Pieter J. Klok

A Classification of Instruments for Environmental Policy

The purpose of this chapter is to develop a classification of the instruments for environmental policy. Of course the intention to classify instruments is not new and many attempts have been made already. In our view most of these previous attempts suffer from one or more of the following shortcomings: n n nThe instruments are classified according to one or a few differentiating characteristics, neglecting characteristics that the instruments have in common. As an example one can think of the omnipresent distinction made between ‘regulative’ and ‘financial’ or ‘economic’ instruments, that neglects the fact that almost all regulative instruments have financial or comparable elements (sanctions) and the fact that almost all financial instruments are formulated in terms of legal rules (Klok, 1991); n n nThe classifications concentrate on elaborate and more or less systematic schemes for more traditional instruments (like regulative and economic instruments), without developing a comparably systematic scheme for instruments that have come into discussion more recently (like different forms of communication, consensus building and institutional (re)arrangements); n n nThe classifications are more or less closed systems, that have considerable trouble incorporating new instruments that arise from the occasional shows of creativity on the part of political or scientific actors.

Rebuilding Roombeek An Institutional Analysis of Interactive Governance in the Context of a Representative Democracy

On May 13th 2000 a major explosion in a fireworks storage depot demolished an entire urban area called Roombeek in the city of Enschede.1 Twenty-two residents were killed, hundreds were injured, well over 1500 people were displaced because their homes were destroyed and well over 200 firms were forced to relocate. Even within the first weeks after the disaster a clear consensus emerged on the principle that the redevelopment of the devastated area should allow the victims ‘maximum feasible participation’ in the planning process. This paper provides an institutional analysis to evaluate the strengths and weaknesses of this participatory or interactive mode of governance.

The roles councillors play

Local councillors find themselves in an interesting position in local government. In the traditional model of representative democracy, the council is pivotal in an electoral chain of command (Dearlove 1973). On the one hand they are elected to represent the citizens in their municipality, transforming citizens’ preferences into local policy (Denters 2005). Here the main task of the councillor is to ensure responsiveness vis-a-vis the local citizens (De Groot, Denters and Klok 2010). On the other hand they have to make sure that actors in other positions in local government (the executive and the administration) act in accordance with the citizens’ preferences.

Institutionalism: State Models and Policy Processes

Many approaches and theories have been developed to understand and to explain policy processes, policy outcomes and policy effects. Since the 1950s theories based on contextualism (the view that policy and politics are subordinated to exogenous forces), utilitarism (the idea that policy politics revolve around choice rather than interpretation), instrumentalism (the idea that outcomes are more important than symbols and processes) and functionalism (the search for efficient outcomes and organizations) have predominated the scholarly debate in the field of public administration (Grendstad and Selle, 1995). Most of these theories take as starting point the calculative means-ends rationality of the rational choice approach, which considers a choice rational if, by this choice, a maximum goal accomplishment can be realized, given the goal in question and the actual world as it is (Dahl and Lindblom, 1953). In the 1980s the dominance of rational approaches was challenged by the new institutionalism in the social sciences. Generally, institutions can be considered as ‘the working rules of society’ (Ostrom, 1990: 51), whereas government institutions can be defined as systems of collectively binding working rules, which are pivotal for co-ordinating collective decision making.

Councillor attitudes to ‘interactive’ governance. Evidence from a survey in five Dutch urban municipalities

With the notable exception of Switzerland (see Butzer 2007; Ladner 2005), local government in western democratic systems traditionally has been based on a model of representative democracy. In this model a key role is reserved for the members of a directly elected municipal council who are made responsible for translating the needs and demands of citizens into binding collective decisions. These decisions are subsequently implemented under the council’s scrutiny by the executive branch of local government.