The Dutch central government has a long history in its search to meaningfully present policy effects. One of the instruments that was developed to this end is the Policy Conclusion (beleidsconclusie). This part of the annual report, which has been mandatory since 2013, should provide a judgement for every policy article on its results in the year 2017. To what extent has the Policy Conclusion been successful in its aims? And how do various governmental departments give substance to it? For this article, all policy conclusions that were composed for the most recent reporting year were examined. Among others, our analysis shows that departments differ greatly in their interpretation of what the Policy Conclusion should include, such as the usage of sources and the way in which intended results are (re)addressed. In addition, it was found in the Policy Conclusions that a tendency exists to put a strong focus on positive outcomes. |
Zoekresultaat: 8 artikelen
Jaar 2019 xVrij artikel |
Weinig consistent, beperkt zelfkritischDe uitwerking van de beleidsconclusie binnen de rijksverantwoording |
Tijdschrift | Bestuurskunde, Aflevering 4 2019 |
Trefwoorden | accountability, policy evaluation, policy conclusion |
Auteurs | Bram Faber MA en Dr. Tjerk Budding |
SamenvattingAuteursinformatie |
Article |
Split-Ticket Voting in BelgiumAn Analysis of the Presence and Determinants of Differentiated Voting in the Municipal and Provincial Elections of 2018 |
Tijdschrift | Politics of the Low Countries, Aflevering 3 2019 |
Trefwoorden | split-ticket voting, local elections, voting motives, Belgium, PR-system |
Auteurs | Tony Valcke en Tom Verhelst |
SamenvattingAuteursinformatie |
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? |
Research Notes |
Sub-Constituency Campaigning in PR SystemsEvidence from the 2014 General Elections in Belgium |
Tijdschrift | Politics of the Low Countries, Aflevering 3 2019 |
Trefwoorden | Sub-constituency campaigning, PR system, political advertisements, election campaign, content analysis |
Auteurs | Jonas Lefevere, Knut De Swert en Artemis Tsoulou-Malakoudi |
SamenvattingAuteursinformatie |
Sub-constituency campaigning occurs when parties focus their campaign resources on specific geographical areas within an electoral district. This behaviour was traditionally thought to occur only in single-member plurality elections, but recent research demonstrates that proportional systems with multi-member districts can also elicit sub-constituency campaigning. However, most studies of sub-constituency campaigning rely on self-reported measures of campaigning, not direct measures of campaign intensity in different regions and communities. We present novel data on geographical variations in the intensity of Flemish parties’ campaign advertising during the 2014 general elections in Belgium, which provides a direct measure of sub-constituency campaigning. Our findings show clear evidence of sub-constituency campaigning: parties campaign more intensely in municipalities where they have stronger electoral support and in municipalities with greater population density. |
Artikel |
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Tijdschrift | Beleidsonderzoek Online, oktober 2019 |
Auteurs | Frans L. Leeuw |
SamenvattingAuteursinformatie |
Overheidsbeleid heeft steeds meer te maken met digitalisering en data-ificering van de samenleving en het menselijk gedrag. Dat betekent uitdagingen voor beleidsevaluatoren. In dit artikel gaat het om éen van de daarmee gepaard gaande verschijnselen: Big Data en Artificiële Intelligentie (BD/AI). Het artikel stelt, na erop gewezen te hebben dat de evaluatieprofessie langere tijd niet erg actief op digitaal gebied is geweest, ten eerste de vraag wat BD/AI te bieden hebben aan evaluatieonderzoek van (digitaal) beleid. Vijf toepassingsmogelijkheden worden besproken die de kwaliteit, bruikbaarheid en relevantie van evaluatieonderzoek kunnen bevorderen. De tweede vraag is wat evaluatieonderzoek te bieden heeft, als het gaat om het analyseren/onderzoeken van de betrouwbaarheid, validiteit en enkele andere aspecten van Big Data en AI. Ook daar worden verschillende mogelijkheden (en moeilijkheden) geschetst. Naar het oordeel van de schrijver is het enerzijds dienstig (meer) gebruik te maken van BD/AI in evaluatieonderzoek, maar doen onderzoekers er ook goed aan (meer) aandacht uit te laten gaan naar: de assumpties die aan BD/AI ten grondslag liggen (inclusief het ‘black box’-probleem); de validiteit, veiligheid en geloofwaardigheid van algoritmes; de bedoelde en onbedoelde consequenties van het gebruik ervan; én de vraag of de claims dat digitale interventies die mede gebaseerd zijn op BD/AI effectief (of effectiever zijn dan andere), onderbouwd en valide zijn. |
Artikel |
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Tijdschrift | Beleid en Maatschappij, Aflevering 2 2019 |
Trefwoorden | Neoliberalism, The Netherlands, Intellectual history, Political history, Essentially contested concepts |
Auteurs | Dr. Merijn Oudenampsen en Dr. Bram Mellink |
SamenvattingAuteursinformatie |
The word neoliberalism has often been the object of fierce controversy in the Dutch public debate. Prominent intellectuals have equated neoliberalism with extremism and fundamentalism, with some going as far as calling it a ‘totalitarian faith’. The opposite camp in the debate has argued that neoliberalism is largely a self-invented bogeyman of the left, a swearword used by critics to engage in an intellectual witch-hunt. Of course, neoliberalism is not the only social science term suffering from a polemical status. Common concepts such as populism, socialism, nationalism or conservatism have given rise to similar lasting disagreements and comparable accusations of their derogatory use. What does appear to be exceptional about neoliberalism in the Dutch debate, is that very few conceptual and historical studies have been published on the subject. While the word neoliberalism is commonly employed in Dutch mainstream social science, many scholars seem to use the term without much further qualification. This paper explores the controversy and looks for ways to proceed beyond it. Drawing on a recent wave of international scholarship, it outlines an ideational approach to neoliberalism. After tracing the origins of the term neoliberalism, it closes with a preliminary example of an ideational analysis of Dutch neoliberalism. |
Article |
Fiscal Consolidation in Federal BelgiumCollective Action Problem and Solutions |
Tijdschrift | Politics of the Low Countries, Aflevering 2 2019 |
Trefwoorden | fiscal consolidation, fiscal policy, federalism, intergovernmental relations, High Council of Finance |
Auteurs | Johanna Schnabel |
SamenvattingAuteursinformatie |
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. |
Article |
Consensus Democracy and Bureaucracy in the Low Countries |
Tijdschrift | Politics of the Low Countries, Aflevering 1 2019 |
Trefwoorden | consensus democracy, bureaucracy, governance system, Lijphart, policymaking |
Auteurs | Frits van der Meer, Caspar van den Berg, Charlotte van Dijck e.a. |
SamenvattingAuteursinformatie |
Taking Lijphart’s work on consensus democracies as our point of departure, we signal a major shortcoming in Lijphart’s focus being almost exclusively on the political hardware of the state structure, leaving little attention for the administrative and bureaucratic characteristics of governance systems. We propose to expand the Lijphart’s model which overviews structural aspects of the executive and the state with seven additional features of the bureaucratic system. We argue that these features are critical for understanding the processes of policymaking and service delivery. Next, in order to better understand the functioning of the Netherlands and Belgium as consensus democracies, we provide a short analysis of the historical context and current characteristics of the political-administrative systems in both countries. |
Article |
Transformative Welfare Reform in Consensus Democracies |
Tijdschrift | Politics of the Low Countries, Aflevering 1 2019 |
Trefwoorden | consensus democracy, welfare state, social investment, transformative reform, Belgium and the Netherlands |
Auteurs | Anton Hemerijck en Kees van Kersbergen |
SamenvattingAuteursinformatie |
This article takes up Lijphart’s claim that consensus democracy is a ‘kinder, gentler’ form of democracy than majoritarian democracy. We zoom in on contemporary welfare state change, particularly the shift towards social investment, and argue that the kinder, gentler hypothesis remains relevant. Consensus democracies stand out in regard to the extent to which their political institutions help to overcome the politically delicate intricacies of governing for the long term. We theorize the features that can help to solve the problem of temporal commitment in democracy through processual mechanisms and illustrate these with short case studies of the contrasting welfare state reform experiences in the Netherlands and Belgium. |