The credit crisis that began in the summer of 2007 has fundamentally challenged much financial regulation and the political institutions that produced it. Measured against the criticisms that have been brought forth against previous financial governance, the extent of governments’ overall reform ambitions has been disappointing. Starting from this observation, this article asks: what explains governments’ reform choices, and thus also their limited ambitions? To explore this question, this article focuses on the positions that four governments central to global financial regulation (the USA, the UK, Germany and France) have taken in advance of the G20 meetings in 2009 across four key issue areas: accounting standards, derivatives trading, credit ratings agencies and banking rules. It evaluates both the overlap between positions across domains and governments as well as the differences between them. Such variation, we argue, provides key clues to the overall drivers behind reforms – as well as their limits. The overall picture that emerges can be summarized as follows: governments have been staunch defenders of their national firms’ competitive interests in regulatory reforms. That has not necessarily meant that they followed industry preferences across the board. It has been the relative impact, compared to foreign competitors, that counted in reform positions, not the absolute impact. These differences of opinion have played out within the context and the limits of the overall debates about thinkable policy alternatives. In spite of fundamental criticisms of pre-crisis regulatory orthodoxy, convincing and coherent alternatives have been forthcoming slowly at best. This has made reform proposals less radical than criticisms, seen on their own, might suggest.

De facto autonomy, the actual potential of regulatory agencies to go about their daily work, is often conceived to be more important to explain regulatory capacity than its formal autonomy and responsibilities. In this article we investigate whether external context factors, such as the financial and economic crisis have an impact on de facto autonomy. More specifically, we investigate whether the de facto autonomy varies after the crisis and distinctively so for specific subsets of employees within regulatory agencies. According to literature, mid-level managers of agencies are key to de facto autonomy and building a secure reputation for the agency in question. We test these external and internal effects on de facto autonomy with a survey among employees of the Dutch Financial Market Authority (N = 248). The findings show that the perceived influence of stakeholders is relatively constant, but that it is more dynamic for European stakeholders. Both middle managers and employees working at strategic and policy departments of the agency conceive the impact of European stakeholders as increasing in nature. The findings have important implications for our studies of de facto autonomy of regulatory agencies as well as reform potential after major institutional crises.

The world-wide meltdown of financial markets is one of the largest human-made crises in modern times. The question that trembles on the lips of many researcher is why the main actors, all considered as rational, have displayed such self-destructing behaviour. Answers have been sought and partially found in theories as varied as ‘regulatory capture’, ‘failed regulation’, and inadequate crisis management. In this special issue, an alternative view is suggested. The financial sector, like any other complex sector, is made up of loosely coupled actors and actor settings (i.e. financial institutions, regulatory bodies, political actors), each driven by different action logics. The studies in this special issue each deeply examine the action logic of one actor group. The purpose of this issue is hence to parcel out the various action logics and suggest directions for further research to combine better the various actors and their differing action logics.

Why is there an on-going debate about climate change? We analyse this question from a framing point of view. We analyse four well-known frames in the climate change debate, and see what kind of reactions and reframing they invoke. The analysis shows that simple frames with an inherent logic, which activates underlying values and which are easy to communicate strongly resonate. It is difficult to counter such a frame. Opponents of the frame are often seduced to counter the frame by using the same wording. In this way, they step into the frame of their opponents and thus confirm the frame. To conclude, the article discusses two possible strategies for reframing: to couple the frame with other frames, and to suggest an alternative frame without stepping into the opposed frame.

Public organizations delivering public services are the subjects of approximately a third of the daily news in the quality press. This article investigates the media frames in which public organizations are portrayed and also investigates the direct and indirect strategies that public organizations use to influence those frames. The analysis is relevant because public organizations are subjected to decision making processes by politicians that are informed by the frames in media stories. The article is based on a combination of quantitative and qualitative content analysis of media reporting, and focus-groups and interviews with senior officials from multiple Dutch and Australian public service providers. The analysis reveals that public organizations deploy both direct strategies via communication as well as indirect strategies (such as networking with journalists and applied research) in order to influence media framing. The interaction between news media and public organizations is depicted as a struggle for control over media messages, where journalists and politicians often get the upper hand but where public organizations have specific traits that may serve to generate specific frames.

The social security system provides some form of protection for its citizens. The social security system depends on public support in society. Support is crucial for legitimacy of the social system. To date, it remains unclear whether social policy preferences will be affected by changes on the labour market. In this article we aim to increase our understanding of individual reactions to increasing labour flexibility and the impact on social policy preferences. From the results of our study, we draw the general conclusion that employees with flexible labour contracts as well as the self-employed do not reject the idea of social security.

In this feature authors discuss recent research findings that are of interest to readers of Beleid en Maatschappij.

This paper reports on a qualitative interview study into the prioritization and interpretation of public values government elites in the Netherlands, comparing value preferences between political and administrative elites. Based on 65 in-depth interviews with MPs, ministers and senior civil servants, statements on four public values (responsiveness, expertise, lawfulness, transparency) that have been deducted through a substantive literature review, are coded and categorized. Overall, political and administrative value preferences in the Netherlands turn out to be more similar than they are different. However, mutual perceptions emphasize differences and contrasts. Theoretical and practical implications of the results are offered and hypotheses are formulated for future studies.

In this feature authors discuss recent research findings that are of interest to readers of Beleid en Maatschappij.

In a closed or semi-open PR-system, the designation of the MPs is primarily determined by their position on the list. In this paper, we attempt to find out on the basis of which criteria a party selects the candidates who are most likely to be elected, due to their high and/or visible position on the list. We do so by comparing these realistic candidates with the candidates on unrealistic positions on the list. A multi-level logistic regression analysis of the Flemish candidates in four subsequent federal elections in Belgium shows that the selectorates have a marked preference for incumbents and for mayors. Aldermen also stand a better chance of being elected, but only if they are from a larger communality. Women are strongly underrepresented amongst the realistic candidates, but this is only due to the fact that there are relatively few women mayors and incumbents.

This article investigates whether group-based politics is still relevant in Belgian and Dutch politics. Based on the PARTIREP MP Survey it more precisely studies the extent to which Belgian and Dutch parliamentarians in comparison to other European countries attach importance to the representation of ‘old’ cleavage groups (class and religious groups) or new groups (age groups, women and ethnic minorities), and which strategies are considered most appropriate. Group representation of old and new groups is found to be of great importance in both countries. Class is not dead and age groups are also highly represented. In contrast, religious groups and ethnic minorities receive far less attention in the Low Countries. Notwithstanding these similarities, there is also cross-country variation regarding the level of importance (greater in the Netherlands), the represented groups and the strategies for representation.

Electoral behavior has changed considerably over the last few decades. The Netherlands are exemplary of how the cleavage structure has waned and how this has led to a weakening of the bonds between parties and voters and to higher levels of electoral volatility. Christian democratic and social democratic parties are most affected by these changes, because of their strong roots in the cleavage structure. The alterations in electoral behavior are generally assumed to be evolving gradually through a process of generational replacement. Composition effects on the one hand and a weakening of the impact of socio-structural factors, partly caused by cognitive mobilization on the other hand are considered to be the mechanisms behind this generational change. This paper tests these assumptions with regard to the Netherlands on the basis of the Dutch Parliamentary Election Surveys, 1971-2010. The findings indicate that while some variation between different birth cohorts is visible, most of the differences in voting for both of these parties, however, are situated at the level of election years. Furthermore, with regard to what drives change over time, the analyses indicate that while composition effects and changes in the effects of socio-structural variables are of some importance, cognitive mobilization is not causing the change observed.