The first report (2013) by the Association of Netherlands Municipalities think tank deals with the question of how local governments can improve their own performance regarding the current trend of social initiatives in which citizens organize themselves to tackle problems in their neighborhoods. Kleistra and Walraven discuss the method, content and findings of the report. They question the widely used citizen perspective that is adopted by the think tank as a starting point for further research on the topic; its uncritical stance with regard to the highly debated issue of citizen participation; the limited research effort that underpins its overall findings and conclusions; and in particular its unequivocal call for large scale municipal experimenting and improvising without further elaborating on the key question of ‘how to proceed’ for the benefit of municipal policymakers. This brings them to the conclusion that the report itself generates highly relevant questions, but that these questions should be addressed more effectively than has so far been the case, by connecting in-depth empirical research on municipal performance with regard to citizens initiatives to the large body of scientific knowledge on citizen participation.

The opening article introduces the topic of this special issue: civil servants. Changes in the context, role and legal status of civil servants in the Netherlands fuel the debate on the civil servant as a professional in academic and policy circles. This special issue reports on this debate, with contributions from legal, sociological, public administration and more applied perspectives.

This is an interview with professor of public administration Paul ’t Hart, following the success of his Dutch essay ‘Civil Servant 3.0’. In the interview, ’t Hart addresses new demands on civil servants, challenges for leadership and the need to learn from international best practices in public sector reform.

The Netherlands enjoys a long-standing reputation in the field of road safety. Following the ‘Sustainable Road Safety’ program of the 1990s, the infrastructural layout considerably reduces the risk of accidents while at the same time many measures are in place to improve road user behavior. In recent years, however, there have been several developments that may affect the success of the approach. In addition to an ageing population, urbanization, and the rise of new technologies, there is a combination of decentralization, policy integration, and budgetary restraints.
This contribution presents the philosophy behind the sustainable road safety program and describes its key elements. It discusses policy and societal developments, and the continuing need to improve road safety, especially at a decentralized level. The article argues in favor of a continued systematic approach towards safer road traffic, also in periods of decentralization and limited budgets. It presents a concrete perspective of the role of policy analysis and policy evaluation to develop a proactive approach to road safety under the new conditions. In this, evidence-based interventions, an active use of safety performance indicators, and a focus on success are key elements.

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.

After years of debate, the discussion concerning the legal status of civil servants has reached its climax. The abolition of special civil servant status has never been closer. In February 2014 the Dutch Parliament approved a proposal that is based on the view that the particular legal status of civil servants has to be ‘normalized’, and that the terms and conditions of employment in the public sector could be regulated in line with market sector standards. In this article, both the discussion and the proposal are considered. In addition, we reflect on the extent to which and the way in which the proposal could have a positive impact on the development of the professional competence of civil servants.

The article aims to compare the current legal status of codes of conduct (if any) in five different EU-countries. Its starting point is the recent legal initiative in the Netherlands to abolish the existing status for officials and to replace it with contracts of employment. The parliamentary initiators indicate ethical elements as crucial for the employment relation in the public sector. Does this imply that a code of conduct has to be established?
The article first focuses on the historical evolution of codes of conduct in different EU-Member States. Within the UK, integrity has always been considered a key stone of the civil service. However, it took until the nineties until a code of conduct was set out. The spread out of the importance of integrity for civil servants has spread out later in continental Europe. The impact of the theory of New Public Management, through the OECD, was therefore crucial. Consequently, Belgium and Germany developed codes of conduct while France and the Netherlands paid more attention to weight of ethical behavior in the public sector.
Currently, it stays beyond any doubt that the codes of conduct in the UK have got a binding legal value. This value has not yet been achieved by the Belgian and the German codes. The article defends the point of view that a binding code in the Netherlands can be a useful tool.

The changes in the role of government raise questions about the training and socialization of Dutch public servants. How can civil servants and their organizations prepare for what it means to be a civil servant in the 21st century? In this article, the authors give an overview of training and other means of socialization for public servants. They conclude that there is hardly any evidence of universal and coherent means to shape the collective identity of civil servants, and suggest ways to improve this.

In line with international and national legislation, the Netherlands offers certain services, including a temporary residence permit, to third country nationals who have fallen prey to human traffickers. Over the years, concerns have been often expressed about the perceived misuse of this regulation by foreigners who aim at legalising their stay. Based on interviews and file analysis the present article seeks to provide insight into to what extent it is possible to measure this misuse and the policy implications of the findings. In addition, the authors take into account non-use of the programme. The article confirms existing worries about misuse, provides indicators for misuse, but also concludes that at the level of individual cases practitioners cannot discern misuse from rightful use. At the same time, there are also groups that fall outside the reach of the programme. The article concludes with some policy recommendations on the basis of the findings.

In this article, based on a case study regarding the merger of boroughs within the municipality of Amsterdam, different perspectives are brought together to provide an overall analysis leading to insight into the change in the organizational culture. A particular research methodology is used to shed light on three elements of organizational culture: mindset (values), arena (group) and behavior. Through periodical measurements the effects of interventions and the progress in culture change is followed. It is argued that measurement instruments to explore the shifts in thinking and action are useful but limited. Policy makers and organizational actors from all hierarchical levels are shown to be influenced and disciplined by the actual existing change discourse to various degrees. Every organization nowadays must prove to the market that it is capable of change. Stories about organizational flexibility are embedded in more macro-stories of the changes in economic life. This article provides insight into the complexity of organizational discourse and the philosophical and sociological richness that it embodies. Therefore anthropological concepts are used which make the case more understandable in terms of rules and procedures that construct and legitimate the way we see things and talk about them.

The focus of the diversity policy in the Dutch public sector has moved during the past decennia. In the eighties offering equal chances for the different target groups was the central policy goal, after the millennium this became the effective and efficient management of a diverse work force in order to arrive at a better performing public sector, also called the business case of diversity. This article investigates the question how far the Dutch cabinet has influenced the diversity policy of public organizations. The answer to the question is that there was limited influence from the Dutch cabinet on the arguments for diversity of public organizations, but there was greater influence on the diversity interventions, especially in three sectors: central government, municipalities and police. This influence on interventions of other (‘fellow’) governments is caused by the strong steering of the cabinet. The interventions undertaken therefore reflect to a more limited extent the business case of diversity and remain stuck in the old target group policy. However, public organizations with a longer history in diversity policy, that operate closer to society and see the necessity for diversity, are more inclined to embrace the business case and start interventions that are related to this new approach.

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.

Je kunt natuurlijk wel verwachten dat Jan van Zijl, die tegenwoordig voorzitter is van de MBO Raad, positieve herinneringen heeft aan wat je zou kunnen noemen ‘zijn RWI’, maar misschien niet dat hij een paar jaar na dato nog zo uitdrukkelijk betreurt dat de RWI is opgeheven. Het was indertijd bij de oprichting wel zo dat de RWI door sommigen gezien werd als een doekje voor het bloeden voor de sociale partners in verband met het feit dat zij macht gingen verliezen na invoering van de SUWI-structuur, maar Van Zijl ging bepaald niet uit van een korte levensloop van de nieuwe raad. Dat hij de taak van de RWI serieus nam, blijkt trouwens ook uit het grote aantal indringende adviezen en rapportages dat de RWI heeft weten te produceren.

Regulatory supervision and inspection have become key features of public governance, some authors even talk about the ‘audit society’ or the age of ‘regulatory capitalism’. Despite international research showing the importance of trust in supervisory relations, there is still a fierce debate about the role of trust in Dutch supervisory relations. Several inspectorates have incorporated trust as a central theme in their supervisory policy. This article describes the role of trust within the policy of the Dutch Healthcare Inspectorate (IGZ). This research addresses four themes in dealing with the concept of trust in supervisory relations: from transparency to accountability, from output performance to performance and risk management, from trust or control to trust and control, and, finally, a special regime for reliable inspectees. The empirical analysis in this paper contributes to the knowledge about the role of trust in supervision (policy) and to the debate about the role of trust in regulatory supervision policy.

There are many practical and academic concerns about public professionals and the pressures and burdens they experience. Professional autonomies and skills are reduced, it is argued, as a result of businesslike new public management, in order to control service results. The solution is clear: organizational logics must be weakened, professional autonomies must be enlarged and professional ways of working must be ‘rescued’. In this paper we re-interpret this presumed problem by analyzing: the interaction between organizational and professional logics, by relating these to a broader institutional logic and by tracing the contribution of individual professional motivations. Professionals, it is shown, can be motivated by broader ambitions to serve society. Such public service motivation consists of three types of motives: rational/instrumental, affective and normative. Our results show that employees in different public professional services show different patterns of motives, which we mainly explain by relating their motivations to the nature of the services they render – whether they render people-changing or people-processing services. These institutional dimensions imply that professional work can be managed, not so much by businesslike ‘market logic’ but by strengthening the meaning of the work professionals do. Professional pressures against organizations do not have to be suppressed – they can be productively used.

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.

Government employs Public-Private Partnerships as a remedial strategy directed at compensating for failures that typically occur in pure market arrangements, networks or pure hierarchical government settings. It is then possible to engage in Public-Private Partnerships corresponding with the three basic forms of social organization: market, network and government. The distinction between: (1) market-PPP, (2) network-PPP and (3) public authority-PPP is elaborated.

This paper draws some lessons, expected and unexpected, from the different contributions in this special issue on the retreating state. The special issue has shown that the retreat of the retreat of the state is a paradoxical and unequivocal development. The retreat of the state is also accompanied by active forms of central management and policy initiatives. Wider developments in the economy and international politics demonstrate that the state is not, as has often been suggested, obsolete. Disregarding this, however, many citizens are actively involved in shaping a new form of participative society.

The state has been expanding throughout the twentieth century but now seems to be in retreat. This special issue addresses the question how central governments can organize their retreats. It is a theme with a double-sided focus. On the one hand, we will offer an empirical and theoretical state of the art of the ‘state of the state’. On the other hand, this special issue will thematise how a retreat of the state can be organized in a proper way. The special issue consists of eight different articles; some more theoretical and normative and others clearly empirical. Together the articles provide a colourful overview of the state of the Dutch state in the early 21st Century.