Recently the Scientific Council for Government Policy, a major advisory board in the Netherlands published a report on the state of regulation. Based on his many years of experience as a practitioner and academic, the author reviews and critically assesses this report.

The manifest Governing Governance: A Liberal-Democratic View on Governance by Relationships, Bureaucracies and Markets in the 21st Century aims to please a wide range of audiences. Yet in trying to do so it does not seem to please any. The manifest may be applauded for its clear and concise discussion of the complicated concept of governance. Yet, it falls short in being a truly engaging text as it is somewhat outdated, it lacks interaction with the wider world beyond the Netherlands (and Belgium), and it is too optimistic in terms of what may be achieved through collaborative or new governance and deliberative democracy. All this may very well explain why the manifest has, as of yet, not received a great deal of attention.

In the section Dissertations, Maarten Smaal introduces his work on the long-lasting policy discourse on road pricing and alternative policy instruments in the Netherlands.