Over the last four years, one in five Dutch aldermen was forced to step down involuntarily. Drawing on a survey among the 2018 population of these local political-executives, the article evaluates office holders’ self-perceived authority in four authorizing environments, that is the municipal council, the municipal board, among civil servants, and among citizens. The results show that, contrary to the authority-crisis thesis, Dutch aldermen perceive quite a high level of authority overall. Current office holders name trustworthiness as their main source of authority, followed by their personal style in executing their tasks and their moral leadership. This finding illustrates the individualization of contemporary authority at the expense of institutional and positional sources of authority.

During the last ten years, the private rental sector in the Netherlands has experienced a rapid growth. In the larger cities, this sector grew with 30 percent, mainly as a result of the large amount of private persons operating as small scale landlords (buy-to-let). This article reflects on the findings of a recent report on the nature of the buy-to-let sector in the Netherlands, carried out by Manuel Aalbers, Jelke Bosma, Rodrigo Fernandez and Cody Hochstenbach. This takes their findings as a starting point, and positions the Dutch private rental sector in an internationally comparative perspective. Furthermore, this article explains the rise of the buy-to-let sector not just from a housing market point of view, but from a welfare state perspective. In different European countries, the private rental sector plays a different role in the housing market, which impacts on the availability and affordability of housing in urban areas. Moreover, rental income for buy-to-let or small-scale private landlords can be seen as part of the provision of welfare. For some it is a pension arrangement, for others a speculative investment. This article reflects on the policy recommendations that Aalbers cum suis propose in their report. To what extent are their proposals able to increase the availability and affordability of housing, without undermining the livelihood of landlords for whom the rental incomes function as social security arrangement?