Martijn van der Steen

Understanding the Dynamics of Open Data: From Sweeping Statements to Complex Contextual Interactions

This chapter challenges existing impact assessments of open data in the public sector for three reasons: (1) the exclusive focus on economic effects of open data and not on other desirables such as a clean environment, good education, equitable health care, etc.; (2) the assumed linear relation between open data and impacts that ignores the dynamics of the interactions between the various stakeholders that may result in unpredictable and unforeseeable outcomes; (3) the homogeneous perspective on open data in the public sector that fails to acknowledge the variation of open data incentives, practices and consequences between countries and business sectors. As an alternative to “naive impact assessments,” this chapter develops an approach that embraces the complexity and contextuality of societal dynamics and takes a variety of values and desirables into account. We argue that whether open data delivers its “promise” depends on specific, local interactions that can be managed and controlled to a limited extent. Open data and its uses should be studied as social constructions that emerge over time in a specific context. We use two cases—open data in public transportation and in policing—to show the use of our perspective. For policy makers the complexity, contextuality, and multi-value approach means that they should shift their focus from working on “grand open data designs” to facilitating and promoting smart, local, pluralistic approaches to open data.

Joined-Up Government in The Netherlands: Experiences with Program Ministries

Over the last 15 years there have been many experiments with joined-up (also known as whole of) government practices, aimed at horizontal coordination to overcome the fragmentation of vertical governmental structures due to departmentalism and New Public Management. These practices were initiated to address wicked problems and to better interact with society at large. Now that there are signs that the rhetoric of joined-up government is winding down and many joined-up government developments are being dismantled, it is time to evaluate this approach. This is especially appropriate as some suggest that the overall impact of these developments may be relatively small, despite (overly) optimistic claims made in the past. In this article we take experiences with joined-up government in the Netherlands as the departing point for a critical discussion of this approach. By comparing the Dutch experiences with those in other countries, we will draw a picture of the challenges and dilemmas of horizontal coordination in the vertical world of government.

EV Policy Compared: An International Comparison of Governments’ Policy Strategy Towards E-Mobility

This paper addresses and explores the different strategies governments pursue to support the introduction of plug-in hybrid electric vehicles (PHEVs) and battery electric vehicles (BEVs). This paper presents findings from a European research project that mapped current policies in eight countries, with California as a comparative case to contrast the European findings. The authors analysed the policy strategies that countries have put to practice and analyse how they have performed so far. Arguably, many countries appear to be on track to achieving their short-term goals; in that sense, EV policy is successful. However, once the longer term policy goals for e-mobility are taken into account, it is unlikely that the current policies will be sufficient. Therefore, the authors point out some lessons from current policies that may show a route into the next phase of the introduction of e-mobility. The paper is part of the Interreg e-mobility North Sea Region (E-Mobility NSR) partnership project, which is co-funded by the EU and participating countries/regions/organisations.

The responsiveness of social policies. Explaining institutional change in three policy domains

This article analyses and explains the responsiveness of social policies by comparing the impact of institutional logics, public preferences and external conditions on the evolution of three social policy domains in the Netherlands. It focuses on the institutional development of the policy domains of social assistance, labour market regulation and sheltered work over the last 15 years. The article integrates exogenous and endogenous explanations for institutional change. It shows that the analysis and explanation of processes of institutional evolution require in-depth analysis of the interaction between public preferences, the institutional logic and external conditions of the policy domains. Points for practitioners Many countries in the world are currently reforming their welfare states. Often these reform processes are designed according to institutional logic: the ideas and opinions of important internal stakeholders. Moreover, the decision to start a reform is also taken from the internal institutional perspective. This article highlights the importance of taking external conditions into account in processes of institutional reform. It shows how three different logics can and should be combined in designing and implementing reform processes and illustrates this by comparing three cases of institutional reform in the Dutch welfare state.

Exploring the future through creative competition: the RWS2020‐project

Purpose – This paper aims to argue that utilising foresight becomes a more useful tool to organisational management, if the innovative technique of “creative competition” is applied. In an empirical analysis, it seeks to show how the technique of creative competition was used in a scenario‐project. The case study shows how and why the technique of creative competition “worked”. These findings will then be used to explore the broader application of creative competition in organisational foresight.Design/methodology/approach – The study first elaborates theoretically on the difference between “forecast” and “foresight” and explores how the addition of the organisational dimension to these terms changes their meanings. It then focuses on the organisation that commissioned the study – Rijkswaterstaat – and describes its history with respect to exploring the future and certain other relevant contextual elements of the case study, such as how the project was organised. After that, it conceptualises the RWS2020 ...

When Citizens Take Matters into Their Own Hands

Citizens have begun to take public matters into their own hands and establish their own communities. They have self-defined rules and norms, separated from what is regularly defined as the public arena but are still included in a more general framework of societal rules. The public sphere in these domains has become privatized, in the sense that others are excluded from it and social interaction is regulated in private contracts between individuals, or between individuals and actors other than the state. The trend of citizens organizing public matters privately and opting out of certain shared public institutions poses ethical questions for representative democracy and for society as a whole. What does it mean for society if these practices of self-government keep growing in number and size? Are there lessons to be learned from self-government in local communities?

Complex causality in improving underperforming schools: A complex adaptive systems approach

textabstractWhen designing and implementing policies, policy makers usually assume linear, proportionate causation between interventions and consequences. Yet frequently unexpected consequences occur that seem unintended and disproportionate. This article argues that interventions are more appropriately understood as loops, not lines. System dynamics shows that causes and consequences interact in circular patterns, creating unexpected outcomes and self-reinforcing mechanisms. Some loops are vicious, causing deterioration of the situation, others are virtuous, propelling self-sustaining improvements that exceed original intentions. The article illustrates the circular approach to causality by applying it to interventions aimed at the improvement of the performance of primary schools in the Netherlands.

Public Managers, Media Influence, and Governance: Three Research Traditions Empirically Explored

Nowadays, media and media logic have become important and inherent elements in everyday practices of public administration and policy making. However, the logic of the media is often very different from, and conflicting with, the logic of political and administrative life. So the question of how public managers experience and deal with media attention is more relevant than ever. An analytical sketch of the literature on the relationship between public managers and media provides three main categories of literature (public relations, agenda, and mediatization tradition). These three categories are used to develop statements (so-called Q-sort statements) to capture the way public managers experience their relationship with the media. A group of managers involved in oversight then sorted these statements into order of preference. The research reveals three different groups of managers who show different attitudes to media attention and whom we have labeled as adaptors, great communicators, and fatalists.

How to see failure: Attempts by the Inspectorate of Education to detect and disarm failure in Dutch education policy

This article looks at policy failure in systems that rely on highly autonomous organizations to deliver the services promised in the policy programs. We argue that in order to better understand success and failure in such systems, the existing categories of policy failure and organizational failure do not suffice. Therefore, we look at the ability of agents assigned to that task to effectively act in the relation in-between the system level and the level of individual organizations. This brings to the fore another type of failure – governance failure – the inability of a policy system to timely detect and asses looming failure in individual parts. It is helpful to apply a lens of interactive complexity to these systems and to look at causal loops rather than causal lines. We apply this perspective to a case of the Inspectorate of Education, to study how it dealt with three cases of looming failure in schools. The perspective of causal loops helped the Inspectorate to understand in hindsight how two schools collapsed, and it was then used proactively to intervene in a third school. The paper helps practitioners to better deal with failure in layered policy and sets an agenda for further research into the use of circular dynamics for policy analysis and intervention.

The responsiveness of social policies in Europe : the Netherlands in comparative perspective

Preface Introduction Responsive policies in contested welfare states? A framework for analysing policy responsiveness The responsiveness of social assistance policies The responsiveness of labour migration policies The responsiveness of sheltered work policies Conclusions: The responsiveness of social policies in three domains.