Michiel A. Heldeweg

Energy policy by beauty contests: the legitimacy of interactive sustainability policies at regional levels of the regulatory state

BackgroundTo achieve the ambition of the energy transition in the built environment, Dutch local governments try to motivate citizens to participate as communities in policy processes. There is a general expectation that such an interactive approach will foster a more rational policy output and will create stronger support from citizens towards policy outcomes. The emphasis put on this output-outcome effectiveness should not eclipse another major criterion of government policy- and decision-making and implementation: the legitimacy of political authority. Major building blocks of such legitimacy are the principles of liberal democracy and of the rule of law. The aim of this contribution is to identify safeguards for a legitimate exercise of political authority in interactive regional governance initiatives.MethodsThe empirical data about ‘Sustainable Community Overijssel’ is gathered by document study, including research reports, policy plans, and project documents, and by studying recent publications and news items. The analysis uses Beetham’s multidimensional approach of legitimacy as point of departure.ResultsBeetham’s legitimacy dimensions are elaborated upon from a liberal democracy viewpoint and a regulatory state pragmatic choice between various institutional environments. From this, legitimacy dimensions of ‘shared values’ and ‘consent’ emerge as most sensitive to interactive policy-making, necessitating proper safeguards, safeguards with relevance to the legitimacy of initiatives such as Sustainable Community Overijssel.ConclusionsLegitimacy is never a given standard, it may be designed into structures and ambitions, but it will still need to be achieved by proper practice. This is certainly the case in projects concerning sustainability challenges of which effective solutions are by no means clear and readily deployable. The Overijssel case should be seen as one of many interesting cases towards evidence-based effective and legitimate policy practices.

Good Legal Governance in Authoritative Public-Private Partnerships

The discourse on Public Private Partnerships (PPP) is focused most on Procurement or on what we name ‘Market-PPP’. Placing PPP in the shift from government to governance calls for attention especially to those PPP, which are geared to exercise public legal powers. These ‘Authoritative PPP’ are most likely to come with tensions between private party involvement and public interest legitimacy. In this article, public legitimacy is analysed primarily on the basis of work done by David Beetham, and complemented with Public Law considerations concerning the legitimate exercise of legal powers and law on public organizat.

Legal Design of Smart Rules and Regimes: Regulating Innovation

The concept of ‘smart rules and regimes’ aims to focus attention on legal instruments that foster technological innovation while providing safeguards against technological risks.