Modern technology will lead to fundamentally different models for policy and governance. The impact of this on existing government bureaucracy is strongly underexposed within the current discourse on digital transformation. This essay, based on practical experience, wants to make clear (a) that this impact is indeed there; (b) that this impact affects all processes of the government organization; and (c) that this impact is not something that will emerge in the long term, instead it is already evident. So it is now time for administrators, policymakers and managers to put this topic on the agenda, otherwise the disruptive soup will soon not be as hot, but even hotter, when eaten.

This article presents a normative framework for good local governance in the digital society. We build on the five principles of Frank Hendriks (laid down in an article in Urban Affairs Review in 2014): participation, effectiveness, learning ability, procedural justice and accountability. An analysis of these five principles leads to the refinement of these principles for the digital society. The overarching points are that attention is needed for the possibility of human contact, that avoiding discrimination must be central, that higher demands are made with regard to speed of action, that the principles increasingly apply to networks of organizations, and that the principles increasingly apply to the design of systems. This overview thus provides concrete tools for organizations that want to reflect with citizens and stakeholders on the extent to which they are able to achieve good local governance in the digital society.

The goal of citizens participation increases the moments of contact between politicians, policy makers, welfare professionals and citizens. The shared responsibility for local decision making is not an easy task. Often conflicts emerge between parties with opposing needs and interests. Citizens oppose decisions or organize protest. These moments do not only challenge the goal of participation, they also jeopardize the quality of democracy. The democratic value of contentious moments, however, is often neglected. How can public professionals deal with the dilemma’s and chances that emerge during interactions that happen unexpectedly at the street-level? I answer that question by applying the agonistic approach to democracy to the action repertoire of public professionals dealing with conflict. A dramaturgical analysis of contentious interactions provides insights in how we can recognize and acknowledge contentious citizenship.

This article tackles the particular issue of split-ticket voting, which has been largely overlooked in Belgian election studies thus far. We contribute to the literature by answering two particular research questions: (1) to what extent and (2) why do voters cast a different vote in the elections for the provincial council as compared to their vote in the elections for the municipal council?
The article draws on survey data collected via an exit poll in the ‘Belgian Local Elections Study’, a research project conducted by an inter-university team of scholars.
Our analysis shows that nearly 45% of the total research population cast a split-ticket vote in the local elections of 2018. However, this number drops to one out of four if we only consider a homogenous party landscape at both levels by excluding the numerous votes for ‘local’ lists (which occur mostly at the municipal level). This finding underlines the importance of accounting for the electoral and institutional context of the different electoral arenas in research on split-ticket voting in PR systems. In the Belgian context, split-ticket voting in 2018 also differed between the different parties and regions. Furthermore, it was encouraged by a higher level of education and familiarity with particular candidates. This candidate-centred and strategic voting was matched by party identification and the urban municipal context favouring straight-ticket voting. Other factors such as region, a rural municipal context and preferential voting seemed more relevant to determine voting for local parties than using the instrument of split-ticket votes as such.

We analyze how ‘original’ residents in different gentrifying working class areas in Amsterdam North experience and evaluate the changes in their neighborhood in terms of social cohesion – in other words, whether they feel at home in their changing neighborhood and whether they feel connected to other residents. Policy interventions often focus on establishing connections between residents with different socioeconomic or cultural backgrounds, in order to stimulate mutual understanding. An underlying policy aim is to uplift vulnerable original residents through contact with higher income groups. Based on our empirical data, we critically assess the concept of ‘bridging capital’ (Putnam, 2000) that underpins several of the social activities that are organized in areas such as the ones in our study. Subsequently, we discuss the importance of ‘bonding capital’ or the sense of interconnectedness and strong ties amongst original residents. Our empirical data – based on both interviews and participatory observation – suggest that activities within the ‘own’ community contribute importantly to feelings of belonging in the neighborhood. In the final section of the article, we discuss how different types of local meeting places offer opportunities for ‘lighter’ forms of interactions without aiming directly at strong connections between differently positioned neighborhood residents.

Access to affordable, decent and secure housing is under increasing pressure in countries across the world, especially in burgeoning cities. This results in displacement, exclusion and increasing housing cost burdens. This theme issue consists of a collection of papers that approach inequality on urban housing markets from different angles. In this introduction to the special issue, we provide a framework to understand these various dimensions of inequality and their interconnectedness. We identify three scales of inequality: First, at the abstract level of housing systems, market developments and housing policies contribute to increasing housing costs and a reduction in affordable housing units. Second, at the urban level we identify increasing spatial segregation between populations as well as the intertwined trends of intensifying gentrification and suburbanization of poverty. Third, at the everyday level we can identify a loss of belonging among long-term residents of changing (gentrifying) neighbourhoods, while other residents may appreciate change. This also fosters the potential for conflict and poses new challenges to professionals dealing with families in situations of poverty. We argue that emerging inequalities at these different scales need to be considered as interconnected.

This paper investigates the effects of neighbourhood change caused by the inflow of new residents in the still existing social rental stock in a post-World War II district next to the effects of the changing population as the result of urban restructuring. All residents, native Dutch and residents that belong to an ethnic minority, are critical about the occurring concentration of the latter in the existing rental housing stock. Loss of respectability and of shared norms and values of how to live in the neighbourhood play an important role in the critical stance of mostly older Dutch native residents. Residents with a migrant background criticize the concentration as a negative influence for their integration in Dutch society. Most residents support the idea of a mixed neighbourhood based on income and ethnicity. Restructuring by demolition of old social rental dwellings and new housing development for owner-occupiers is supported by most residents, based on the positive impact on the liveability. Urban restructuring has however not decreased the share of non-Dutch-native residents but it did bring more middle-class households. In the view of the residents these are ‘decent people’ as they have to work in daytime and do not linger at night in the streets.

The impact of residualisation on social work has so far hardly been explored. Based on existing literature and recently started empirical research in Amsterdam we analyze several consequences. Residualisation refers to the process whereby urban social housing is strictly allocated to the lowest income groups. What does this concentration of disadvantaged households mean for the role of social workers? Firstly, for community workers residualisation mostly implies a renewed role as instigators of residents’ participation in urban renewal trajectories for social mix. Furthermore community activities are increasingly used to offer safe havens for new and old groups of residents and also to prevent expensive treatments for several residential groups. For social workers focusing on individual support or casework residualisation results in an increasingly complex caseload. Residualisation does not imply extra formation for social work, but rather extra attention for the effortful coproduction of welfare between formal and informal actors. Within this playing field, we distinguish link work as vital for both formal and informal social work. Link work is about establishing vertical and horizontal connections between different worlds, across sectoral, professional or trust gaps. We expect that in areas of residualisation successful urban social work is dependent on strong linking skills.

Reflection and debate initiates academically inspired discussions on issues that are on the current policy agenda.

Fiscal consolidation confronts federal states with a collective action problem, especially in federations with a tightly coupled fiscal regime such as Belgium. However, the Belgian federation has successfully solved this collective action problem even though it lacks the political institutions that the literature on dynamic federalism has identified as the main mechanisms through which federal states achieve cooperation across levels of government. This article argues that the regionalization of the party system, on the one hand, and the rationalization of the deficit problem by the High Council of Finance, on the other, are crucial to understand how Belgium was able to solve the collective action problem despite its tightly coupled fiscal regime and particularly high levels of deficits and debts. The article thus emphasizes the importance of compromise and consensus in reducing deficits and debts in federal states.

With her chair in urban development management, Ellen van Bueren investigates policy, governance and management issues. Cities, as economic and cultural centres in our society, are major consumers of resources. They not only contribute to problems such as climate change, but also experience the risks and consequences thereof. Technological solutions to these problems are difficult to implement. They require larger-scale system changes, or encounter resistance. Making cities sustainable not only requires technical solutions, but also institutional innovation. A socio-technical-ecological system approach to cities shows the coherence and complexity of issues. Issues play on multiple scales, are cross-sectoral, and require an interaction of citizens, companies, and governments. Moreover, the playing field between these groups of actors is changing rapidly, technological empowerment in particular has made the citizen a much more equal player alongside the government and business. Existing instruments and approaches are not sufficient to approach sustainability issues. To identify and address these issues, cooperation between science and society is necessary. Multi- and transdisciplinary learning environments enable researchers and students to identify issues, to answer questions and to try out solutions together with stakeholders. Such environments are indispensable for the development of sustainable cities.

In the past years, Flemish municipalities have been confronted with a plethora of new public management reforms. The two probably most salient reforms include the introduction of a strategic planning system entitled the policy and management cycle (PMC) as well as the provision of financial incentives for municipalities that undertake a merger. These reforms are not unique to the Flemish context. Indeed, similar reforms took place in the Netherlands, where policy and management instruments (PMI) – a strategic planning system – were introduced in the eighties and municipal mergers have been part of the political agenda for several decades. But similar reforms also took place in, for instance, the United Kingdom (i.e. the best value regime in 1999) as well as Denmark (i.e. the municipal mergers in 2007). In this essay, these Flemish reforms are critically evaluated, taking into account following question: which public values are triggered through these reforms, and what might this imply for the Flemish and Dutch local public sector? This essay uses new public governance principles such as strategic thinking and the learning organisation to answer this question.

The most relevant part of a discussion is not what is discussed but what cannot be spoken of. The real taboos are those for which it is taboo to call them taboos. The status quo defines itself as non-ideological while denouncing any challenge to itself as radical. Therefore the column ‘De Blinde Vlek’ frames the framers, politicizes the status quo and articulates what is not heard of.

According to the outgoing European Commissioner Pierre Moscovici, the European Union (EU) has made more progress in tackling tax avoidance and evasion in the last five years than in the twenty years before that. This article argues that although several targeted measures have indeed been adopted, such as automatic exchange of tax rulings and limitations on interest deductions, this has not led to a structural change in EU corporate tax policies, nor in underlying power relations. The article discusses the politics of a number of recent policy developments related to tax avoidance and evasion by transnational corporations. It argues that the adoption of targeted measures, and the simultaneous stalling of more comprehensive approaches – in terms of tax transparency or a common consolidated corporate tax base – can be explained by recent tax controversies, international politics, and the dynamics within and between EU institutions. Particular attention is paid to the role of the European Parliament that is formally limited, but still houses progressive forces that have continuously pushed for a clampdown on tax avoidance. Finally, the article pleads for more transparent EU decision-making, specifically concerning discussions with and within the Council, in order to improve the democratic legitimacy of EU corporate tax policies and processes.

Reflection and debate initiates academically inspired discussions on issues that are on the current policy agenda.

Municipalities have increasingly adjusted their policies in order to better respond to the problematic social and economic participation of permit holders. The core elements within the chosen policies seem to consist of an early activation, combining language and professional training, and providing customization in the support of these newcomers. In this article, this policy change has been studied in the municipalities of Amsterdam, Rotterdam and Utrecht. It becomes clear that a more successful approach only succeeds when permit holders are offered additional and tailored support. For all three municipalities, this means that more permit holders are reached by the available support measures and that local policy makers can better respond to individual needs and possibilities. In addition, these municipalities pay more attention for sustainable labour market participation. At the same time, it is evident that no rapid successes are being made with this new course. In particular, more vulnerable permit holders, including those with low levels of education and women, are not always reached by municipalities. We also see that many of these newcomers must be supported for a long time, even if after have found a place on the labour market. Therefore, evidence suggests that without additional measures there is a good chance that the perspective on social and economic participation for many permit holders in the Netherlands will be extremely limited.

Citizens are being activated to organize activities in asylum centres in both the Netherlands and Belgium. That way, asylum centres are expected to become better integrated in the local context of a municipality or neighbourhood. This ideal of citizenship does not stand on its own. The policy object to integrate asylum centres in the local context has parallels with broader societal and academic discussions about citizen participation and active citizenship. The object, however, is now the asylum seeker. In this article we research how voluntary work in two asylum centres takes shape and how policy could support voluntary activities better. A comparative interpretive policy analysis of two asylum centres in Amsterdam and Brussel shows how voluntary work is stimulated by policy, how these policies are implemented locally, and how they are experienced in daily practices of volunteers and professionals. The cases reveal stark differences, but exactly those contrasts lead to important lessons. We show that because of this policy, the asylum centre is often functioning as a community centre, that integration can be strengthened by volunteers, but we are also critical when voluntary activities are driven by an ideal picture of the ‘good asylum seeker’. There is a risk that the societal responsibility for integrating and engaging asylum seekers in the local context is pushed on the shoulders of unpaid volunteers and that activities are exclusively for one group. That is why we conclude that professional support and financial resources are crucial to implement the policy ideal of active citizenship in asylum centers.