The Netherlands enjoys a long-standing reputation in the field of road safety. Following the ‘Sustainable Road Safety’ program of the 1990s, the infrastructural layout considerably reduces the risk of accidents while at the same time many measures are in place to improve road user behavior. In recent years, however, there have been several developments that may affect the success of the approach. In addition to an ageing population, urbanization, and the rise of new technologies, there is a combination of decentralization, policy integration, and budgetary restraints.
This contribution presents the philosophy behind the sustainable road safety program and describes its key elements. It discusses policy and societal developments, and the continuing need to improve road safety, especially at a decentralized level. The article argues in favor of a continued systematic approach towards safer road traffic, also in periods of decentralization and limited budgets. It presents a concrete perspective of the role of policy analysis and policy evaluation to develop a proactive approach to road safety under the new conditions. In this, evidence-based interventions, an active use of safety performance indicators, and a focus on success are key elements.

The article aims to compare the current legal status of codes of conduct (if any) in five different EU-countries. Its starting point is the recent legal initiative in the Netherlands to abolish the existing status for officials and to replace it with contracts of employment. The parliamentary initiators indicate ethical elements as crucial for the employment relation in the public sector. Does this imply that a code of conduct has to be established?
The article first focuses on the historical evolution of codes of conduct in different EU-Member States. Within the UK, integrity has always been considered a key stone of the civil service. However, it took until the nineties until a code of conduct was set out. The spread out of the importance of integrity for civil servants has spread out later in continental Europe. The impact of the theory of New Public Management, through the OECD, was therefore crucial. Consequently, Belgium and Germany developed codes of conduct while France and the Netherlands paid more attention to weight of ethical behavior in the public sector.
Currently, it stays beyond any doubt that the codes of conduct in the UK have got a binding legal value. This value has not yet been achieved by the Belgian and the German codes. The article defends the point of view that a binding code in the Netherlands can be a useful tool.

In this article, based on a case study regarding the merger of boroughs within the municipality of Amsterdam, different perspectives are brought together to provide an overall analysis leading to insight into the change in the organizational culture. A particular research methodology is used to shed light on three elements of organizational culture: mindset (values), arena (group) and behavior. Through periodical measurements the effects of interventions and the progress in culture change is followed. It is argued that measurement instruments to explore the shifts in thinking and action are useful but limited. Policy makers and organizational actors from all hierarchical levels are shown to be influenced and disciplined by the actual existing change discourse to various degrees. Every organization nowadays must prove to the market that it is capable of change. Stories about organizational flexibility are embedded in more macro-stories of the changes in economic life. This article provides insight into the complexity of organizational discourse and the philosophical and sociological richness that it embodies. Therefore anthropological concepts are used which make the case more understandable in terms of rules and procedures that construct and legitimate the way we see things and talk about them.

The focus of the diversity policy in the Dutch public sector has moved during the past decennia. In the eighties offering equal chances for the different target groups was the central policy goal, after the millennium this became the effective and efficient management of a diverse work force in order to arrive at a better performing public sector, also called the business case of diversity. This article investigates the question how far the Dutch cabinet has influenced the diversity policy of public organizations. The answer to the question is that there was limited influence from the Dutch cabinet on the arguments for diversity of public organizations, but there was greater influence on the diversity interventions, especially in three sectors: central government, municipalities and police. This influence on interventions of other (‘fellow’) governments is caused by the strong steering of the cabinet. The interventions undertaken therefore reflect to a more limited extent the business case of diversity and remain stuck in the old target group policy. However, public organizations with a longer history in diversity policy, that operate closer to society and see the necessity for diversity, are more inclined to embrace the business case and start interventions that are related to this new approach.

Dutch Ministries differ in the manner in which they design and manage their steering relations with independent governing bodies. Based on six cases at four Dutch ministries the authors show these differences. They use two theoretical models (the principal-agent approach and the principal-steward approach) to clarify the kind of relationship. Ministries not only differ in their approach, they also differ in how far they have advanced in the development of their steering relations with independent governing bodies. Because there is no coordination or exchange of knowledge between ministries, ministries that are ‘lagging behind’ cannot learn from the experiences of ministries that have more experience. The authors do not propose one form of central coordination or one model, but they do propose more exchange of knowledge within and between Dutch ministries.

According to the policy makers of the Dutch police the more complex society for years requires a police organization that can operate as a network player, or even network director, in ever increasing local safety networks to fulfil the police functions of criminal investigation and maintenance of public order in an effective manner. This claim hardly seems to validated by empirical evidence. Validation is important because research shows that a lot of time is spent on the police network function within community based policing. The question is if this time is spent in an effective manner. Therefore this article addresses the question of the revenues of the police network function within community based policing for the core tasks maintenance of political order and criminal investigation. Based on a policy analysis, interviews and five weeks of participatory research in one police force in the Netherlands, the authors conclude that the policy of the police is only to ‘take’ out and not ‘give’ to local safety networks, although according to the practice and the network literature networkers from the police should give to be able to achieve results. Because the police network function does contribute to the quality of life and the social safety in the community, the authors believe that the community is best served by police officers that have a broad network function.

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

Regulatory supervision and inspection have become key features of public governance, some authors even talk about the ‘audit society’ or the age of ‘regulatory capitalism’. Despite international research showing the importance of trust in supervisory relations, there is still a fierce debate about the role of trust in Dutch supervisory relations. Several inspectorates have incorporated trust as a central theme in their supervisory policy. This article describes the role of trust within the policy of the Dutch Healthcare Inspectorate (IGZ). This research addresses four themes in dealing with the concept of trust in supervisory relations: from transparency to accountability, from output performance to performance and risk management, from trust or control to trust and control, and, finally, a special regime for reliable inspectees. The empirical analysis in this paper contributes to the knowledge about the role of trust in supervision (policy) and to the debate about the role of trust in regulatory supervision policy.

This paper attempts a normative assessment of the input and output-oriented legitimacy of the present euro-rescuing regime on the basis of policy analyses examining the causes of present crises, the available policy options, and the impact of the policies actually chosen. Concluding that the regime lacks input-oriented legitimacy and that its claim to output-oriented legitimacy is ambivalent at best, the paper explores potential – majoritarian or unilateral – exits from the present institutional constellation that is characterized by the synthesis of a non-democratic expertocracy and an extremely asymmetric intergovernmental bargaining system.

Nudging is currently high on the political agenda. The idea behind nudging is that the government can gently push citizens in the ‘good’ direction by anticipating their predictable irrational behaviour. In the Dutch discussion nudging often is seen as an instrument to influence citizens more. Therefore critics fear paternalism, manipulation and technocracy. However, we could also see nudging as a replacement of more coercive instruments. Then nudges might even offer chances for a state that is withdrawing under the condition that citizens have both the opportunity and the capability to make alternative choices in practice than the choices to which nudges aim. Therefore nudges by the government should not avoid reflective and conscious thinking processes, but rather stimulate deliberation and make citizens more aware of their decisions.

Government employs Public-Private Partnerships as a remedial strategy directed at compensating for failures that typically occur in pure market arrangements, networks or pure hierarchical government settings. It is then possible to engage in Public-Private Partnerships corresponding with the three basic forms of social organization: market, network and government. The distinction between: (1) market-PPP, (2) network-PPP and (3) public authority-PPP is elaborated.

In this paper it is argued that the discourse on the retreating government is a story about mobilizing executive power deemed necessary for enforcing a neoliberal worldview. The intellectual discourse about the retreating government, the argument goes, develops as a radical and neoliberal critique of the Keynesian planning and organization of the enlightenment – an organization that is above all expressed in the postwar welfare state. The Dutch policy discourse, by contrast, is of a practical nature: it is about the organization of the government retreat. In the reconstruction of the policy discourse, as it is manifest in leading policy documents of the Dutch central government, it is observed that this discourse has emancipated from the intellectual discourse. The policy discourse of the retreating government has developed into a financial management discourse, free from European ideals.

Many authors have claimed that the role of the Dutch government, and other governments, is changing. The overarching consensus is that states are now retreating after decades of expansion. This paper investigates, on the basis of a secondary analysis of existing data, whether, where and how the Dutch state can be said to be retreating. This leads to mixed findings: four different analyses of the ‘state of the state’. The first tale, focusing on macro financial indicators, suggests ‘stability’. The second tale, focusing on net changes in expenses, depicts further expansion, particularly in the domain of health care. The third tale, focusing on policy intentions, sees a retreat indeed. And the fourth tale would suggest that it is merely about a reorganization of the state itself.

While the belief in a socially engineered society has been renounced to a large extent, in cities actors continue to struggle with the question how their plans can be steered on goal achievement. This article addresses a steering philosophy that is based on an emergent adaptive urban development process. This means that urban strategies adapt during the process by connecting to initiatives from the market and civil society. The central question of this article is how specific projects are ‘made’ in accordance with the intentions of the actors involved and how these projects are connected to larger policy stories for the city. In this article perspectives are explored that have replaced the old thinking in terms of ‘social engineering’. On the basis of two case studies in the Netherlands (Brainport Eindhoven and Mainport Rotterdam) an emergent adaptive strategy is explored as a perspective for action. This perspective is not only about ‘social engineering’, but also about ‘social connecting’. An emergent adaptive strategy is not designed on the drawing table, but it emerges during the practice of project development out of an attitude that is conscious of the environment, connective and reflective.

Na het aantreden van Rutte II heeft de bestuurlijke opschaling van gemeenten en provincies twintig maanden lang op de agenda gestaan. Zoals bekend hebben de plannen van het kabinet de eindstreep niet gehaald. Vooral bij de meest betrokken provincies bestond er kritiek op het ontbreken van een visie en onderbouwing. In dit artikel wordt onderzocht in hoeverre een netwerkanalyse van het verplaatsingsgedrag daarin zou kunnen voorzien. Voor een volgende ronde, die zich mogelijk al snel weer aandient. De uitkomsten van verschillende algoritmes voor netwerkanalyse worden vergeleken. Het begrip daily urban system, gekoppeld aan welvaartstheoretische inzichten (Tordoir), dient als inhoudelijke leidraad. Netwerkanalyse blijkt zakelijke argumenten op te leveren die behulpzaam kunnen zijn bij het trekken van (nieuwe) bestuurlijke grenzen, ook al zullen deze om verschillende redenen nooit alleenzaligmakend zijn.

Nowadays municipalities in the Netherlands work together more intensively with other municipalities in the region. Also cooperation with companies, institutions and societal organizations is more often looked for at the regional level. In practice this brings along many problems and difficulties. For several reasons it appears not to be easy to combine the implementation strengths of municipalities and societal partners. This article presents a new approach (based on the theory of ‘new regionalism’) to regional implementation strength. This approach is not only about designing regional administrations, but is mainly about the factors that induce administrations as well as companies and institutions to commit themselves jointly for the region. To increase the regional implementation strength more is needed than the formation of a regional administrative structure in which municipalities do not cooperate in a non-committal manner. To induce municipalities and societal partners to commit themselves jointly to handling new tasks or new challenges it is also necessary to have a clear strategic vision on these issues that binds parties and makes them enthusiastic and that regional cooperation is rooted in a societal breeding ground. It also asks for an administrative structure that does justice to the contribution every municipality and societal partner makes to the realization of the strategy and for a democratic involvement of municipal councils and sector-based interest groups.

Within the past two years, hydraulic fracturing for shale gas became a highly contested technology in the Netherlands. Possible negative environmental impacts are at strained terms with possible economic, energy and geo-political benefits. In addition, there are many scientific uncertainties about, for example water contamination, methane emissions, the amounts of gas to extract and the risk of earth quakes. Societal conflict and scientific uncertainties make fracking for shale gas a wicked problem for decision makers. This article demonstrates that the Dutch Ministry of Economic Affairs has implemented several instruments for deliberation, such as a consultation round with stakeholders and a sound board for an independent research. These failed to lead to the desired support for fracking. In this contribution, I demonstrate that these instruments led to reason giving but not to structuring of the problem. They were used by governmental actors and protest groups as a political platform that was fuel for the political conflict.

Climate change is often referred to as exemplary for ‘wicked’ problems. Wicked problems are referred to in literature as being inherently political problems without a clear definition or solution for which top-down steering using scientific knowledge is not fitting. Paradoxically, international climate change policy is organized in a quite top down manner in which scientific findings have a prominent role. In this paper we explore the effects of a deliberative approach to knowledge generation. We discuss two cases: an assessment of the credibility of the 2007 Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) reports and the organization of a scientific dialogue on internet.