A profession can be defined as a group of workers with shared knowledge, skills and quality standards. To maintain its professional status, the professional community needs to be relatively autonomous. However, while performing their tasks, many pressures jeopardize the professional worker’s autonomous position. Here, the professional community can make a difference.
Subordination to the political principal characterizes the position of the civil servant. What margin of professional independence do political leaders allow their civil servants? Recent academic empirical reports in the Netherlands show conflicting outcomes.
This essay describes how civil servants from a Dutch ministry deal with their professional standards and argues that, in the process of professionalization, more clarity is required with regard to how autonomy and independence for civil servants are safeguarded. This is especially relevant in a contemporary context where new ways to account for the professional behavior of civil servants need to be sought.

Dutch Ministries differ in the manner in which they design and manage their steering relations with independent governing bodies. Based on six cases at four Dutch ministries the authors show these differences. They use two theoretical models (the principal-agent approach and the principal-steward approach) to clarify the kind of relationship. Ministries not only differ in their approach, they also differ in how far they have advanced in the development of their steering relations with independent governing bodies. Because there is no coordination or exchange of knowledge between ministries, ministries that are ‘lagging behind’ cannot learn from the experiences of ministries that have more experience. The authors do not propose one form of central coordination or one model, but they do propose more exchange of knowledge within and between Dutch ministries.

According to the policy makers of the Dutch police the more complex society for years requires a police organization that can operate as a network player, or even network director, in ever increasing local safety networks to fulfil the police functions of criminal investigation and maintenance of public order in an effective manner. This claim hardly seems to validated by empirical evidence. Validation is important because research shows that a lot of time is spent on the police network function within community based policing. The question is if this time is spent in an effective manner. Therefore this article addresses the question of the revenues of the police network function within community based policing for the core tasks maintenance of political order and criminal investigation. Based on a policy analysis, interviews and five weeks of participatory research in one police force in the Netherlands, the authors conclude that the policy of the police is only to ‘take’ out and not ‘give’ to local safety networks, although according to the practice and the network literature networkers from the police should give to be able to achieve results. Because the police network function does contribute to the quality of life and the social safety in the community, the authors believe that the community is best served by police officers that have a broad network function.

Nudging is currently high on the political agenda. The idea behind nudging is that the government can gently push citizens in the ‘good’ direction by anticipating their predictable irrational behaviour. In the Dutch discussion nudging often is seen as an instrument to influence citizens more. Therefore critics fear paternalism, manipulation and technocracy. However, we could also see nudging as a replacement of more coercive instruments. Then nudges might even offer chances for a state that is withdrawing under the condition that citizens have both the opportunity and the capability to make alternative choices in practice than the choices to which nudges aim. Therefore nudges by the government should not avoid reflective and conscious thinking processes, but rather stimulate deliberation and make citizens more aware of their decisions.

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.

Achter opdrachtresearch gaat de veronderstelling schuil dat de tussen- en eindresultaten van beleidsonderzoek vroeg of laat ook benut worden en onderdeel worden van een proces van bezinning op beleid. Dit artikel handelt hierover. Diverse aspecten van benutting van onderzoek komen aan bod, zoals de definitie en vormen van benutting. Er worden vier richtingen onderscheiden om de omvang en vorm van benutting of onderbenutting op te sporen. Het artikel geeft voorts verklaringen voor achterblijvende benutting en bevat adviezen om te komen tot meer benutting. Voor ambtenaren, bestuurders en partners in beleidsnetwerken biedt deze beschouwing aanknopingspunten om researchresultaten desgewenst beter te benutten. En voor onderzoekers bevat dit artikel tal van aanzetten tot hypothesevorming voor verder onderzoek.

Deze terreinverkenning op basis van literatuuronderzoek handelt over een internationaal actueel, maar nationaal onderbelicht thema dat hier wordt aangeduid als ‘intersectorale governance voor gezondheid’. De verkenning is geschreven voor de landelijke beleidspraktijk, vanuit het perspectief van nationale beleidsambtenaren als potentiële dragers van intersectorale governance. In het licht van de bestuurlijke kernopdracht voor de komende jaren, werken aan een goede gezondheid, wordt aandacht besteed aan het belang van integrale beleidsvoering op centraal niveau en de hardnekkigheid waarmee het actief inzetten ervan uitblijft. Een focus op beleidsambtenaren als dragers van intersectorale governance biedt interessante mogelijkheden om uit die impasse te komen. Zeker als zij daarbij adequaat worden ondersteund door relevant onderzoek.