Filip De Rynck

A framework for assessing the performance of policy networks

Abstract This article deals with the question of how to assess policy network performance. We propose three dimensions of policy network performance (production, process, and regime) that are derived from both performance and network literature. Each of these dimensions can be linked to the costs of policy networks. The framework goes beyond the one-dimensional new public management conceptualization of performance that focuses on efficiency and effectiveness. A policy network assessment needs to take into account other public principles such as democratic quality and capacity building.

When strategic plans fail to lead : a complexity acknowledging perspective on decision-making in urban development projects : the case of Kortrijk (Belgium)

Nowadays, cities formulate long-term strategies to address the challenges and opportunities they face. Numerous strategic plans or planning instruments are developed for this purpose. In this article, we would like to examine the role, impact and relevance of these types of plans in decision-making processes concerning urban development projects (UDPs) in the Flemish Region of Belgium. To what extent do strategic plans succeed in capturing and steering the complexity of spatial interventions in contemporary urban contexts? We argue that a complexity-acknowledging perspective provides a more realistic and adequate view here by seeing strategic plans as only one among many elements in the set of tangled inter- and intrastrategic processes which together determine UDPs. A comparative and qualitative case study was carried out in the city of Kortrijk. The decision-making of three UDPs was studied thoroughly. Interviewing key actors and analysing policy documents helped us to (re)construct the complex decision-making processes and to stipulate the meaning of all involved formal plans and planning tools.

Contextualising City-regional Issues, Strategies and their Use: the Flemish Story

Abstract This paper presents a contextualised analysis of what might be called the city-regional debate. The debate is unfolded in terms of four types of city-regional issues, eight common strategies to tackle the latter and the use thereof in Flanders. It is concluded that the way in which city-regional issues are dealt with in Flanders can be explained by its regime, consisting of an administrative, political and cultural dimension, in terms of a centralistic policy style combined with a weak institutional position of local governments, by a ‘localisation’ of regional politics and policies, both dominated by an anti-urban bias.

Designing Democratic Institutions for Collaborative Economic Development: Lessons from Belgian and Dutch Cases

Collaborative approaches to local economic development have developed in a number of European countries and other advanced economies (Giguere, in this volume). These take economic development from within public bureaucracies and relocate it to new organisational forms based on co-production between government and business, sometimes with the additional involvement of civil society associations and citizens. The resulting structures include quasi-autonomous public agencies, public–private partnership companies, multi-organisational boards and community-based organisations for neighbourhood regeneration, often operating in a multi-level environment of overlapping jurisdictions (Ansell, 2000; Heinelt and Kubler, 2005; Sullivan and Skelcher, 2002). The rationale for taking economic development out of the public bureaucracy is that it enables greater flexibility in approach because of the reduction of direct political oversight, and enhances policy design and implementation because of the engagement of non-state actors (Considine, in this volume).

Opening the black box of metagovernance: The roles of central government in local multilevel networks – the case of the local job centers in Flanders

In this article, we use the concept of metagovernance to explore how local service delivery networks involving public and private partners are shaped and managed by different governments involved. We address the following questions: What is the governance mix in cases of centrally designed local networks, with different public authorities involved in the network and focused on coordinated service delivery? How does that governance mix match the concept of metagovernance as we know it? What does this complexity of relationships and governing styles tell us about the self-governing capacity of local service delivery networks? We bring in the case of the local job centers in Flanders to deal with these questions empirically. We demonstrate the governance instrument mix used by the metagovernors, how dominant one public actor actually is in the network, and the effect thereof on the network dynamics. We also conclude that we need to rethink the concept of metagovernance when analyzing local multilevel networks.

Will Mandated Network Steering do the Trick? A Balanced Assessment of the Belgian Network “Crossroads Bank for Enterprises”

This article assesses and explains the performance of the Belgian network of the Crossroads Bank for Enterprises (CBE), representing the mandated “network administrative organization form” (Kenis and Provan, 2009). We address the following questions: To what degree is the mandated network able to reduce the complexity that arises from the fragmented nature of public service delivery? Does the hierarchical nature of the mandate help to obtain the desired production, process, and regime performance? What is the impact of the hybrid nature of the arrangement on the performance? Could this analysis help us to improve the performance assessment of types of networks? To cope with these questions, we apply the framework of Voets et al. (2010) to the case of the CBE. Although partly successful and effective, the network did not generate the desired outputs. Explanations for the lack of performance are found in the complex process of interacting network dimensions.This article assesses and explains the performance of the Belgian network of the Crossroads Bank for Enterprises (CBE), representing the mandated “network administrative organization form” (Kenis and Provan, 2009). We address the following questions: To what degree is the mandated network able to reduce the complexity that arises from the fragmented nature of public service delivery? Does the hierarchical nature of the mandate help to obtain the desired production, process, and regime performance? What is the impact of the hybrid nature of the arrangement on the performance? Could this analysis help us to improve the performance assessment of types of networks? To cope with these questions, we apply the framework of Voets et al. (2010) to the case of the CBE. Although partly successful and effective, the network did not generate the desired outputs. Explanations for the lack of performance are found in the complex process of interacting network dimensions.

The democratic character of new institutional governance arrangements: comparing Dutch and Belgian experiences

Governance networks create a problem of disconnection to clear principles of democratic legitimacy. This raises two questions: - to what extent is this involvement a threat to the classical politicial legitimacy by representative institutions? - how is the involvement of these actors democratically legitimized? This chapter examines two institutional arrangements that have been designed and emerged in two governance networks around economic developments: he Ghent Kanaalzone in Belgium and the development of the expansion of the port of Rotterdam in the Netherlands. We are especially interested in the question how these institutional arrangements reconnect actors and decision-making processes to democratic criteria of decision-making and the classical representation institutions. An analytical framework for examining institutional arrangements of governance networks is presented. This is followed by an examination of the way that problems of democratic governance have been managed empirically. Both cases illustrate how democratic decision making institutions developed over a period of more than 10 years. The chapter concludes with a discussion of the implications of the analysis for both policy makers and researchers.