Internationaal stijgt de aandacht voor evidence-based policy (EBP); de term duikt steeds vaker op in het beleidsdiscours. Het empirisch onderzoek naar kennisgebruik en doorwerking van wetenschappelijk onderzoek is evenwel eerder gelimiteerd, al bestaat er consensus dat de doorwerking van sociaalwetenschappelijk onderzoek beperkt is. De vraag stelt zich of het recente EBP-discours hierin verandering kan brengen. Kan EBP leiden tot meer doorwerking van sociaalwetenschappelijk onderzoek, gelet op de inherente kenmerken van beleid en wetenschappelijk onderzoek die belangrijke obstakels blijken te vormen voor kennisgebruik en doorwerking? Kunnen we in Vlaanderen reeds spreken over een EBP? Wat verstaan beleidsmakers onder ‘evidence-based’? Is een EBP überhaupt mogelijk? Wat zijn de belangrijkste obstakels voor kennisgebruik volgens beleidsmakers en wat zijn de belangrijkste gebruiksverhogende factoren? In dit artikel wordt aan de hand van een literatuurstudie, een bevraging van (Vlaamse) beleidsmakers en een citaats- en inhoudsanalyse van Vlaamse parlementaire bronnen gepoogd een antwoord te bieden op deze vragen.

Whereas the six Dutch islands in the Caribbean all have a (very) limited population size, analyses of political problems on the islands rarely seem to take the variable of state size into account. The available academic literature demonstrates that the population size of states has a strong influence on the quality of democratic governance, although scholars disagree on the question whether smallness is an asset or an obstacle to democratic development. After a discussion of this theoretical literature, the present article proceeds with a presentation of field research in three small island states (St. Kitts and Nevis, Seychelles, and Palau) in which the political consequences of a limited population size are analyzed. This analysis reveals that a number of size-related effects can be observed in all three examined island states, among which a tendency to personalistic competition, strong polarization between parties and politicians, particularistic relationships between voters and their representatives, and a dominant position of the political executive vis-à-vis other institutions. A subsequent analysis of the contemporary political situation on the Dutch Caribbean islands shows that the observed problems also play a role on these islands, which indicates that smallness is perhaps of greater significance than is now often supposed.

The traditional authority of mayors and aldermen is readily challenged. Formal positions do no longer constitute authority. For that reason, new political repertoires are being sought after and are being developed by local political-executive leaders. This article analyses and compares the sources of authority for mayors and aldermen: how can they develop, maintain, and strengthen their authority? It develops an innovative typology of sources of authority. A distinction is made between institutional, positional, and personal sources of authority. The model is applied to the mayors and aldermen in relation to relevant socio-political developments that affect the two offices. It is found that the authority of mayors rests on institutional sources of authority more so than that of aldermen. For the latter, positional and personal sources of authority are more important. At the same time, personal sources of authority have become very important for mayors as well as aldermen. The results call upon mayors and aldermen’s skills and competences to develop personal authority through persuasion.

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

In this contribution we analyze the content of the Veerman Commission’s report that in 2007/2008 advised the Dutch government on the necessity of measures to protect the coast against future rising waters and other climatological and environmental changes and challenges. We conclude that the content of the report is in itself an expression of the ongoing social and governmental debate and process that tries to create a sense of urgency since there is no real immediate crisis to facilitate changes. Thus the report is not only the result of the work of the commission (though its firm statements on the necessity of measures were clearly heard), but at the same time the reflection of an ongoing debate which also creates a new challenge for stakeholders in the water domain. The organizational recommendations of the commission to place the protection against rising waters as far away from day to day politics as possible have all been put into action, which is a noteworthy result. Still, it is the ongoing process between stakeholders that will determine the actual measures to be taken by the government water related bodies.

Dutch local government is more and more regarded as a ‘first government’. Vision documents of the association of municipalities and national policy plans stress the importance of local government for improving public governance. This ‘new localism’ builds upon two conflicting perspectives to local government: the modernization model and the political community model. As a result, local governments are becoming overloaded by many new and conflicting demands. A debate about how both perspectives to the ‘first government’ can be balanced, is therefore needed.

This article is a critical review of four books: Bok, 2010 (‘The politics of happiness’); Van Campen, Bergsma, Boelhouwer, Boerefijn, & Bolier, 2012 (‘Sturen op geluk’); Diener, Lucas, Schimmack, & Helliwell, 2009 (‘Well-being for public policy’); Ott, 2012 (‘An eye on happiness’). Based on these works, we conclude that the quality of government is highly correlated with the happiness of citizens. In countries with high levels of freedom (economic, democracy, press), low levels of corruption and good public services, people appear to be the happiest. In this way governments can be seen as ‘happiness machines’. However, precise causal relationships need to be further clarified; which policies do improve happiness and which don’t? In this context, education is an important area in which government plays a role; people should leave school with the right set of competencies to be able to adequately cope with life. Governments cannot solve everybody’s unhappiness, though, but are important for creating the right circumstances.

The media are a much-discussed subject in both the scientific and the public debate on the functioning of democracy. Nevertheless, there is relatively little empirical research on the effects of media on the most fundamental aspect of politics: the legislative process. However, this type of research is important because it helps us gain insight into the influence journalists exert. This study analyses the influence of media attention for bills on the legislative process in the Netherlands. A quantitative analysis of the newspaper coverage for recently discussed bills indicates that the parliamentary process is influenced by this coverage. This first study of media-effects on the Dutch legislative process suggests that more media-attention leads to the introduction of more amendments by both members of government and members of parliament.

In the aftermath of the last millennium a vice minister intended to realise what his predecessors of almost 25 years planned but never accomplished. The cultural expressions of immigrants were supposed to become integrated in the general cultural policy and the subsidized cultural organisations. The article explores why the policies never were formulated and implemented as the various (vice-)ministers explicitly intended.The main reason seems to be the dominance of the romantic universal interpretation of the notion ‘artistic quality’. The mentioned vice minister explicitly challenged this dominance, but didn’t succeed.Subsidies in the cultural sector were and are mainly allocated because of the artistic quality of cultural expressions. The majority of the key actors in this sector such as advisors, cultural institutions, politicians tend to have a romantic universal perspective on quality. These actors seemed to be unwilling or unable to broaden up their conception of quality. Due to this special implementation arrangements were created for the cultural expressions of immigrants. This implied the integration never was accomplished, and over time both cultural institutions and immigrant initiatives seemed relatively content with these arrangements.

This article returns to the meanwhile classic question of which factors explain the adoption of gender quotas, but approaches the issue through the literature on electoral reform. It argues that the latter offers two new issues to be studied when it comes to the adoption of gender quotas. Firstly, the definition of the political-institutional and socioeconomic context in which gender quotas are adopted should be broadened, and international institutions, much focused upon in research on gender quotas, should be integrated in this definition of the context in which gender quotas get adopted, so as to facilitate comparative research. Secondly, research needs to approach actors striving for gender quotas more critically. This implies paying more attention to the women/feminist stakeholders involved in campaigns for gender quotas, as well as to their strategic motivations and possible self-interest.

The number of female councilors has increased significantly since the introduction of gender quotas for local elections in the Flemish Region of Belgium. However, a strong underrepresentation of women remains in the most important position in local politics: the mayoralty. Consequently, the underlying goal of the quota laws – equal representation of women and men in politics – has only been realized to a limited extent. In this article, we investigate which factors influence the inclusion or exclusion of women within three crucial stages of the recruitment process for mayors: 1) the composition of party-lists and the nomination of the first candidate on the list; 2) the acquirement of preferential votes; and 3) the appointment of the mayor. The findings of this study show that the position of first candidate on the list is crucial for the attainment of the mayoralty and that four out of five of these candidates are male. Hence, the nomination of the first candidate on this list constitutes an important exclusion mechanism in the recruitment of women as mayor.

Belgium is an early adapter of gender quotas to increase the presence of women in decision-making, as quotas for advisory councils and electoral politics date from the 1990’s. The advisory commission regulations had effects for research and scientific bodies, while the boards of publically funded corporations recently came into view. Notwithstanding many attempts, gender quotas have not (yet) been introduced in the higher regions of the justice system. This article investigates the lively scene of debates on Belgian quotas and comparatively explores the process of adopting quotas in science, business and justice. It focuses on the intensity of the debates, the arguments constituting the debate and the main actors driving it. The analysis demonstrates rich variation with respect to these three elements, which points to the importance of nuanced and context specific analyses when implementation processes of quotas in various sectors are studied.

The information revolution, and in particular the convergence of nanotechnology, biotechnology, information technology and cognitive technology, creates a new societal arena: biopolitics. This so-called NBIC-convergence strengthens the promise that live, including our bodies (e.g. genes), brains (e.g. attention) and social environment (e.g. social contacts and consumer behaviour), can be brought into the domain of technological manipulability. NBIC-convergence, therefore, raises many social and ethical issues. The dominant naïve belief in progress through technology often stands in the way of a timely and adequate governance of these issues. The current situation in which the information revolution is mainly developing on the political sidelines, can lead to thorny societal and political problems in the mid and long-term.

Political and policy decisions are often presented as neutral choices. Yet, seemingly neutral and widely accepted views are ideologically embedded in a vision on how society should look and what role citizens have to play. These ideologies, we argue, remain silent. In this special issue, we discuss the value and risks of silent ideologies. While silent ideologies may be functional in some cases, there are also risks. The various contributions show that there is a risk of criticism, new ideas and innovative solutions being removed from the political debate. Also, silent ideologies may conceal conflicting interests of citizens and the state, which may exclude the ‘irresponsible’ citizen from the public domain. We argue that public officials and civil servants should take up a role in addressing silent ideologies and their workings.

Over the past decade, policy attention for ‘active citizenship’ and ‘bottom up’ citizen initiatives has strongly increased. Nowadays, governments tend to approach citizens more and more as practical ‘doers’: as active citizens that can initiate projects in the public domain – for instance to increase the livability of their neighborhood. The dominant policy perspective on what is called the ‘democracy of action’ is one of a small government (to make room for a ‘big society’) that is not directive but supportive to active citizens.
In this article, we first argue that in practice we observe two ‘silent ideologies’ that suppress this policy perspective of the democracy of action. We call these the silent ideologies of ‘professional centralism’ and of ‘instrumental support’; we claim that in practice these ideologies enable the dominance of professionals over citizen initiatives (and nót that of the citizens). Second we state that the policy perspective of the democracy of action itself contains a silent ideology: it assumes a highly depoliticized form of citizenship. In the short term, this may be convenient for administrators and policy makers but in the long run this can lead to a less democracy because the voices of critical citizens are not heard.

Values like quality of life, efficiency of services, solidarity in finances and privacy of clients are being compromised continuously in daily practices, inspired by opinions and ideology of (groups of) individuals. Yet, systems like healthcare are dominated by technocratic procedures to enforce transparency and efficiency. This functional rationality pushes away the more fundamental debates on values. This doesn’t mean they are not being compromised, but it’s done in a hidden way. It’s the nurse taking decisions on the amount of time available for a patient. Although restricted by procedures nurses compromise differently. The same counts for healthcare executives in their boardrooms. Restricted by system requirements they take decisions differently, inspired by their convictions. It is all ‘hidden ideology’ in institutions, interactions and intuitions. Even the political arena is imprisoned by the self made technocratic way of debating and deciding on important societal issues. Political debates should be about the values behind procedures instead of technocratic in its essence. Critical checks and balances have to be reinstalled (or reanimated) in political decision making in order to do this and meet patients’ or citizens’ needs, instead of maintaining a procedural attitude that drives politics and ideology away from society.