Exploration of the future is about systematically exploring future developments and the possible consequences for an organization or issue. The demand for future explorations at local policy level has increased in recent years. This article focuses on the relationship between participatory future exportations and local strategic policy processes. On the basis of four case studies, the meaning of participatory foresight studies for local policy processes was investigated. The research, which was carried out as action research, shows that future explorations in local strategic policy processes can be significant in different ways: they provide new knowledge, they promote learning in an integral and future-oriented manner and they encourage social learning processes that are independent of the content, which is valuable for group dynamics. In addition, future explorations can be useful in different phases of the policy cycle. Despite the fact that participatory explorations of the future can be meaningful in local strategic policy processes, there is still a bridge between the method of future exploration on the one hand and policy processes and organizations on the other. The research shows that a demand-driven approach starting from the needs of the participants in the policy process and responding to the culture, structure and working method of the organization is a promising approach. At the same time, the research shows that there are several factors that need to be considered in order to achieve a stronger interrelatedness of future exploration and policy. The policy practice and the exploratory practice seem to be gradually evolving towards each other. On the one hand, policy practice is becoming more rational, transparent and analytical in nature through the use of future explorations, at least in policy preparation. The explorations promote substantive discussions on policy agendas and policy intentions. On the other hand, they are becoming more policy oriented through more reasoning from the policy practice in terms of process design and knowledge needs of the policy process.

Theory about participation has long moved beyond merely informing citizens, arguing for more influential and effective instruments. Nevertheless, ‘inspraak’ remains widely implemented in Dutch practice, with mixed results. This article argues that the deliberative quality of the instrument is closely related to the performance of power. Dramaturgical concepts are employed to analyze resistance against the siting of a homeless facility in an Amsterdam neighborhood. One particular evening sets the stage for escalation, which ultimately frustrates the policy process. The analysis shows how the performance of the meeting invokes specific kinds of resistance. A different performance of ‘informing’ could potentially improve the quality of the public sphere.

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.

Wicked problems ask for new, smart forms of governance beyond a singular focus on hierarchy, market or community. Based on the case studies presented in the individual articles of this special issue, this concluding article describes what smart governance could entail and discusses its strengths and weaknesses, both as a concept and a practical tool.

Traditional state-centered governance systems have failed to effectively tackle the transnational problem of the sustainability of global value chains (GVCs). To fill this ‘institutional void’, industry and NGOs established a series of global partnerships that designed standards and certification schemes for global commodities. This paper uses different theoretical lenses to address the question as to what extent these arrangements can be evaluated as smart, and for what and for whom they are smart? Despite their relative success, these partnerships face some serious challenges. Consequently, smart governance also requires adaptiveness and the prevention of path dependencies.

In the Netherlands, the Dutch government public private partnerships (PPP) using DBFMO contracts has become the default option for realizing complex public infrastructures. DBFMO contracts imply the integrated outsourcing of the design (D), building (B), financing (F), the maintenance (M), and also often the exploitation (O) of projects to private actors. The general idea is that by bundling public and private resources, the increasing complexity of today’s public infrastructure projects can be tackled more easily. However, reality is contumacious. As a consequence of several problems related to DBFMO collaborations, the Dutch highway and water management agency Rijkswaterstaat and several private actors recently put forward a new market vision. This vision is a call to reinvent the dominant collaboration practice between public and private actors: relational aspects should be central. In managing projects, more attention should be given to the quality of relations, attitudes, openness and trust. Recent research confirms that the success of DBFMO projects is not only contingent on contractual aspects but also, and maybe even more importantly, on relational aspects. Smart governance involves a shift from the current dominant financial economic-oriented contractual approach to PPP towards a more sociologically inspired relational form of governance.

In 2008 a global economic crisis broke out. Now we can look back at the crisis as a clearly ordered sequence of events. But at the time these events were experienced as unexpected, unordered and unpredictable: a shock situation. How did municipalities respond to this shock situation, to this economic crisis? This article describes how two Dutch municipalities, together with their societal partners, made sense of the economic crisis. This concerns the question of how they interpreted the crisis themselves, but also which actions ensued. From a constructivist position, the article considers how the two municipalities together with their partners made sense of the situation and this enabled them to implement measures that could mitigate the consequences of the crisis for their communities. Based on epistemological and methodological assumptions discourse analysis, the author investigates the role of language in this process of sense-making. This approach offers municipalities insight in the role of stories in policymaking and in determining new practical solutions. The article closes with some guidance on how this perspective can help to people and institutions to cope with comparable situations, specifically in the cooperation between municipalities and other organizations.

To be able to realize the ambitions of citizen participation, diversity of participants is a crucial condition. At the same time excluding groups of citizens, amongst them critical citizens, is inextricably linked with citizen participation. In this article in the series ‘Local democratic audit’, the authors wonder what the exclusion of critical citizens means for the process and outcome of citizen participation. Through two empirical studies during a spatial intervention in different municipalities in the Netherlands, they investigated how people involved in a participation process spoke about critical citizens and their manifestations. The results show that the way these critical citizens are discussed either legitimizes exclusion or questions it critically. The legitimization of exclusion is detrimental to the support for spatial intervention. The problematization of exclusion results in a responsive approach to critical citizens, which is beneficial for both the course of the participation process and for the support for the spatial intervention.

In recent years few political ambitions enjoyed so much political support as the striving to let the welfare state become more of a ‘participation society’. This ‘participation society’ should be a society with self-reliant citizens; before turning to the state for support, citizens should first of all look at their own capacities, and only in the last case ask the state for help. The premise is promising: collective well-being. However, the fundamental assumptions behind this notion do raise questions. This article argues that the notion for citizens to be self-reliant easily builds on questionable assumptions; these assumptions on the one hand raise hope for collective well-being, but on the other hand easily catalyze citizens’ contemporary uncertainties. It indeed is desirable to restate the relation between state and citizens, but the contemporary focus on citizens’ self-reliance should watch for building on unstable foundations to easily.

Alhoewel het gebruik van beleidsevaluaties (of het gebrek eraan) een van de meest besproken thema’s is in de evaluatieliteratuur, berust veel onderzoek over het thema enkel op anekdotisch bewijs, en zijn er nauwelijks studies beschikbaar die aandacht hebben voor de samenhang tussen verschillende factoren die impact kunnen hebben op het gebruik. In voorliggend artikel presenteren we de resultaten van een studie waarin we hebben getracht om op een systematische wijze inzicht te bieden in de combinaties van factoren die instrumenteel gebruik van beleidsevaluaties bevorderen of verhinderen. We onderzochten in dit verband alle evaluaties die in de periode 2013-2016 werden uitgevoerd bij de Inspectie Ontwikkelingssamenwerking en Beleidsevaluatie. Via Qualitative Comparative Analysis (QCA) bekeken we welke combinaties van de volgende factoren als noodzakelijk en/of voldoende bleken voor evaluatiegebruik: (1) politiek gehalte van het onderwerp, (2) interesse van de beleidsmakers, (3) aanwezigheid van nieuwe kennis in de evaluatie, en (4) de timing van de evaluatie.
Voor de praktijk van beleidsmakers en evaluatoren benadrukken we het belang van tijdigheid en interesse voor een evaluatie. Onze analyse laat zien dat professionals die op deze factoren inzetten, een gunstig klimaat creëren voor het gebruik van evaluaties. Wat betreft tijdigheid lijkt het van belang de evaluatie te laten sporen met het schrijfwerk van een beleidsafdeling aan nieuw beleid of grote beleidsveranderingen. Goede anticipatie en een sterke institutionalisering van het evaluatieproces zijn hiertoe cruciaal. Of het thema van de evaluatie een sterke politieke gevoeligheid kent, is minder belangrijk. Mits sprake is van de juiste omgevingscondities, kunnen ook dergelijke evaluaties sterk instrumenteel worden benut.

De digitalisering van de samenleving heeft verschillende gevolgen voor de overheid en overheidsbeleid. Eén daarvan heeft betrekking op de manier waarop beleidsanalyse kan worden gebruikt. In deze bijdrage worden de mogelijkheden van meer adaptieve vormen van beleidsanalyse verkend, waarbij beleidsvoerders stap voor stap en op basis van informatie uit het beleidsproces proberen meer over de beleidsuitvoering te leren. Die vorm van beleidsanalyse, die op een aantal punten afwijkt van eerdere vormen, heeft gevolgen voor de organisatie van de overheid maar ook voor de wijze waarop het toezicht moet worden ingericht. Dat levert interessante vragen en spanningen op voor de ‘digitale’ overheid.