Collaboration between public actors and social partners is becoming increasingly important as an administrative solution for complex societal challenges in health care, spatial development, mobility management or water management. In this article we focus on the relationship between the central Flemish government and local networks that are set up by this government. In the scientific literature much attention is paid to the concept of metagovernance as analytical perspective to analyze the relationship between the government and networks. The concept offers the government a toolbox with roles and instruments from which it can choose to support and stimulate networks in order to achieve the desired network results. However, our research shows that such an approach is not sufficient to capture the relationship between the central government and local mandated networks in Flanders. We argue for a broader interpretation of the concept of metagovernance, in which the dynamics of local networks are viewed as the outcome of power relations between actors that are represented at both local and central level and that are intertwined with each other. Only in this way will we we understand why certain choices are made about local mandated networks, why local networks show a lack of dynamism and why local actors in local networks also do not want local networks to become more dynamic and effective. We do notice that the pressure on these arrangements is increasing, partly due to new actors who are not involved in these arrangements.

During a disaster or crisis, the response capacity of the government is put under extreme pressure. At the same time, citizens are often resilient in times of crisis and are increasingly capable of organizing themselves. Social media and online platforms have increased the possibilities for self-organization through improved connectivity. In practice, we see that governments struggle to deal with this form of self-organization, while it also offers a unique opportunity to increase the response capacity. The smart use of citizens’ initiatives offers opportunities and can increase the effectiveness of the government’s action. This article focuses on the following question: what role do online platforms play in smartly guiding the self-organization of citizens during crises and disasters? We answer the question on the basis of two examples: the role of online platforms in the aftermath of the earthquakes in Nepal in 2015, and the coordination of the reception of refugees during the crisis in the Netherlands in the winter of 2015-2016.

In the Netherlands, the Dutch government public private partnerships (PPP) using DBFMO contracts has become the default option for realizing complex public infrastructures. DBFMO contracts imply the integrated outsourcing of the design (D), building (B), financing (F), the maintenance (M), and also often the exploitation (O) of projects to private actors. The general idea is that by bundling public and private resources, the increasing complexity of today’s public infrastructure projects can be tackled more easily. However, reality is contumacious. As a consequence of several problems related to DBFMO collaborations, the Dutch highway and water management agency Rijkswaterstaat and several private actors recently put forward a new market vision. This vision is a call to reinvent the dominant collaboration practice between public and private actors: relational aspects should be central. In managing projects, more attention should be given to the quality of relations, attitudes, openness and trust. Recent research confirms that the success of DBFMO projects is not only contingent on contractual aspects but also, and maybe even more importantly, on relational aspects. Smart governance involves a shift from the current dominant financial economic-oriented contractual approach to PPP towards a more sociologically inspired relational form of governance.

To be able to realize the ambitions of citizen participation, diversity of participants is a crucial condition. At the same time excluding groups of citizens, amongst them critical citizens, is inextricably linked with citizen participation. In this article in the series ‘Local democratic audit’, the authors wonder what the exclusion of critical citizens means for the process and outcome of citizen participation. Through two empirical studies during a spatial intervention in different municipalities in the Netherlands, they investigated how people involved in a participation process spoke about critical citizens and their manifestations. The results show that the way these critical citizens are discussed either legitimizes exclusion or questions it critically. The legitimization of exclusion is detrimental to the support for spatial intervention. The problematization of exclusion results in a responsive approach to critical citizens, which is beneficial for both the course of the participation process and for the support for the spatial intervention.

Since the start of the 21^st century, most nations have followed the lead of the World Health Organization and developed specific policies to tackle the ‘global obesity epidemic’. The medical reasoning is that non-contagious diseases are the most important causes of mortality and morbidity, especially in prosperous nations. As these diseases are conceptualized as ‘caused’ by ‘unhealthy lifestyle choices’, there is dire need for preventive lifestyle policies that help people make ‘the healthy choice’. Seen from this perspective the distribution of responsibilities between governments and their citizens is made in accordance to the ‘intervention ladder’, which has been developed from a stewardship model.
Regarding the ‘obesity epidemic’, this contribution tests the basic medical claims behind this science policy complex. We find that the knowledge base for these claims is highly uncertain and that interventions lack efficacy. Furthermore, research points to increased levels of stigmatization of ‘fat people’, leading more discrimination. All this changes the status of the policies from preventive (i.e. proportionate) to precautionary (i.e. disproportionate). Further analysis of the preventive medical and policy paradigms shows both are by default biased towards precaution. Combined with the notion that citizens of democratic societies are entitled to trustworthy and transparent information, this contribution concludes that a reorientation of both paradigms is called for.