Over the past three years a number of reports and initiatives have emerged which seem to point to a different approach to solve problems in and with executive agencies. In the past, most problems were blamed on the agencies, by the media and politicians alike. However, these new reports and initiatives seem to allow room for a different, more realistic explanation. This article lists five of these reports and initiatives. First a letter on the results of the new coalition formation in 2017, concluding that executive agencies are under too much pressure and blame, and drawing more attention to the role of the legislature and the executive powers. Second, a report has been written by the Senior Civil Service – commissioned by a group of ministries – that offers a powerful analysis of the various causes of problems in and with executive agencies, leading to a number of prescriptions for all parties involved. Third, a ministerial committee has been established to discuss these problems and possible solutions on a regular basis. Fourth, the House of Representatives has launched a parliamentary inquiry into this topic. And finally, an unsolicited advisory report by the Council of State has been published on the dilemmas around ministerial accountability, stating that the blame for problems in and with executive agencies is often attributed in a false way. Together these five reports and initiatives call for a broader approach in handling such problems and hence more effective solutions.

Algorithms are starting to play an increasingly prominent role in government organizations. The argument is that algorithms can make more objective and efficient decisions than humans. At the same time, recent scandals have highlighted that there are still many problems connected to algorithms in the public sector. There is an increasing emphasis on ethical requirements for algorithms and we aim to connect these requirements to insights from public administration on the use of technologies in the public sector. We stress the need for responsible algorithmization – responsible organizational practices around the use of algorithms – and argue that this is needed to maintain the trust of citizens. We present two key components of responsible algorithmization – value-sensitivity and transparency – and show how these components connect to algorithmization and can contribute to citizen trust. We end the article with an agenda for research into the relation between responsible algorithmization and trust.

Algorithms applied in public administration are often criticized for lack of transparency. Lawmakers and citizens alike expect that automated decisions based on algorithmic recommendations to be explainable. The focus of this article is the organizational context behind the idea of transparent algorithms. Transparency is portrayed as one of numerous values that are at play when algorithms are applied in public administration. The article shows that applying algorithms may lead to conflicts between these values. Such conflicts often result in trade-off decisions. Looking from the organizational perspective, we describe how such trade-offs can be made both explicitly and implicitly. The article thus shows the complexity of algorithmic trade-offs. As a result of this complexity, we not only call for more transparency about algorithms, but also more transparency about trade-offs that take place in public administration. Finally, we present a research agenda focused on studying the organization of trade-offs.

This article contains a critical reflection on eXplainable Artificial Intelligence (XAI): the idea that AI based decision-making using AI should be transparent to people faced with these decisions. We discuss the main objections to XAI. XAI focuses on a variety of explainees, with different expectations and values; XAI is not a neutral activity, but very value-sensitive; AI is dynamic and so XAI quickly becomes obsolete; many problems are ‘wicked’, which further complicates XAI. In addition, the context of XAI matters – a high level of politicization and a high perceived impact of AI-based decisions, will often result in much criticism of AI and will limit the opportunities of XAI. We also discuss a number of alternative or additional strategies – more attention to negotiated algorithms; to competing algorithms; or to value-sensitive algorithms, which may contribute to more trust in AI-based decision-making.

The police use all sorts of information to fulfil their tasks. Whereas collection and interpretation of information traditionally could only be done by humans, the emergence of ‘Big Data’ creates new opportunities and dilemmas. On the one hand, large amounts of data can be used to train algorithms. This allows them to ‘predict’ offenses such as bicycle theft, burglary, or even serious crimes such as murder and terrorist attacks. On the other hand, highly relevant questions on purpose, effectiveness, and legitimacy of the application of machine learning/‘artificial intelligence’ drown all too often in the ocean of Big Data. This is particularly problematic if such systems are used in the public sector in democracies, where the rule of law applies, and where accountability, as well as the possibility for judicial review, are guaranteed. In this article, we explore the role transparency could play in reconciling these opportunities and dilemmas. While some propose making the systems and data they use themselves transparent, we submit that an open and broad discussion on purpose and objectives should be held during the design process. This might be a more effective way of embedding ethical and legal principles in the technology, and of ensuring legitimacy during application.

‘Nudging’ has been introduced as a policy and management tool as a way to influence behaviour without limiting choice. Nudging is mainly used to influence citizens’ behaviour but can also be used to influence the behavior of healthcare professionals. Examples include posters used to improve hand-hygiene compliance, or ‘default’ options in systems to reduce excessive prescriptions of specific medication. However, using nudges raises major worries and ethical issues, also in relation to the independence of healthcare professionals. While the scientific discussion about the desirability of nudges is extensive, the voices of healthcare professionals, who are the subjects of nudges, remain unheard. In this qualitative research we explore the perceptions of nudging held by various healthcare professionals. The interviews reveal that healthcare professionals are generally unfamiliar with the concept of nudging, but they do recognize nudges in their own field of practice. Furthermore, while they are predominantly positive about nudging, they also express concerns about the pressure on their autonomy. These concerns are related to changing professionalism and regulatory pressures in healthcare.

The integration of refugees in the Netherlands has been suboptimal for years. After receiving a residence permit, refugees are distributed across the country and dispersed over neighborhoods. However, since the 2015 refugee crisis, the municipality of Amsterdam has adopted a different approach. Here, refugees that have been granted residence live together with Dutch young adults in projects where they share facilities and play a role in managing the project. To what extent can such mixed housing projects help the integration of refugees? The Startblok Riekerhaven, which was the first project, was studied for a year with qualitative research. The findings show that mixed housing projects can stimulate the formation of social connections. In this way they can contribute to the integration of refugees in the Netherlands. Given the suboptimal results of the current dispersal policy, this is relevant for science and policy.

The refugee crisis of 2015-2016 prompted European governments to quickly institute new asylum seeker centres. Often however, plans for opening new reception centres are met with protest in surrounding localities. Gaining public support for new ASCs has become a pressing governance issue facing local governments. This research looks at whether a policy strategy of ‘giving back’ to the neighbourhood rather than ‘giving in’ to the demands of protesters can minimise local opposition and alleviate negative attitudes . A door-to-door survey of N = 511 neighbourhood residents is combined with semi-structured interview data of N = 31 neighbourhood residents. We find that attitudes were already neutral to fairly positive shortly after the centre opened and fears of nuisance and crime did not materialise. Those who became involved in the ASCs’ courses and activities are a small and selective group who were already fairly accepting of the centre. Contact between asylum seekers and neighbours developing within and beyond the ASC was valued but did not develop into stronger ties due to frequent moves of asylum seekers and early closure of the ASC.

After the European refugee crisis of 2015-2016, many Dutch municipalities took initiative in (re)shaping policies of asylum seeker reception and refugee integration in their own ways. We are witnessing a ‘local turn’ of integration policies with decentralization of responsibilities to the local level of governance. Besides civic integration and socioeconomic integration, social integration of asylum seekers and refugees has been a concern as these groups are often housed in superdiverse and vulnerable neighborhoods. How can municipalities best address the specific problems in their cities? This editorial introduces the four articles that are part of this special issue. We discuss three overarching topics. First, we argue that aside from targeting specific groups and issues, cities should develop mainstreamed policies and provisions to be able to handle future fluctuations and changes in their populations. Second, we observe that in policies aimed at enhancing inter-group contact, earlier immigrant groups are often overlooked. They can play a bridging role in establishing social connections. Third, we highlight the role of urban experiments and living labs in transfer and upscaling of innovative policies.

This paper analyzes the impact of linguistic characteristics of accountability reports on public sector organizations. It does so by analysing hundreds of accountability reports by four public sector bodies using the linguistic tool LIWC. The research question is: what linguistic characteristics of accountability reports are related to a bigger impact on the evaluated organization? The impact of three strategic choices is assessed. First of all, the impact of strategic positioning. Authors of texts can maintain a position of power in the choice of language (high clout) and speak top down to the recipient or they can take a more egalitarian, face to face, position. Secondly, authors can choose to use many complex linguistic phrasings, with causal reasoning for instance, or they can opt for simpler texts. Finally, the text can be littered with emotional, positive and negative, wordings or can be set in a neutral tone. Our analyses suggest that more emotional accountability reports are consistently related to a better reception and seem to have more impact. This has important consequences both theoretically and practically, which are discussed in the paper.

This article is a review of two policy documents on integrated care in the Netherlands. I argue that not a shared definition of ‘integrated care,’ but instead the own factual understandings of care and normative preferences, values or interests concerning care motivates the action of actors that need to produce integrated care. Not the network-level problem, but instead actor-level motivations explain to what extent integrated care is effectuated. The policy documents, but also important segments of the literature on policy integration seem to underestimate this problem.

The Netherlands has been struggling with the question of how to facilitate the integration of refugees who crossed into Europe during the 2015/2016 ‘refugee crisis’. Dutch municipalities aim for the dispersion of refugees over various neighborhoods under the assumption that the ethnic composition of the neighborhood is conducive to integration. In the current study, I test this assumption using a new and representative survey (N = 768 predominantly Syrian refugees living in 45 neighborhoods, response rate 85%) linked to neighborhood data situated in the most ethnically diverse city in the Netherlands; Rotterdam. Multilevel analyses revealed that, generally, a larger share of people without a migration background in the neighborhood was related to more frequent contact with neighbors without a migration background. A larger share of people with a Moroccan background was related to more frequent contact with people with a Moroccan background, but predominantly for Syrian refugees. The neighborhood was not related to contact with people from the same background of with people with a Turkish background. Hence, meeting opportunities in the neighborhood only appear to facilitate social integration if they coincide with refugees’ social preferences.

This article describes the main trends in refugee policies in sixteen Dutch cities, offering an overview of the local approaches to the reception, housing and integration of refugees that the cities rapidly had to develop in response to the increased refugee inflow in 2015. In contrast to other studies that often focus on capital and gateway cities, this article illustrates the variety of local approaches to migration diversity and refugee integration. By illustrating the different positions municipalities take, the article shows the local power to innovate. In this article clusters of cities with comparable approaches to refugee policies are identified to aid cooperation and knowledge exchange between cities, in which the big cities are not necessarily always the relevant partners.

The number of boards in the public domain has risen sharply in recent decades and so has the number of reports containing guidelines for effective and good governance. The question, however, is what this flow of advice is based on and what we actually know about board capacity. In this paper, we discuss theoretical expectations on boards, recent developments in governance based inspection, and empirical research on this topic. All in all, it appears that relatively little empirical research is conducted into boards in the public domain. And the research that is available is as yet not very optimistic. Based on these observations, we conclude that it is necessary to re-examine the policy assumptions with regard to board capacity in the public domain.