Laurens de Graaf

The work of exemplary practitioners in neighborhood governance

In order to understand how exemplary work is done in the complex urban environment of disadvantaged neighborhoods, we studied a group of 43 individuals – civil servants, professionals and active citizens – who make a difference. Various so-called ‘exemplary practitioners’ were found in the literature and in the neighborhoods of five cities. The working methods of exemplary practitioners show a mix and a dose of entrepreneurialism, strategic networking and empathic engagement that differ from standard bureaucracy but fit very well with what is needed in disadvantaged neighborhoods. Two striking examples illustrate these working methods.In order to understand how exemplary work is done in the complex urban environment of disadvantaged neighborhoods, we studied a group of 43 individuals – civil servants, professionals and active citizens – who make a difference. Various so-called ‘exemplary practitioners’ were found in the literature and in the neighborhoods of five cities. The working methods of exemplary practitioners show a mix and a dose of entrepreneurialism, strategic networking and empathic engagement that differ from standard bureaucracy but fit very well with what is needed in disadvantaged neighborhoods. Two striking examples illustrate these working methods.

Exemplary practitioners : A review of actors who make a difference in governing

Some actors in the public sphere are excellent at what they do. Even if they could hardly do their work alone, they make a difference. This article presents a search for what are called exemplary practitioners. It describes and compares a group of six practitioners found in the literature: the reflective practitioner, the deliberative practitioner, the street-level bureaucrat, the front-line worker, the everyday maker, and the everyday fixer. It points at differences between the types and changes that occur over time. Also, the article concludes that the more recent types of identified practitioners add crucial skills to the repertoire that practitioners need to make a difference in the public sphere. In the epilogue, the researchers reflect on the research they did on the basis of the ideas in the article.

Enhancing participation in disadvantaged urban neighbourhoods

Abstract Participation in neighbourhoods is a highly valued phenomenon. Participation is the basis of a shared social life, but it also makes everyday life, and the lived experience of people participating in it, political. From a public administration perspective, governance and formal policy-making are increasingly reaching out to citizens, instead of drawing solely on representative mechanisms of local government. This paper investigates how practitioners working in disadvantaged neighbourhoods in Dutch cities enhance participation. Using empirical data from research in disadvantaged neighbourhoods in The Netherlands, the paper shows that these practitioners either start projects that connect people in their own life world or connect policy-makers and policy to initiatives on the ground. As a result, they create the opportunity for many to develop their citizenship and become a more active participant in their local communities.

Innovations in Sub-National Government in Europe

Improvement in government is often rooted in decentralised layers of government. In this article the authors discuss the recent history of innovations in sub-national government in Europe. They focus on two general trends and developments. Cases of interesting practices and developments illustrate the general trends. For each general trend a distinction is made between two kinds of innovations: structural reforms and new ways of working within existing institutional settings. The first trend concerns changing relations between government, civil society and citizens, in response to the increased contestation of the nature of traditional representative democracy. Examples of structural reforms are: increased citizen participation, the expanded use of referenda and the introduction of the directly elected mayor. New ways of working are: forms of coproduction between the public sector and the third sector. The second trend described in this article is change within government itself, mainly the rise of ‘governance’ and changing administrative scales. Structural reforms take several forms: scale enlargement to enhance system capacity, scale reduction to enhance system capacity, scale enlargement to enhance citizen effectiveness, and scale reduction to enhance citizen effectiveness. Next to them, new ways of working can be observed within governments: cross-boarder co-operations, inter-municipal co-operations, and new forms of performance assessment and fiscal management. The authors conclude the article with a few challenges to both academics and governments.

Examining citizen participation: local participatory policymaking and democracy revisited

ABSTRACT This article discusses developments in citizen participation and its contribution to democracy since the publication of the original article. It evaluates the continued relevance of the use of a normative framework to assess different forms of citizen participation, nuances some of the conclusions and shows how inclusion and a connection with formal decision-making remain central issues that need more scholarly attention. Moreover, the article shows how the framework has been used in advising councillors and organisers of local citizen initiatives.

Understanding the drama of democracy : Looking back at the Seventh International Conference in Interpretive Policy Analysis

‘It is time for a new era, a new dawn has come. We will be the world’s first Monarchist Anarchy’. With these words, an actor queen opened the Seventh International Conference in Interpretive Policy Analysis (IPA), in a theatrical way. This 2012 IPA conference was held in Tilburg from 5-7 July. The Queen was referring to the theme of the conference, Understanding the Drama of Democracy: Policy Work, Power and Transformation. Over the last 10 years, the political and administrative landscape in the Netherlands, Europe and the rest of the world has been changing radically. In Europe, there was an increasing power of populist and radical right parties. The economic crisis challenges the credibility of European governing. The Arab spring illustrates the increased voice of citizens in illiberal democracies. There is an ever growing influence of China and other ‘nonWestern’ countries on world politics and markets and so on. These are all challenges for politicians, policy-makers and other governing actors. In addition, these developments can be interpreted in a broad variety of ways. In order to understand this changed world, insight into the performative dimension of policy-making is increasingly important. The presentation and interpretation of politicians, of policy-makers, but also of arguments and of facts are of great influence on their credibility. This challenges actors involved to cross boundaries, to learn, to transform, to deal with constantly alternating power relations and, at the same time, to be perceived as authentic or trustworthy. More and more interpretive researchers study how public actors perform in practice. This means that they pay attention not just to language-oriented dimensions of practice, but also to nonlinguistic action and emotion. Moreover, it raises questions about the role of interpretive research in the mediation and transformation of different meanings, and in creating or supporting policy learning. The seventh IPA conference illustrated the wide scope of interpretive policy analysis. The pre-conference (organized for the second time at IPA) hosted 45 participants who were introduced to IPA by Dvora Yanow and were offered an in-depth account of interpretive research in three workshops (ethnography, interpretive design and discourse analysis). Around 320 people from 33 countries registered for the general conference and more than 250 papers were presented in 39 panels. The conference included two roundtables, three methodology workshops, six Authors meet their Critics and, last but not least, three keynote speakers. Prof. Dr. John Forester argued that interpretive policy analysis extends far beyond being an elective choice of academics. It is also a ‘working necessity’ for engaged policy practitioners. As he said,