Suchergebnisse

In 2016 maakten de Adviesraad voor Wetenschap, Technologie en Innovatie (AWTI), de Koninklijke Nederlandse Akademie van Wetenschappen (KNAW) en het Rathenau Instituut een balans op van de wetenschap in Nederland: 'De overheid streeft naar een maximale impact van het wetenschappelijk onderzoek. Het begrip valorisatie staat daarbij centraal (…) In toenemende mate wordt de nadruk gelegd op het belang van publiek-publieke samenwerking, en kennis co-creatie bij onderzoek gericht op maatschappelijke uitdagingen' (AWTI, KNAW & Rathenau Instituut, 2016, p. 23-24). Hieruit blijkt dat de wetenschap zich in een snel ontwikkelende wereld begeeft, waarbij aansluiting bij maatschappelijke ontwikkelingen – door samenwerking en valorisatie van wetenschappelijke kennis – steeds belangrijker wordt. Barbara Fawcett en Rosalie Pockett beschrijven in hun boek Turning Ideas into Research soortgelijke ontwikkelingen.

In this chapter, one of the oldest challenges faced by governments is explored. Beginning with an examination of why coordination has remained such a dominant theme in public administration and management, the chapter surveys classical and more recent scholarship on the topic, and unpacks its multiple and increasingly diverse meanings and conceptualizations. As part of this study, coordination is considered in relation to process, management practice, and policy. The dominant basis mechanisms for coordination measures chosen by governments are then presented, followed by the obstacles and challenges to successful coordination within and across all levels of government. The chapter concludes with coordination considered in a multi-level EU context.

AbstractThe extent to which public organizations contribute to crosscutting policy programs is a question of organizational commitment, resource allocation, and monitoring. In this paper, we triangulate survey and interview data to study the explanatory power of organizational factors to understand the extent of organizational adaptation to crosscutting policy programs. In line with the hypotheses, the organizational task, culture, and the portfolio minister's level of control seem to explain the extent of adaptation. Policy development as a task has a positive effect on organizational adaptation. However, this effect disappears if we add cultural variables. The second model indicates that a customer-oriented culture has a negative effect on organizational adaptation, and an innovation-oriented culture has a positive one. The portfolio minister's level of control has a strong positive effect on organizational adaptation. Apparently, incentives are needed to hold organizations accountable and provide them clear direction regarding their contribution to crosscutting objectives.

The topic of policy integration has become an important component of several distinct lines of policy research. However, the concept of policy integration is notoriously difficult to specify and observe. This article provides valuable insights that explore the subjectivity of responses by political and administrative officials at the local level charged with policy integration. In response to its central question: 'How do local politicians and civil servants perceive politico-administrative barriers facing policy coordination and integration?' the study reveals political and managerial perceptions of key politicians and civil servants in local governments about the barriers to achieving policy integration.
By contrast with other studies involving politico-administrative relations, it draws on a broader institutional context, inclusive of the complex and dynamic environment and local level environment. Its findings show that significant barriers to coordination and integration continue to limit the policy coordination and integration needed to address complex societal challenges.
Using Q methodology, three perspectives emerge which provide crucial insights into the main barriers preventing integration. These findings adeptly depict the complex relationship between vertical, hierarchical relationships between politicians and bureaucrats, and the requirement for a more horizontal, consensual relationship in order to meet crosscutting societal challenges.
In this way, the article offers a significant contribution to the scholarship on policy integration.

Despite the growing attention given to community‐based initiatives in the delivery of public services, little is known about their durability. This article focuses on Dutch community enterprises (CEs) as an emerging form of community‐based initiatives in urban regeneration. Due to their self‐organizing and (largely) voluntary character, CEs face considerable governance challenges to sustain activities over time. Based on the literature, we examine the interplay of four key conditions in relation to their durability: social capital, entrepreneurial community leadership, supportive relationships with institutional key players and a strong business model. Based on an fsQCA of 12 cases, the main conclusion is that the presence of social capital, strong entrepreneurial leadership and a strong business model is the most important configuration leading to a durable CE. Government support is not found to be a necessary or sufficient condition, but its absence is part of the explanation of non‐durability.

AbstractA crucial challenge for the coordination of horizontal policy programs—those designed to tackle crosscutting issues—is how to motivate government organizations to contribute to such programs. Hence, it is crucial to study how practitioners in implementing organizations view and appreciate the coordination of such programs. Assisted by Q‐methodology, this inductive study reveals three significantly different "images": central frame setting, networking via boundary spanners, and coordination beyond window dressing. Most surprisingly, different images show up among respondents within the same organizations and horizontal programs. The authors find that the images reflect elements of the literature: the resistance to hierarchical central control, the need for local differentiation and increased incentives, and a collaboration‐oriented culture. Most importantly, practitioners of implementing organizations perceive top‐down mechanisms as ineffective to achieve coordination and ask for adaptive arrangements, involvement, and deliberative processes when designing coordination arrangements and during the collaboration.

Both theory and practice increasingly argue that creating green infrastructure in order to make cities climate-proof requires joint public service delivery across the green infrastructure's lifecycle. Accordingly, citizen participation in each green infrastructure project stage is required, but the type of participation may differ. So far, limited research has been conducted to detangle how participation in green infrastructure projects is operationalised along the different project stages. This article, therefore, presents a comparative case study of nine European green infrastructure projects, in which we aim to determine: (1) how participatory ambitions may differ across green infrastructure project phases; and (2) which instruments are used to realise the participatory ambitions for each phase and whether these instruments differ across stages. The cases demonstrate different participation ambitions and means in the three project phases distinguished in this article (i.e., design, delivery, and maintenance). The design and maintenance stages resulted in high participation ambitions using organisational instruments (e.g., living labs, partnerships with community groups) and market-based instruments (e.g., open calls). In the delivery phase, participation ambitions decreased significantly in our cases, relying on legal instruments (e.g., statutory consultation) and communicative instruments (e.g., community events). Altogether, our exploratory study helps to define participation across the green infrastructure lifecycle: Early stages focus on creating shared commitment that legitimises the green infrastructure, while later stages are also driven by instrumental motives (lowering management costs). Although theory argues for profound participation in the delivery stage as well, our cases show the contrary. Future research can assess this discrepancy.

Local governments are increasingly considering blue and green infrastructure (BGI) in order to climate-proof cities. Because BGI can have multiple benefits beyond climate adaptation, policy integration is required. Since drainage services have traditionally been within the remit of a single department, this is new territory for water management. This article provides a dynamic perspective on the messy process of policy integration 'on the ground' in two BGI projects in Dordrecht, NL and Bradford, UK. Drawing on interviews with key actors involved in the cases, our research question is: How are ambitions to integrate policies resulting in multi-functional BGI projects? While previous research typically defines organisational structures as barriers for policy integration, our findings demonstrate instances of actors who are successfully navigating these structures as a route towards policy integration. Nevertheless, we found that actors who push for BGI lack resources and authority, so they mainly rely on more voluntary forms of policy integration that involve concerted action over a number of years. Overall, our cases demonstrate that space for policy integration exists and powerful agencies are sympathetic to this, but more support is needed to achieve this mandate.