In a column a journal editor or an author expresses his or her opinion on a particular subject.

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

The lessons learned from the financial crisis are not necessarily limited to the financial sector. Both the financial sector and the public sector have to deal with perverse effects. The effects can be related to a reduction of complexity and plurality through introducing (oversimplified and one dimensional) models and financial incentives. However, in doing this, complexity and plurality are often lost: the neglect of multiple interests, goal replacement and too much focus on short term results. As a consequence perverse effects arise.
Public sectors and organizations face internal and external pressure to act as they do. At the level of organizations or groups this may involve groupthink; at institutional level uniformity is promoted by the dynamics of isomorphism. This article is a critique on simplification and a plea for the (re)introduction of plurality. More specifically, we stress the importance of individual moral responsibility as a resource for and a way to preserve plurality. Not because that is the only option, but because it is an option that we believe deserves more attention. Other options such as changing regulations and changing the structure of supervision are already broadly discussed. We want to draw attention to the individual as parts of multiple organizations and systems. Individuals are therefore a natural carrier of multiplicity and plurality. Taking moral responsibility serious is not an easy task, but a meaningful step towards awareness of perverse effects due to reduction of complexity and plurality.

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

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

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.

Innovation is a popular theme in society as well as in public administration. This essay focuses on innovations that take place within the realm of the public sector. How can these innovations be developed and what do we know about their adoption and diffusion? Is it possible to steer these innovations and if so, how can it be done? Based on analyses of recent scientific insights, Bekkers, Edelenbos and Steijn (2011) plea for an incremental adaptive evolutionary public innovation strategy. Within the framework of such a strategy, innovation has to be directed towards increasing the connective capacity within government. Also, the specific, political character of the public sector as the context of innovation has to be acknowledged. Furthermore, it is also important to find a balance between the logic of consequentiality and the logic of appropriateness. Based on dissertations by Huijboom (2010), Korteland (2011) and Oosterbaan (2012) the meaning of this evolutionary strategy for public sector organizations is explored.

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.

Over the last decades an increasing number of mergers and acquisitions between Dutch healthcare organizations has taken place (up scaling). More recently there is a rise in the numbers of new small-scale healthcare organizations and small-scale care facilities (down scaling in the numbers). The wide variety of scales, each with its pros, cons and (historical) contexts, makes the existence of one optimal scale an illusion. Our research question is: when, and on the basis of which values, is scale of healthcare organizations legitimate? We answer this question by analyzing 650 newspaper articles from fourteen national newspapers. By using theory about legitimacy and values, we argue that five values underlie the public discussion on scale: governance, the human size, quality of care, market power and efficiency. We conclude that achieving legitimate scale involves dealing with those five values, which are not always commensurable and sometimes conflicting. With this article we contribute to the scientific debate about scale and values. We also give recommendations to policy makers and executives that can be used to improve the legitimacy of scale decisions.

Over the last decade educational regulation has changed dramatically. Attempts to develop more cost-efficient regulation and to reduce the regulatory burden paralleled an increased focus on student achievement and sanctioning of failing schools. Additionally, the Inspectorate of Education holds school boards (instead of school principals) accountable for the quality development of their schools. Also, a change in legislation now requires schools to establish an internal supervisory board and improve their accountability to stakeholders.

These changes greatly impact the role of the Dutch Education Inspectorate as they are placed in a polycentric, instead of a monocentric, steering context. This article discusses the new position and role of the Dutch Education Inspectorate and evaluates the extent to which the educational sector and the Inspectorate of Education meet the requirements of such a polycentric context.

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.

Problems with the rivers were the incentive to change Dutch flood safety policy in 2000. ‘A different approach to water’ became the new policy slogan. Government presumes that public engagement in decision-making on flood safety will lead to more water awareness and risk aware behaviour. ‘No or hardly any negative side-effects’ are expected from this strategy. However, our research shows that public engagement in flood safety decision-making leads to fierce policy contestation, since proposed solutions do not meet the safety perception of local citizens. ‘A different approach to water’ strategy does not resonate in Dutch society because most people are convinced that government guarantees water safety. In this article we explain that this so-called ‘myth of water safety’ is based on a deep frame of risk control. We argue that flood safety needs to be reframed and that a new frame should be based on acceptance of vulnerability instead of risk control.

This article explores the role of frames about the future in policy reform, by analysing Dutch debates about population ageing and their impact on welfare policies in the period from 2000 until 2008 as a case study. Mapping the debates around ageing in the Netherlands, the article demonstrates that frames are a powerful force in the policy process. Diverging frames about the future enable fundamental changes of deeply embedded policy institutions. The case study shows the process of argumentation about the future that took place between 2000 and 2008, and reflects upon the frames about the future that were of crucial importance in bringing temporary closure to the controversy over the proper response to the demographic shift, which then lead to several important and rather strong changes in institutions of welfare state policies and fiscal policies.