In 2010, the three Dutch Caribbean islands of Bonaire, St. Eustatius, and Saba (the BES islands) were constitutionally integrated into the Netherlands, and were administratively reorganized on the basis of the Dutch municipal model. While this reform was anticipated to mitigate some of the governance problems of these islands, so far this expectation has remained unmet. Using the literature on the effects of smallness on the relation between formal and informal politics as a baseline, this article investigates why the new institutional structure has so far not resulted in improved governance in the Caribbean Netherlands. On the basis of three stages of field research resulting in over forty semi-structured interviews with political elites on the three islands, the analysis highlights the influence of two contextual factors – the small scale and the political culture of the postcolonial Caribbean – that have a powerful, and in many ways negative, impact on governance performance. Subsequently, the article highlights the inapplicability of the Dutch municipal model to the Dutch Caribbean islands, and also pays attention to a number of differences between the three islands, which are explained on the basis of their divergent historical and demographic trajectories, as well as differences in individual leadership.

Over the last three years, various G1000s have been organized in Dutch municipalities. These citizen summits share a number of characteristics: random selection of participants, an open agenda, dialogue and inclusion of the entire ‘system’ (inhabitants, politicians, civil servants). The G1000s aim to renew local democracy and to change the relations between citizens and governments. Both of these objectives affect the role of local councilors and this paper discusses their opinions and attitude towards a G1000. It shows that councilors regard the G1000 as complementary to representative democracy and that they want be involved both in the organization of a G1000 in their municipality and the follow-up in local decision-making. On the one hand, this may lead to a better coupling between citizen initiatives and formal policy making. On the other hand, this entails the risk that a G1000 becomes institutionalized and loses its distinctive characteristics that make it a new form of democracy.

Electoral campaigning and its financing at the local level have been hardly studied in spite of the growing political significance of municipalities in the Netherlands. Local parties have been barely studied either, even though they gained more than 30 percent of the seats in the local elections of 2014. They have done so without any public subsidy, whereas subsidized national parties can and do support their local branches. This article examines which campaign activities local parties used to attract voters, how these activities were funded, and whether local parties perceived subsidies necessary and desirable. A survey among local parties held just after the local elections of 2014, indicates that their campaigns are by and large a traditional, low-cost affair. They are often not labor-intensive nor technology-intensive, despite the electoral effectiveness of micro-targeting and canvassing. Contributions from local councilors constitute the main source of finance. The survey also shows that transparency of campaign financing can count on widespread support among local parties. They also prefer a level playing field between local parties and local branches of national parties by providing both public subsidies or none, which is an important contribution to the discussion on the current legislative proposals on party financing at the local level.

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

This article is about how education administrators value complex issues or dilemmas they are confronted with in their governance practices, and which strategies they adopt to cope with them. Professional governance of school organisations was introduced gradually over the past fifteen years, and at the same time governance in education has gained in complexity and raises considerable risks, requiring more time, knowledge and expertise of education administrators. We draw on the theoretical perspective of coping to investigate the potential of education administrators to deal with the complexity, impediments and social and regulatory pressure in their daily practice. Our study consists of a comparative case study of six education administrators in secondary education. Their agency has been researched qualitatively with the help of the hierarchical model of coping strategies of Skinner and colleagues. The results show that the issues and dilemmas education administrators find most complex are about educational innovation and numbers of students enrolled. Education administrators value these issues or dilemmas hardly as threatening, and they adopt various proactive coping strategies to deal with them, such as information seeking or bargaining.

In this feature authors review recently published books on subjects of interest to readers of Beleid en Maatschappij.

Transparency is said to be paramount for citizen’s trust in (semi-)governmental organizations, such as regulators and supervisory bodies, yet there is little empirical research in this area.
In an experiment we investigated the effect of different forms of transparency on citizen trust in a Dutch financial regulator. Our measure of trust consisted of three components: Competence, Benevolence and Integrity. Two types of transparency were used (rationale transparency and process transparency) in three different scenarios, one positive for the regulator and two negative.
Transparency, and especially when focused on the ‘why’ (rationale) led to slightly more trust by citizens. This effect was most pronounced in the Competence-component of our trust-measure. Interestingly, even being transparent about negative news – i.e. admitting that mistakes were made and focusing on the ‘why’ – does not necessarily decrease trust. In contrast, negative information that focused on the ‘how’ (process transparency) yielded a negative effect on trust.
We conclude that even when the message portrays negative information about the regulator, it pays to be transparent and communicate about it. Information should focus on explaining the rationale and underlying principles of a decision, and less on how the decision was taken.

In this feature authors discuss recent research findings that are of interest to readers of Beleid en Maatschappij.
According to many commentators, the system of science is in a crisis: it is characterized by perverse incentives, it is contested and misused, and it has lost its authority. In this essay, I suggest that the answer to this crisis lies in a broadening of the notion of scientific integritiy from the conduct of individual researchers to the wider context of the science-policy-society interface. Specifically, I argue for the need to foster what I call here ‘relations of integrity’. In these relations, science reflects on the role it plays and takes into account the context in which knowledge is produced and used. It has to maintain independence, while fully recognizing that value free knowledge does not exist and that multiple forms of independence are possible, and it needs to be accountable for the decisions it makes and for the consequences of those decisions.

In several countries the number of semi-autonomous agencies is under attack. The Dutch government has also presented plans to reduce the number of so-called ZBOs (zelfstandige bestuursorganen). But do public organizations like ZBOs actually die? Using population ecology theory we formulate a number of hypotheses on the survival and reform of ZBOs. These hypotheses are tested using secondary data on the number of ZBOs in The Netherlands in the past two decades. Results show that the absolute number of ZBOs has increased rather than decreased. Only seldom does a ZBO die. But ZBOs do experience many changes during their lifetime, such as mergers. The politicians’ plans seem targeted at improving their overview of all ZBOs. Whether the implementation of the plans will lead to that remains to be seen. Experiences in other countries do not confirm these expectations so far.

In this feature authors discuss recent research findings that are of interest to readers of Beleid en Maatschappij.
‘Fact free politics’ and ‘post-truth politics’ are considered to pose a severe threat to democracies as they seem to ruin shared perceptions of reality and render it impossible to distinguish opinion from fact. However, it is questionable whether fueling public and political debates with scientific facts offers a counterweight. First, scientific facts are not free from interpretation and can be regarded as ‘theory-laden’. Second, scientific research may determine facts but it may not claim the monopoly to determine the public meaning attached to these facts. Third, facts not only function to explain or to describe reality, they also affect reality. Given these considerations, the ‘science versus fact free politics’ debate could profit from a more realistic view on the status of facts.