The lessons learned from the financial crisis are not necessarily limited to the financial sector. Both the financial sector and the public sector have to deal with perverse effects. The effects can be related to a reduction of complexity and plurality through introducing (oversimplified and one dimensional) models and financial incentives. However, in doing this, complexity and plurality are often lost: the neglect of multiple interests, goal replacement and too much focus on short term results. As a consequence perverse effects arise.
Public sectors and organizations face internal and external pressure to act as they do. At the level of organizations or groups this may involve groupthink; at institutional level uniformity is promoted by the dynamics of isomorphism. This article is a critique on simplification and a plea for the (re)introduction of plurality. More specifically, we stress the importance of individual moral responsibility as a resource for and a way to preserve plurality. Not because that is the only option, but because it is an option that we believe deserves more attention. Other options such as changing regulations and changing the structure of supervision are already broadly discussed. We want to draw attention to the individual as parts of multiple organizations and systems. Individuals are therefore a natural carrier of multiplicity and plurality. Taking moral responsibility serious is not an easy task, but a meaningful step towards awareness of perverse effects due to reduction of complexity and plurality.

The credit crisis that began in the summer of 2007 has fundamentally challenged much financial regulation and the political institutions that produced it. Measured against the criticisms that have been brought forth against previous financial governance, the extent of governments’ overall reform ambitions has been disappointing. Starting from this observation, this article asks: what explains governments’ reform choices, and thus also their limited ambitions? To explore this question, this article focuses on the positions that four governments central to global financial regulation (the USA, the UK, Germany and France) have taken in advance of the G20 meetings in 2009 across four key issue areas: accounting standards, derivatives trading, credit ratings agencies and banking rules. It evaluates both the overlap between positions across domains and governments as well as the differences between them. Such variation, we argue, provides key clues to the overall drivers behind reforms – as well as their limits. The overall picture that emerges can be summarized as follows: governments have been staunch defenders of their national firms’ competitive interests in regulatory reforms. That has not necessarily meant that they followed industry preferences across the board. It has been the relative impact, compared to foreign competitors, that counted in reform positions, not the absolute impact. These differences of opinion have played out within the context and the limits of the overall debates about thinkable policy alternatives. In spite of fundamental criticisms of pre-crisis regulatory orthodoxy, convincing and coherent alternatives have been forthcoming slowly at best. This has made reform proposals less radical than criticisms, seen on their own, might suggest.

De facto autonomy, the actual potential of regulatory agencies to go about their daily work, is often conceived to be more important to explain regulatory capacity than its formal autonomy and responsibilities. In this article we investigate whether external context factors, such as the financial and economic crisis have an impact on de facto autonomy. More specifically, we investigate whether the de facto autonomy varies after the crisis and distinctively so for specific subsets of employees within regulatory agencies. According to literature, mid-level managers of agencies are key to de facto autonomy and building a secure reputation for the agency in question. We test these external and internal effects on de facto autonomy with a survey among employees of the Dutch Financial Market Authority (N = 248). The findings show that the perceived influence of stakeholders is relatively constant, but that it is more dynamic for European stakeholders. Both middle managers and employees working at strategic and policy departments of the agency conceive the impact of European stakeholders as increasing in nature. The findings have important implications for our studies of de facto autonomy of regulatory agencies as well as reform potential after major institutional crises.

This paper reports on a qualitative interview study into the prioritization and interpretation of public values government elites in the Netherlands, comparing value preferences between political and administrative elites. Based on 65 in-depth interviews with MPs, ministers and senior civil servants, statements on four public values (responsiveness, expertise, lawfulness, transparency) that have been deducted through a substantive literature review, are coded and categorized. Overall, political and administrative value preferences in the Netherlands turn out to be more similar than they are different. However, mutual perceptions emphasize differences and contrasts. Theoretical and practical implications of the results are offered and hypotheses are formulated for future studies.

In recent decades, professionals in the public sector have been faced with increasingly detailed demands concerning accountability and performance. It is often argued that this increased accountability and its bureaucratic pressures limit professionals’ discretionary space and autonomy. However, this critique is hardly based on empirical research on the experiences and perceptions of professionals themselves. In this article we present an investigation into these perceptions and experiences with accountability in one particular brand of the public sector, namely youth care.
Our research indicates that professionals in youth care are hardly interested in greater autonomy or discretion. They rather want clarity, security and options for learning. Moreover, we found ‘bureaucratic attachment’: attachment to bureaucratic procedures particularly as a reaction to increased fears to be sued when something goes wrong with clients. In the recurrent arguments for reduction of bureaucracy, this other face of bureaucracy is often disregarded.
Regarding working conditions however, the professionals we interviewed do want more discretion. Especially concerning occupation of beds, as the requirement for permanent occupation is viewed to augment risk. We therefore argue for better backing of professionals in youth, for a more precise battle against unnecessary bureaucracy, and for professionalization in order to handle more discretion.

The private security sector is rapidly growing and their operations more and more comprise policing and public order maintenance, tasks which to date have been government’s primary responsibility. Some fear this development because the private sector is characterized by market values as profitability and efficiency instead of public sector values such as lawfulness and impartiality, putting the quality of public safety at risk. In this article the professional values, norms and motivations of police officers and private security employees in the Netherlands are compared on the basis of a standardized survey. The main conclusion is that there are large differences in how both groups perceive each other, however the underlying professional morale is actually more similar than different.

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.

A main motive for policy decentralization is the belief that municipalities are better able to customize public policy to local circumstances, and to realize made-to-measure service provision. In this respect, the introduction of the Social Support Act (Wmo) is an interesting example. With the lack of ‘vertical’ accountability obligations to the national government, the Wmo is governmentally innovative. Whether the decentralization results in customized forms of social support is a fascinating one because a detailed reading of the Wmo and its implementation displays possible incentives as well as barriers to made-to-measure service provision. The empirical exploration in this article uses data from the 2007-2009 evaluation of the Wmo conducted by the Netherlands Institute for Social Research (SCP). The evaluation shows that municipalities involve diverse stakeholders in formulating Wmo policy, and that their involvement seems to lead to customized service provision. At the same time, municipalities follow nationwide models, and information provided by the central government seems to have a major impact on local social care policy. The article concludes with an outlook on future directions in local debates on social care and the recommendation to give time for major decentralization trajectories such as the Wmo.

Agricultural production systems may influence each other in a negative way, with conflicts as a consequence. In general, such conflicts are resolved technically in an ad hoc manner, at farm or greenhouse level. There is no structural attention to so-called co-existence problems. This article makes a plea for acknowledging such problems as policy issues and for grouping these together under the label of co-existence conflicts, broadening this phrase beyond its traditional meaning related to conventional, organic and GM crop production. Co-existence conflicts are concrete, local expressions of the tensions between conflicting values incorporated in the current agricultural system. It is argued that because they are manifestations of conflicting value systems, they offer useful stepping-stones to practically organise and channel discussions on sustainable development in agriculture.

For many years now, citizenship has been a hot topic in Dutch politics. The activation and participation of citizens has been part and parcel of many policy initiatives. In this fashion, the current cabinet of Prime Minister Rutte has stressed the virtues of a ‘big society’ and a ‘small government’. We call this the new civility: a citizenship philosophy in which an ethico-economic claim of self-sufficiency is accompanied by a strong anticipation of policy conformity. Notably, the democratic legitimation of the new civility has been reversed. Now it is government which demands civic accountability, not the other way around. Responsible citizenship, not responsible government is at its heart. Furthermore, the new civility is based on a reversal of the Mandevillean idea of private vices and public benefits. We illustrate its ambiguous strands by a case study of a citizen’s initiative project in the city of Dordrecht. We conclude by showing how the tension between the values of civil self-sufficiency and policy conformity ironically can turn out in a-political conception of citizenship.

The problem of climate change is high on the various political-administrative agendas, both national and international. At the same time the problem is full of uncertainties and controversies. Adaptation to climate change asks for adjustments in our spatial planning, but can also necessitate changes in the distribution of public and private responsibilities. A crucial question is how the legitimacy of adaptation measures can be organized in a context surrounded with uncertainties, controversies and conflicting interests. In this paper we introduce the central theme of this special issue and the various contributions.

Over the past years the European Commission has undergone it most significant changes since its inception. Internal reforms and a long series of treaty revisions have transformed the relationship of commissioners and that of their top officials. This paper describes how the emergence of new rules and recruiting patterns and a change in role interpretations have contributed to a growing demarcation between the political and administrative spheres in the European Commission.

Horizontal governance arrangements potentially conflict with the very principles of representative democracy and, likewise, with the existing political institutions. This conflict manifests itself in the interaction between representatives and the executive power: although the former have the formal power, the latter participates in horizontal networks and therefore has the resources that are necessary to form good policy. This erodes the power position of representatives. Frame work setting is commonly suggested as an arrangement for representatives to enhance their grip on policy processes in network-settings. The authors of this contribution examine the effects of frame setting as coupling mechanism between horizontal networks and vertical politics in six policy processes in a Dutch Province. Based on both theory and research findings they redefine the concept of framework setting in order to make it more attuned to the complex, interdependent and dynamic nature of policy-making in networks.

In the Netherlands, new horizontal forms of accountability have in recent years been introduced for executive agencies. These forms of accountability address other stakeholders besides the hierarchical principal. It includes for example demonstrating responsiveness to clients, independent overseers or professional standards. In this article, two related questions are answered. At first the question is posed whether horizontal accountability can be regarded as a substitute for democratic accountability or as complementary to it. The second question is how their introduction fits with traditional (vertical) forms of accountability. The article is based on a qualitative research that was carried out in 2005 and 2006 on nine large Dutch executive agencies. It focuses on two types of horizontal accountability: accountability of agencies to boards and to an independent evaluation committee ('visitation'). The article concludes that horizontal accountability is best regarded as complementary to democratic accountability. Horizontal accountability has added value because it invokes learning processes. In addition, the introduction of horizontal forms of accountability creates a redundant accountability regime for executive agencies in which they account for the same actions to different accountees. Redundancy has the advantages that it mitigates information asymmetry and incorporates the different expectations for agencies.

Since the 1980s, there has been a rise of managers and executives in public domains. Especially in domains like education, this development was accompanied by sharp controversies and 'clashes' between managers and professionals, who would be 'alienated' from each other. The classic nature of professional and managerial loyalties would seem to strengthen this alienation. Professionals would primarily be loyal to their profession, whereas managerial loyalties would mainly focus on organisations. Although research has criticized the one-sidedness of professional loyalty, managerial loyalty has hardly been studied up till now. In this article, managerial loyalties are analyzed theoretically as well as empirically. The article rests upon a qualitative study among school leaders in Dutch secondary education. It shows that management reforms in education did not result in the adoption of a new, primary loyalty to organizations, management or performance by school leaders. Instead, long-standing relations, for example with teachers, remain meaningful, also because most school leaders have a professional background as teacher. Consequently, assumptions about managers who alienate from professionals, and managers who do not value their relationships with professionals must be criticized, at least in (secondary) education.

The displacement of political decision making from the classic bodies of representative democracy to non democratically legitimised arenas is a major threat to contemporary representative democracy. In this essay, three displacements are discussed: from parliamentary to deliberative processes, from political to professional decision making, and from national to international arenas. Several of the safeguards that have been developed in parliamentary democracy over the past centuries, such as representation, transparency, majority voting, and public accountability, are missing or are underdeveloped in these new arenas. The essay explores how these safeguards could be introduced into these new arenas and concludes that the displacement of politics should be attended by a dissemination of democracy.

In December 2004, the report of the Dutch Parliamentary Investigation Committee on Infrastructural Projects was published. This committee investigated the budgets overruns of two large rail projects currently under construction in the Netherlands: the Betuwe Line and the High Speed Line (HSL)-South. The committee also looked at how mistakes that were made in the earlier projects had been avoided in the construction of the Zuiderzee Line, a project currently under preparation. The report provides a look inside the struggle of the Dutch national government from the beginning of the 1990s in their public-private partnership (PPP) efforts. In this contribution, we provide an analysis of the motives, approach and results of privatisation of these three projects on the bases of the detailed empirical analysis provided by the Committee. We seek explanations of how privatisation with these three projects evolved and what lessons can be drawn. It appears that practices have so far been far from good and instead of committing to the obligation to apply PPP in every large infrastructural project, the government should first find out how PPP in such projects should actually be carried out.

The creation of quasi-autonomous organizations has spread throughout the western world. Flanders and the Netherlands both have a longstanding tradition of putting policy execution at arms' length, thereby creating so-called voi's and zbo's respectively. This raises the question whether there are comparable trajectories, forms, developments and political considerations. By comparing the developments in both countries the authors seek an answer to this question.

The establishment of quangos was very popular until the mid 1990s. However, in both countries a countermovement can be seen. The creation of quangos is believed to lead to problems for political control. Both governments have taken several measures to solve these issues.

The comparison shows that there are indeed many similarities, but also reveals interesting differences. There is no comprehensive convergence between the two neighbours. These differences are the result of differences in the politico-administrative system and the institutional culture.

This article examines the differences and similarities in public policy of the Dutch and Belgian government in the policy field of socially responsible investing (SRI). In particular the authors discuss both the content and the consequences of the Dutch arrangement 'Groen beleggen' and the Belgian 'Kringloopfonds'. Our empirical evidence states that, although both public policies are very similar (a tax incentive for investors investing financial means in socially responsible funds), they had a different influence on the socially responsible investment market. The Dutch arrangement 'Groen beleggen' lead to more assets under management, more green private funds, more financed projects and a bigger influence on the market of socially responsible investment products. This is mainly caused by the nature of the funding: the choice for private funds in the Netherlands, instead of a public fund like in Belgium.