Sport is traditionally governed by international sports organizations (ISOs), which are at the top of self-regulatory networks that extend further over continental and local levels. These organizations attach great importance to their autonomous functioning, making any form of government interference in their activities is studiously avoided. For decades knew the world of sports in this way to enforce his own place in society: the idea of a kind of private government activities that normally are part of the job of a political system, exercises such as the issuing of rules and sanctions and conduct various forms of social policy. This sport largely escaped the normal application of general legal standards as the labor and tax law. In addition to the hierarchical structure of the self-regulatory networks in sport those at the bottom of these networks, ie clubs and players, rarely consulted and almost never actively involved in their policy processes. Adapted from the source document.
Since the 'argumentative turn' in policy analysis scholars have increasingly focused on discourse as an explanatory factor for the analysis policy processes. This has resulted in a proliferation of rich and deep qualitative discourse-analytical studies on a vast range of policy controversies. However, these studies have two important shortcomings: firstly, they offer limited possibilities for comparative research, because they lack an objectified and standardized measuring instrument. Secondly, according to some critics, these studies do not live up to scientific standards. This article presents a method based on a combination of content analysis and social network analysis which can be complementary to qualitative approaches, in order to answer to these shortcomings. It is exemplified by a limited case study on two debates within the policy domain of transport-mobility in Flanders. The article concludes with a discussion of a number of possible applications of the method within the broader discipline of political science. Adapted from the source document.
Why did the Dutch hold on to Western New Guinea, one of the many territories that constituted the Dutch East Indies (modern-day Indonesia), when the colony became independent in 1949? This thesis argues against the traditional explanation that it was due to a singular Dutch 'decolonization trauma': an inability to let go of the glorious colonial past, combined with resentment against Indonesian nationalist leaders such as Sukarno. It shows that historians have overstated the importance of emotions in Dutch colonial policy-making and diplomacy after 1949, mainly because of their narrow scope of analysis, which has traditionally been restricted to trilateral relations between the Netherlands, independent Indonesia (which wanted to incorporate Western New Guinea, if need be with military means) and the allegedly 'anti-colonial' United States. This thesis situates Dutch decision-making in the Western New Guinea Crisis in a much wider network, incorporating the colonial policy, diplomacy and perception of other Western powers such as Britain, France, Australia, Belgium and Portugal between 1930 and 1962. It is argued that, when viewed within this network and its discourse, the Dutch decision to retain Western New Guinea is best explained with rational actor theory. The decision was inspired not so much by emotions as by cost-benefit analyses, which included the possibility of transferring the territory to a new Indonesian regime—which the Dutch expected to be more forthcoming to the interests of the Papuans, the native inhabitants of Western New Guinea, and the Dutch (economic) interests in Indonesia than the regime headed by Sukarno. Research into hitherto neglected French, Belgian, British and Dutch archives also shows that the Netherlands could count on much more support for its New Guinea policy from its Western allies—including the US—than traditional historiography suggests. It remains true that the United States forced the Netherlands to hand over Western New Guinea to Indonesia in 1962, but the Kennedy ...
In a globalized world the "foreign" aspect is getting more and more important. Despite the much talked about pros and cons, this also means that a number of unforeseen challenges should be met. Karel De Gucht, Belgium's Minister of Foreign Affairs, proposes ten theses regarding preparation and coordination of policies, civic service, communication and public diplomacy, qualification and education of its personal, a network of posts abroad, supportive material and services (informatics and security mainly). References. O. van Zijl
The Belgian politico-administrative relationship is known for its large ministerial cabinets who operate as interfaces between ministers & civil servants. According to Dierickx & Majersdorf (1994) ministerial cabinets are the central nodes in the Belgian policy-making networks, reducing the policy role of civil servants & shielding them from all relevant policy-making interactions. They found that pressure groups hardly ever turned to civil servants & stated that civil servants lived in an administrative beguinage. This article tests whether the conclusions of Dierickx & Majersdorf (1994) are still valid. Next, it seeks to explore the policy-making interactions of both actors in a more detailed way, since Dierickx & Majersdorf (1994) only measured the frequency of their contacts, not the direction, goal and/or content of the interactions. Based on a unique written survey-research among top civil servants & ministerial advisers, we discuss the role differences with regard to their interactions in four 'arenas.'. Adapted from the source document.
Objectives: In The Netherlands, school health care policy is decentralized to the municipalities and their Municipal Health Services (MHS) in 1990. Since then, an increasing diversity in school health care policy developed, which is is ill-understood, concerning the development of evidence-based public health. Methods: Case-study design in 4 MHS-regions. Documents and half-structured interviews are used as data sources. The analysis of the data is both qualitative and quantitative. Results: Many actors try to influence the policy process: MHS-internal actors like management and professionals as well as external actors like local health care providers, other municipal services, the municipalities and schools. Evidence is found of the use of scientific knowledge: 'body of knowledge' information as well as evidence from new research, of both local and (inter)national origin, mainly medical, but also social science research. Mainly School Health management and -professionals use scientific knowledge as a resource to influence the policy process. Other actors try to influence the policy process by using other resources like formal power, money or 'initiative'. The use of scientific knowledge is related to a combined (medical) scientific en political frame of reference. Conclusions: Policy formation in local public health takes place in a network of actors with mutual power-dependency-relations, using different resoures to influence the process. 'Evidence based public health' can be promoted by regarding evidence from scientific research as a resource in attempts to influence the policy formation process and the implementation of the outcomes of this process.
"The European Union is today a major player in many policy areas, going from classic economic fields as competition policy, agriculture and fisheries policy to new emergent fields as environmental policy, arterial intelligence policy, security and foreign policy and criminal justice policy. These policies comes with an increasing level of EU regulation, having also a substantive impact on the harmonization of national policies and regulations. This expansion of EU competence naturally also places new demands on their enforcement, especially when it comes to investigations with the aim of imposing punitive administrative and/or criminal sanctions. In this expanded version of his valedictory lecture Prof. Vervaele is assessing 1) to what extent the EU and its Member States have a policy on punitive enforcement in the internal market and in the Area of Freedom Security and Justice and 2) how this policy translates into the harmonization of substantive administrative and criminal law and procedural law at the national level and into the elaboration of administrative and judicial cooperation instruments and the setting up of European enforcement agencies. The assessment includes to what extent this policy takes account of the human rights obligations. Vervaele concludes with a plea for a European model for punitive law enforcement with an increased alignment between the administrative enforcement tools in the internal market and the criminal enforcement tools in the Area of Freedom, Security and Justice. In this model the national enforcement authorities are build in under a network cooperation scheme."--
In a time of social liquefaction and a network approach to governance citizens and their organizations are increasingly expected to contribute to the revitalization of society. Civil society organizations are valued and used by governments for contributing to a diverse range of public issues. Sports is one of those domains in which voluntary organizations are expected to contribute to society. A range of governments increasingly use voluntary sport clubs (VSCs) as partners for contributing to public issues, like counteracting overweight among youth, improve social integration of immigrants, improving social cohesion in neighbourhoods and activating the elderly. In this dissertation this process is conceptualized as instrumentalization. In this dissertation the construction of the instrumental role of voluntary sport clubs in municipal sport policy and the way in which two VSCs in the Dutch municipality of Utrecht enact this instrumental role are studied in depth. The dissertation has three aims. First, it aims to describe and understand the process of instrumentalization of VSCs, showing tensions between instrumentalization by government and the relative autonomous position of VSCs. Second, the dissertation aims to conceptualize instrumentalization as such. The concept is used in a range of academic subdisciplines, but has not yet been extensively conceptualized. Therefore, this dissertation provides a foundational contribution for further use of this concept. Third, the dissertation aims to contribute to the ongoing development of a more on agency oriented institutional approach, by combining two recent streams in this theory. It belongs to a very select number of studies that combine the institutional logics approach and the institutional work approach. The dissertation answers the follow research question: How do voluntary sport clubs enact the instrumentalization by governments and what does that mean for the dominant institutional logic(s) in voluntary sport clubs? The design of the study was inspired by ...
This diptych is the result of the first subproject of the study 'Steering with Space' on regional steering networks in education. In the first subproject of this study, we investigated what is meant by "the region", how the region can be conceptually, what "the region" means as an administrative scale level and how the government can use it to can steer with it. For this purpose, we did two things: firstly, we conducted a systematic international literature study and Firstly, we conducted a systematic international literature study and secondly, we analysed the government's policy discourse on the region. Secondly, we analysed the government's policy discourse on 'the region in Dutch education'. In both the literature study and the policy analysis, we proceeded openly and inductively by examining the sources - scientific (research) literature and policy documents, respectively - by allowing them to "speak for themselves" as much as possible. We did this by systematically searching for and selecting the sources, mapping their contents, ordering them, and then arriving at findings. - Dit tweeluik is de uitkomst van het eerste deelproject van de studie 'Sturen met Ruimte' naar regionale sturingsnetwerken in het onderwijs. In het eerste deelproject van deze studie zijn we nagegaan wat zoal wordt verstaan onder 'de regio', hoe de regio conceptueel kan worden afgebakend, wat 'de regio' betekent als bestuurlijk schaalniveau en hoe de overheid ermee kan sturen. Hiervoor hebben we twee dingen gedaan: ten eerste het uitvoeren van een systematische internationale literatuurstudie en ten tweede het analyseren van het beleidsdiscours van de overheid over 'de regio in het Nederlandse onderwijs'. Bij zowel de literatuurstudie als de beleidsanalyse zijn we open en inductief te werk gegaan door de bronnen – respectievelijk wetenschappelijke (onderzoeks-)literatuur en beleidsdocumenten – zoveel mogelijk zelf te laten 'spreken'. We deden dat door op een systematische manier de bronnen te zoeken en te selecteren, de inhoud ervan in kaart te brengen, die te ordenen om vervolgens tot bevindingen te komen.
How does the use of ict affect the relationship between government and its citizens? This book analyses the developments of networking information and concludes that in everyday practice an iGovernment has gradually come into existence, overtaking the old paradigm of the eGoverment. The iGoverment, effectively running at full speed on information flows and networks, is however seriously out of step with the self-image of the digital government, and the existing structure and division of responsibilities. This book is based on the report on iGovernment that the Scientific Council for Government Policy (WRR) presented to the Dutch Government in March 2011. "This book contributes powerfully to the understanding and evaluation of the development - beyond 'eGovernment' - of 'information Government', centred on highly complex flows and uses of information for public services, care and control, rather than technology itself. Sound empirical research and a concern to create better governance of iGovernment enable the authors to bring a sharply critical eye to their call for greater awareness by policy-makers, and for a strategic, reasoned and institutionalised relationship among the principles involved. These include ones that are often neglected: privacy, freedom of choice, accountability and transparency. Their recommendations are important, not only for the Netherlands". Charles D. Raab, Professor Emeritus and Honorary Professorial Fellow, University of Edinburgh "This book will be a valuable resource for researchers and scholars seeking to understand the possibilities, dilemmas and challenges of bringing the Internet and related technologies to centre stage in government and public services. It offers a fascinating case study of electronic government and 'information government' in the Netherlands, with examples from local, national and eu government, a wide-ranging literature review and a number of recommendations as to how iGovernment should develop". Helen Margetts, Professor of Society and the Internet and director of the Oxford Internet Institute, University of Oxford "Not only does this book offer an insightful analysis of the problems that ongoing digitization poses for citizens and the goverrnment itself (such as creeping loss of data quality), it also places highly valuable markers for the decisions that must be taken on the challenging path that lies ahead for iGovernment, in providing a new model for weighing up the various fundamental interests at stake". Alex Brenninkmeijer, National Ombudsman, The Netherlands - Het biometrisch paspoort, de Verwijsindex Risicojongeren, het Elektronisch Patiëntendossier, nationale en internationale gegevensuitwisseling tussen organisaties of het gebruik van digitale profielen van burgers: deze en vele andere toepassingen staan beleidsmakers en uitvoerders ter beschikking dankzij de inzet van ict. Maar wat betekent de inzet van ict in beleid en uitvoering voor de relatie tussen overheid en burgers? Wat zijn de gevolgen voor het functioneren van de overheid zelf? Hoe wordt in het proces van voortgaande digitalisering een afweging gemaakt tussen beginselen als veiligheid, privacy, efficiëntie en transparantie? In dit rapport concludeert de Wetenschappelijke Raad voor het Regeringsbeleid (wrr) dat in de dagelijkse digitale praktijk een iOverheid is ontstaan die volop 'draait' op nieuwe informatiestromen die door ict mogelijk zijn gemaakt. Die nieuwe iOverheid loopt echter flink uit de pas met de bestaande structuur en de verantwoordelijkheden van de overheid. De wrr doet in dit rapport inhoudelijke en institutionele aanbevelingen om de noodzakelijke paradigmawisseling van eOverheid naar iOverheid in goede banen te leiden.
