors involved and how these projects are connected to larger policy stories for the city. In this article perspectives are explored that have replaced the old thinking in terms of ‘social engineering’. On the basis of two case studies in the Netherlands (Brainport Eindhoven and Mainport Rotterdam) an emergent adaptive strategy is explored as a perspective for action. This perspective is not only about ‘social engineering’, but also about ‘social connecting’. An emergent adaptive strategy is not designed on the drawing table, but it emerges during the practice of project development out of an attitude that is conscious of the environment, connective and reflective.

This article describes, on the basis of a broad empirical research, the development of the office of mayor since 2002 (the year of the introduction of a dualist local system in the Netherlands) and the present state of the office. It shows a fundamental change in the office during the last decade and how the already existing hybrid nature of the office has continued to grow since 2002. The article describes the effects of this hybridization and identifies, on the basis of this description, eight power lines and vulnerabilities of the office of mayor. The authors relativize a number of issues that are frequently problematized in relation to the office of mayor, but they also point to new concerns amongst mayors. According to the mayors for example the presidency of the council and the presidency of the board of mayor and aldermen can be combined quite easily in practice. Mayors however, and with good reason, are concerned about the vulnerability of their authority and the sustainability of their neutral position ‘above the parties’, their most important source of authority. For this reason a reorientation of the office of mayor in the Netherlands is needed. This reorientation should start with an answer to the question which roles the mayor has to play in Dutch local government.