Dutch housing policy has been reformed dramatically over the last fifteen years. The reforms were preceded by an equally dramatic policy crisis during the 1970s and 1980s. This article attempts to explain the development of both the crisis and the subsequent reforms. An important explanatory variable is the logic of provision, relating to the fact that housing comes in the shape of stock and capital. However, the institutional logic of Dutch housing policy, notably the fact that most social housing providers are traditionally private nonprofits, has also proved of vital significance in determining the outcome of the reform process. Distinguishing the effects of the logic of provision and the institutional logic enables an analysis of how policy feedback, the inheritance from previous policies, may cause both policy crisis and policy reform.

In managing new cleavages between conflicting values (such as materialism and post-materialism), we cannot simply fall back on a classical approach to cleavage management. The segments surrounding the new cleavage are clearly more fluid than those surrounding the religious or socio-economic cleavages from consociationalism and neo-corporatism, such as is rightly emphasised in the network approach. In the conflict between the materialist and post-materialist value pattern, representation logic is not a given certainty. Not only the facts, but also the negotiating players and the decision-making arenas are the subject of negotiation and strategic action. This is reflected in the new forms of consultation politics. Similarly, consensus formation cannot make do with the (party) political integration of the segments because, given the conditions of post-materialism, this integration can only be partial. It seems important in the new cleavage management to devote attention to the existence of several arenas in which political interests are weighed up. For the players involved in a particular policy issue, this means the lure of strategic forum shopping and thus complication of the conflict-resolving ability of each of the forums.

This article discusses the changes in the safety policy in the Netherlands over about the last fifteen years. These changes are analysed as reactions to the problems that the police and other criminal justice agencies face and which result from the shift from a modern to a late modern society. Five main changes are distinguished: in the organisational and managerial arrangements of the police; in the relation between the state (police) and other (both public and private) agencies; the rise of extra-judicial instruments and the growing attention for the position of victims; the increasing use of technological instruments for surveillance and crime prevention; and a harsher and more punitive policy. These changes create new fundamental questions for a future safety policy.

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.

In the discussion about the introduction of a directly elected mayor in the Netherlands the issue of election procedures is largely ignored. Election procedures, however, are not neutral. Five different elections procedures that can be used to elect a mayor (simple majority, two round system, alternative vote, Cooms rule and the adjusted Copeland rule) are analyzed using seven different criteria (selecting majority winners, selecting condorcet winners, not selecting condorcet losers, monotonicity, strategy proofness, simplicity and costs). With respect to most of the criteria used, the adjusted Copeland score rule outperforms the other procedures mentioned.

Although 'integration with retention of "own" culture' has ceased to be the dominant policy principle in Dutch minority policies for quite some time now, there are still remarkably many ethnically specific policy arrangements in the Netherlands. To explain this contradiction this paper introduces an administrative mechanism: the logic of making policy categories conflicts with the logic of policy implementation. The use of 'avoidant categories' – a particular type of policy category discussed in this paper – creates an administrative opportunity structure that unintendedly promotes ethnic fragmentation instead of integration in policy implementation. We illustrate the working of this mechanism in a comparative perspective; the Netherlands is not unique in this respect and experience in other countries is instructive.

Alfred Hirschman has analyzed consumers reactions of 'voice' and 'exit' with respect to the functioning of public and private organizations. He has argued that the value of 'voice' to articulate dissatisfaction with respect to public and private organisations is often misunderstood. Especially with respect to so-called complex goods, voice is far more fruitful to explore the norms for 'best practice' and to stimulate the improvement of the organisation than exit. Insurance might be seen as a complex good. From the perspective of Hirschman we analysed the exit- and voice options of citizens with respect to private and public health insurance. We argue that while private insurance offers more exit-options, the quality of the voice options in private insurance might be considered better. However, the opportunities to articulate disagreement or dissatisfaction on an individual level are few all together. Public health insurance does have formal channels for collective voice, but these do not result in real influence on relevant themes. With the reorganization of the Dutch welfare state, much has been invested, ideological and practical, in the increase of exit options. However, dissatisfaction often does develop when people have become ill and when they are dependent upon the insurance. In that situation they often are not able to walk out to a competing company or to perform voice. Against this background we argue that the organisation of collective voice in health insurance is very important.

There is probably no other sector of the welfare state where the gap between citizen's expectations and government's opportunities is deepening so intensely and has such a complex and politicized reform agenda as the health care sector. Health care is a critical case par excellence to study the relation between efficiency and legitimization of welfare state reform. The leading question of this special issue of Beleid & Maatschappij is: how does the Dutch health care system and the connected public policymaking accommodate the different and often conflicting goals (input), organizing concepts (throughput) and outcomes (output)? With these questions in mind the dominant governance principles of Dutch health care, especially the system of regulated competition, are scrutinized. One of the findings is, that 'second best' solutions are the highest achievable in this field, a notion that reform policies should take into account.

This paper addresses the question whether potentially conflicting health policy goals can explain the presence of multiple competing health policy programs. For more than fifteen years, successive government coalitions have proposed to replace the dominating policy program of supply and price regulation by the policy program of regulated competition. Due to its institutional and technical complexity, however, so far most efforts have been focused on the realization of the appropriate preconditions for regulated competition and the actual implementation is still in its infancy. The remarkable perseverance of the market-oriented policy program can be explained by the fact that it offers, at least in theory, a single comprehensive solution for satisfying both efficiency and equity goals. Even if the program succeeds in fostering efficiency while maintaining equity, several reasons are pointed out why the market-oriented program is unlikely to fully replace supply and price regulation. First, the market-oriented program does not seem suitable for all health sectors or even for all geographical markets within a specific sector. Second, the market-oriented program is unlikely to meet political objectives about the desired level of public health spending.

This article provides an overview of the various initiatives in the past decades to measure the outcomes of health care systems from a public health perspective. It is described how on the one hand the performance measurement techniques and its associated indicators have become more sophisticated over the years but on the other hand how the indicators meet difficulties in being incorporated in policy and management by policymakers and politicians. The present health care reform in The Netherlands will enforce the debate on competing health care outcomes (effectiveness, efficiency, equity). Steps are described how to take the steering on health outcomes as a more central notion in health system redesign.