This article is the introduction to this special issue in which the Europeanisation of Dutch polity, politics and policy forms the central focus of attention. The main question we address in this special issue is to what extent the Netherlands has changed under the influence of processes of Europeanisation. This article first discusses the state-of-the-art Europeanisation literature; then it sets out to discuss four problems with this literature. Based on the insights generated by the contributors to this special issue, the authors conclude that for a better understanding of processes of Europeanisation, the EU should no longer be seen as an actor, but rather as an (cluster of) arena(s) in which a variety of actors (member states, EU institutions, interest groups, et cetera) are trying to achieve their political goals.

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.

This paper provides an overview of the results of Scandinavian research into the lobbying activities of interest organisations. The paper is based on the reports of Danish and Norwegian scholars. These studies suppose that an association exists between the downfall of corporatist decision-making and policy implementation (among others observed in the decreasing number of boards, councils, and commissions), the increasing influence of parliament, and the increase in lobbying by interest organisations. The most important empirical evidence for this association is presented and discussed.

This paper offers an introduction to the research theme of 'lobbyism'. Recent Scandinavian research shows that lobbyism is a modern mirror view of corporatism, which develops through changes in the structure of decision-making and implementation by interest groups and government. Three questions are put forward: (a) what is the empirical evidence for the phenomenon of lobbyism? (b) what potential contribution could the concept of lobbyism make to a better understanding of corporatism in the Netherlands? (c) what are, according to the theory of collective decision-making, the most important differences between influence strategies in corporatist negotiation structures, and those in lobby networks?

This article distinguished between three fundamental processes of collective decision-making as collective production in social systems: (1) persuasion; (2) exchange and (3) coercion. The conditions under which these processes are dominant are described, as well as the type of network that is central to each of the processes. Corporatism and lobbyism appear to be two polarities of collective decision-making. In corporatism interest groups are directly involved in final decision making through formal and informal institutions whereas in lobbyism final decision making is delegated to independent persons. In corporatist decision-making, mutual interests dominate conflicting interests. Thus, a failure of reaching consensus becomes unattractive and consensus is guaranteed through the formal norm of majority decision-making and the informal norm of unanimity. When mutual interests dominate over conflicting interests, lobbyism is reflected by the interactions between lobby activists and civil servants and politicians who share the same position. Ad hoc lobbyism will arise when conflicts of interests dominate and a non-cooperative game exists in which (temporal) coalitions must be built.

This article discusses the degree to which Dutch environmental policy exhibits a shift from corporatism to lobbyism. Based on a general analysis of environmental policy making in the Netherlands and two specific cases of environmental decision making, the author draws the conclusion that such a shift has not happened. At the level of policymaking it is rather the opposite: in the 1980s the Ministry of the Environment introduced a certain level of corporatism. This was possible because of a clear framework of environmental policy goals shaped by the National Institute for Public Health and Environment (RIVM), because the environmental movement began to see the Ministry as an ally and because business interests preferred self-regulation (one element of corporatism) to government regulations. In two concrete case of environmental decision-making that are discussed here, environmental goals are being discussed once more. During such discussion, it appears that Dutch ministries have close connection to 'their' target groups. For the coming years, environmental policy will 'Europeanize' further and Dutch economic interest groups, although being remarkably late in responding to this shift, will start to influence the Brussels policymaking game instead of the Dutch implementation game.

This article explores whether the development of a common European asylum policy, and the construction of a directive on minimum standards for the granting of refugee status, is dominated by a security discourse. In such a security discourse, asylum is considered a cross-border threat to the realization of the internal market and the internal stability of Member States. While the social construction of asylum as a problem puts pressure on the traditional humanitarian framework on which international refugee protection is being based. The tension between these two approaches seems to result in a restrictive European common asylum policy, with a focus on control and prevention of migration into the EU. In this article, we analyse the tensions between the security and the humanitarian discourse in primary and secondary sources, using the model of Laclau and Mouffe. We conclude that while creating a common asylum policy, a securitization process is present.

Er bestaan duidelijke parallellen tussen de begrippen hybriditeit en netwerken en de daaraan gerelateerde discussies. Beide hebben betrekking op de fenomenen differentiatie en integratie, waarin ze in zekere zin elkaars spiegelbeeld zijn. In deze bijdrage wordt betoogd dat zowel de analyse van hybriditeit vanuit een netwerkperspectief als de analyse van netwerken vanuit een hybriditeitsperspectief interessante inzichten oplevert. Beide perspectieven zijn samen noodzakelijk om een gegronde analyse te maken van een hybride publiek bestel.

In this article we examine the organisation of European policy-making in Belgium. The core question is whether the federal level is hollowing out in favour of the regional level, with respect to European preference formation and interest representation. From a theoretical point of view, it tests the propositions of liberal intergovernmentalism and multi-level governance in two critical cases: environmental policy and the European Convention. The article concludes that neither of the approaches is able to fully understand the complex system of joint preference formation that takes place in Belgium and that they would both benefit from incorporating historical institutionalist insights.