Dutch water boards are commonly viewed as important player in making the Netherlands climate-proof, resonating in calls to transform water boards into ‘climate boards’. Upcoming legislative changes (i.e. the Environment and Planning Act) stress the importance of integrated approaches, emphasizing spatial quality and collaboration. Dutch water boards are therefore in a strategic repositioning process, in which the relation to the spatial planning domain stands central. The institutions’ adaptation process started already in the 1990s, yet the urgency of the current climate crisis makes it more pressing. However, strategic repositioning might be hampered due to the corona crisis. An acute crisis can absorb all attention and thereby impede a long-term transition. The question is, though, if this also applies to the water boards, as they do not have a primary responsibility in combatting Covid-19. Based on a framing analysis of strategic position papers and interviews with water board employees, we shed light on this repositioning process by identifying the water boards’ new ‘mission mystique’ and accompanying opportunities and dilemmas. We conclude that water boards remain rather cautious in living up to their new mission of a proactive partner in integrated planning; they could use their strong reputation as water authorities to act more courageous in climate-related spatial planning decisions.

As public institutions seek to come to grips with the crisis of COVID-19, they risk getting trapped in a unilateral here-and-now crisis management style that overlooks other long-term societal issues. We raise the question how and why this is the case. What makes here-and-now crisis management so ‘attractive’ from a political-administrative perspective? Through which strategies is this style being promoted? Guided by the literature on blame management, we empirically analyze the Dutch COVID-19 crisis communication. We specifically zoom into a pivotal yet underexposed facet: the role of time. Three time-related blame management strategies are empirically explored and interpreted: 1) playing with the time horizon; 2) organizing self-reinforcing institutional rhythms of monitoring and decision-making; 3) selectively naming uncertainties and risks. All three subtly add to a short time horizon in managing the ­COVID-19 crisis, revealing how interwoven time and blame are in public decision-making.

Addressing a creeping crisis like climate change requires nothing less than a system transition. A system transition is very complex and hence its success depends to a large extent on feedback effects: mechanisms where an initial change reinforces itself or balances itself out. Urgent crises are more salient than creeping crises. However, it is possible to combine policies for both urgent and creeping crises, as can be seen in policies that aim for a green recovery. In this article, we conclude that up till now such policies have overlooked the relevance of feedback effects. We provide examples of corona recovery measures that simultaneously help to establish a system transition through feedback effects.

The government strives for a low-carbon energy supply, sustainable agriculture and a circular economy. These transitions require a long-term orientation, while the long term is surrounded by deep uncertainty. This challenge poses two dilemmas for public knowledge institutions such as PBL Netherlands Environmental Assessment Agency. First, they should pay more attention to the unpredictability of the future, while policymakers expected them to make the future more predictable. Second, they should support the use of foresight more, while policymakers operate in a context that discourages this. The dilemmas require that the knowledge institutions make more work of speculation, that they actively organise the use of foresight and that they seek to connect with formal policy processes. While doing this it’s important that the knowledge institutions maintain their core values of scientific excellence, policy orientation and independence and also propagate this.

Do the budgetary consequences of an acute crisis make us less willing to tackle long-term challenges? This paper asks whether the recent ­COVID-19 crisis has affected the willingness of parties to commit to so-called ‘policy investments’. These are policies where short-term costs are accepted in anticipation of higher benefits in the longer run. Theoretically, there is no unambiguous prediction as to whether the recent crisis plays a role in repositioning party preferences regarding policy investments. In light of this theoretical ambiguity, this article aims to provide an empirical answer by measuring and comparing party positioning regarding policy investments of Dutch parties during the two general elections for the House of Representatives (Tweede Kamerver­kiezingen) of 2017 and 2021 respectively. To identify which proposals qualify as policy investments, and measure the corresponding willingness to engage in them, the article builds on calculations of the budgetary impact of party manifestos provided by the Netherlands Bureau for Economic Policy Analysis (Centraal Planbureau; Keuze in Kaart). The subsequent analysis shows that overall willingness of parties to engage in policy investments has increased during the COVID-19 crisis; suggesting that the tension between addressing short- and long-term challenges is less strict that often suggested.

In the Netherlands, the first period of the fight against the corona virus, which lasted from March, 1 until December 1, 2020, can be seen as a unique experiment. During this period, the 25 chairs of the ‘safety regions’ (veiligheidsregio’s), who are simultaneously the major of an important municipality in their region, were authorized for the first time to issue the most essential measures to tackle a national health crisis, partly on the binding advice of the Dutch health minister. The chairs of the safety regions gathered in the so-called ‘safety convention’ (veiligheidsberaad), in which they aimed to nationally coordinate their respective local measures. In this paper, we argue that the involvement of the safety regions provided a structure in which all local office holders in their respective regions (both on the municipal and the safety region level) could co-operate in the nation-wide fight against the pandemic, while at the same time take into account the existing (cultural) differences between the 25 regions.

Despite the highest ranks on pandemic preparedness assessments European welfare states encounter great difficulty in responding effectively to the COVID-19 outbreak. In this article we compare the governance of COVID-19 response in 48 Eurasian countries and a selection of European and SARS (2003) exposed Asian countries during the first wave of the COVID-19 outbreak until 1 June 2020, using data from the COVID-19 Health System Response Monitor and the Oxford COVID-19 Government Response Tracker, recent scientific literature and policy documents.
Pandemic preparedness during the first wave of COVID-19 evolved from specialist infectious disease control to a broad governance of population mitigation, which in at least half of Eurasian countries lacked appropriate authority and capacity. In the directly operational response in Asian countries, preparedness encompasses a whole of government approach, an engaged and active community and private actors. Preparedness requires and reflects both vertical and horizontal coordination as well as policies that fit with the political economy of a country and region.

This paper takes a public administration lens to look at the relationship between scientific knowledge en policy making during the first phase of the COVID-19 pandemix in The Netherlands. Policy makers portrayed an eagerness for scientific knowledge to help them make ‘the right decisions’, and many scientist were just as eager to answer the call. However, there are many dilemmas involved in the relationship between policy making and scientific advice. How can de the relationship between science and policy best be organized? What scientific dicisplines and subsidsciplines should be involved? And what is the specific role of social sciences in policy advice?

Crisis management requires health care managers to simultaneously innovate, i.e. to adjust – and to consolidate, i.e. to provide stability. COVID-19 was no exception in this respect. In this study, we ask to what extent multi-actor and multi-level health care networks stimulate or hinder balancing innovation and consolidation. We present the results of a qualitative case study, drawing upon 29 interviews with health care managers in one region in the Netherlands. Our analysis chronologically follows the crisis management response and differentiates between ‘the hammer’ phase (the ‘lockdown’) and the ‘dance’ phase (learning to live with the virus). We show that, especially in the hammer phase, formal networks can contribute to consolidation, yet innovation comes mostly from informal and personal networks. While the hammer phase should help organizations prepare to live and dance with the virus, we show that multi-actor and multi-level networks focus more on idiosyncratic organizational interests, although some of these are in fact productive. We conclude with recommendations for practice.

Arthur Docters van Leeuwen was a legendary senior civil servant whose leadership in tough reform processes left many traces in Dutch public administration, even today. In my review of his 2020 memoires ‘Een Spoor van Vernieuwing’, I distil three broad lessons for change management and administrative reform, and administrative craftmanship in particular.

The cabinet has decided to set up a national inspectorate with the task of supervising the quality and the rule of law of the public services provided by the tax authorities. The reason for this is the persistent problems surrounding the Tax and Customs Administration for years (organization, management, IT, personnel) and more recently the crisis surrounding the supplementary child benefit. The Netherlands is not the first and will soon not be the only country with a special regulator for the tax authorities and which focuses on legal protection of taxpayers and the quality of the service. In this article, we ask ourselves how the institution of the new Dutch inspectorate relates to the situation in various foreign countries and we examine which dilemmas and policy questions these raise. We note that with this new inspection the Netherlands is in tune with the situation in various foreign countries. Regarding the relationship and cooperative relationship with the National Ombudsman, the guarantee of the independent and impartial exercise of inspection supervision and the increasing importance of a Charter of the rights of taxpayers, a few important policy questions remain in a comparative sense.

Subsoil interventions in the Netherlands are crucial elements in the transition to a sustainable energy future. These subsoil interventions concern reduction of fossil energy mining, extraction of thermal energy, energy storage and CSS storage. These geo projects cause tensions. Planning under the mining law leads to local resistance, debate and often delay or cancelling of initiatives. The central characteristics of this planning are an important cause. As the transition to sustainable energy asks for more interventions in the subsoil, these tensions get problematic, and hinder the transition. In this article we investigate this problematic nature of planning under the mining law. In examples we show the problems, and accordingly we analyse them. We explore a more prominent role of local actors, using localism and soft power. With this article we want contribute to national and international discussions about the planning and governance of subsoil initiatives and strengthening of local involvement in these.

Prestigious urban projects demonstrate many insights in the functioning of public administration. Especially, prestigious urban projects can teach us about what we call ‘managerial mania’. Following the perspective of behavioural public administration, this article observes significant characteristics of managerial mania, such as elated behaviour, an exaggerated positive self-image, infectious enthusiasm, selective argumentation, tunnel vision, and an unsubstantiated faith that plans will succeed. As a consequence of managerial mania, prestigious projects are at risk of cost overruns, project fiascos, or underdelivering the expected outcomes promised by politicians or top-level managers. This article explores the phenomenon of managerial mania based on examples of large and controversial urban projects. Furthermore, this article describes and analyses the symptoms of managerial mania, its implications, and its mechanisms. Finally, the authors suggest some means of restraining the most extreme forms of managerial mania.