The recent introduction of leadership primaries within the Dutch political parties PvdA, VVD and D66 has attracted much attention, but the opinions about this form of party-reform are divided. This article discusses the reasons for the recent popularity of internal primaries for the selection of the heads of the list of candidates for the national elections and describes the procedures used by the various parties. The article concludes that leader-ship primaries are not always beneficial for parties and democracy. Only if the procedures for primaries are carefully designed and the candidates behave prudently and in an integer way, leadership primaries can have a positive effect on internal party democracy and on the political system as a whole.

Contemporary western democracies, such the United States, Great Britain, and The Netherlands have become diploma democracies. They are ruled by the well educated, whereas the least educated, even though they still comprise about half of the population, have virtually vanished from most political arenas. Of course, the well educated have always been more politically active than the less educated, but in the past decades this gap has widened substantially. Well-educated citizens are more inclined to vote, to write letters to the editor, or to visit consultative or deliberative meetings than citizens with a low level of education; and most, if not all, members of parliament, all the political officials, and almost all of the political advocates and lobbyists, have college or graduate degrees. The paper substantiates the rise of diploma democracy in The Netherlands, discusses what is problematic about such an educational meritocracy in the context of democracy, and looks at what could be done to mitigate or remedy some of its negative effects.

Fraud seems to be on the rise. That feeds a demand for controls. This paper sketches the diversity of supply in reaction to this demand: public regulators of course, but also commercial information providers and benchmarkers, self-regulating associations, hallmark producers, certification and accreditation bodies, and internal business management control systems, whereby ever more levels of control are piled on top of each other. More than a million Dutchmen earn a living in this booming control-industry, or 14% of the working population. In addition to fraud, other causes of this trend are being discussed, among them, paradoxically, neo-liberalist deregulation policies. All these causes contribute to a sense of risk and uncertainty. Although this trend has a number of negative consequences, it has a major benefit: jobs! Economists may have long thought that transaction costs are there for the transactions. But it looks as if transactions exist to produce transaction costs.

During the last decennium, social theory has provided us with path-breaking insights into the emergence of a new type of social risks (post-industrial, manufactured risks), and on policies which might deal with these risks (life politics; the social investment state). Especially the writings of Anthony Giddens are relevant in this respect. Unfortunately, these abstract ideas have thus far hardly been tested in empirical research. This article aims to fill this gap, by focussing on a telling example of a new, lifestyle related risk, which is the problem of overweight. How useful are Giddens' ideas on risk and social policy when applied in a concrete analysis of this particular problem and related policies? To answer this question, a comparative analysis has been carried out in two welfare states, the British and the Dutch. It will be argued that Giddens' abstract notions can indeed be applied effectively in a practical and fruitful framework for policy analysis. In this respect, the concepts of life politics and the social investment state seem promising, both for the practise and analysis of social policy development in European welfare states.

This article identifies institutions and arrangements concerning the reconciliation of working life and family life for various European countries. These institutions and arrangements concern time (flexible working hours and leave arrangements), money (tax systems) and facilities (childcare facilities). A fairer distribution of all work and care tasks requires proper facilities at national level in respect of childcare, parental leave, so-called leave savings schemes, the right to work part-time, etc. Such facilities are of particular importance while taking the first steps towards a fairer distribution: they will enable men to take on more tasks at home, while making it easier for women to work outside the home. The article concludes that with regard to reconciliation facilities, the differences between the several welfare states within the European Union are fading away. This is interesting, because as a result the EU countries are increasingly finding common ground in terms of solutions for reconciliation and more specifically the role of men.

Traditionally, technological transitions in infrastructure bound sectors are matters for the private sector. History teaches us that as soon as technological transitions proved successful, government sooner or later got involved with the distribution. Most of this involvement, both in history and now, has taken the form of public regulation with the help of various formal legal instruments.

This article aims to answer three questions, namely (1) what ideational and materials drives can be distinguished in the government's involvement in these technological transitions, (2) through what legal instruments are these objectives expressed and how , and (3) what are the incentives of these formal legal instruments on innovative private entrepreneurs for their further technological pursuits. How were their behavioural options affected by the use of statutory acts, concessions, permits and/or licences? Incentives to private innovators are qualified as positive, neutral or negative. The research method chosen has been inspired by insights from legal sociology, public choice theory and strategic actor behaviour in qualitative simulation-games, but follows distinct methodological steps. Throughout the article a case study on the transition from telegraphy to telephony in The Netherlands will be used to illustrate the discussion.