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This article seeks to explain the dramatic rise of Pim Fortuyn's right-wing populist party during the campaign for the parliamentary elections in the Netherlands in 2002. Fortuyn succeeded in attracting by far the most media attention of all political actors and his new party won 17 per cent of the votes. This article analyses how this new populist party managed to mobilise so much attention and support so suddenly and so rapidly. It uses the notion of ‘discursive opportunities’ and argues that the public reactions to Pim Fortuyn and his party played a decisive role in his ability to further diffuse his claims in the public sphere and achieve support among the Dutch electorate. The predictions of the effects of discursive opportunities are empirically investigated with longitudinal data from newspapers and opinion polls. To study the dynamics of competition over voter support and over space in the public debate during the election campaign, an ARIMA time-series model is used as well as a negative binomial regression with lagged variables to account for the time-series structure of the data. It is found that discursive opportunities have significantly affected the degree to which Fortuyn was successful both in the competition for voter support, and regarding his ability to express his claims in the media. Combining these two results, a dynamic feedback process is identified that can explain why a stable political situation suddenly spiralled out of equilibrium. Visibility and supportive reactions of others positively affected the opinion polls. Consonance significantly increased Fortuyn's claim-making; dissonance undermined it. Furthermore, electoral support and negative claims on the issue of immigration and integration in the media by others enhanced Fortuyn's ability to further diffuse his viewpoints and to become the main political opinion-maker during the turbulent election campaign of 2002. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Abstract: Following the example of Norway and other European Countries, such as Sweden and Denmark, in April 2007 the Dutch government started filtering and blocking web pages with child pornographic content. In this paper we present a research into the technological, legal and practical possibilities of this measure. Our study leads us to the conclusion that the deployment of filters by or on behalf of the Dutch government is not based on any founded knowledge concerning the effectiveness of the approach. Furthermore, the actions of the Dutch law enforcement authorities do not avail over legal powers to filter and block internet traffic. Consequently the Dutch filtering practice was found to be unlawful. The government could enact a law that provides the police with the relevant powers. However, child porn filters always cause a certain amount of structural overblocking, which means that the government is then engaged in structural blocking of information that is not against the law. This would be in conflict with basic rights as laid down in the European Convention on Human Rights and Fundamental Freedoms and in national legislation. Maintaining a blacklist that is serious in size (a necessary condition for being effective), and at the same time is up-to-date and error-free (which is needed to prevent overblocking), is very labour-intensive, if not impossible to maintain. From the Dutch national police policy perspective it follows that putting so much labour in maintaining a blacklist cannot be considered as a police task. Why then did the Dutch police start filtering? In a society where child pornography is judged with abhorrence, in which safety is rated higher then privacy, and in which managers and politicians frequently have a naive faith in technology, the advocates of internet filters against child pornography quickly find wide-spread support. Although this paper refers to the situation in The Netherlands, it includes a number of elements and issues that are relevant to other European States as well. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]

The article examines the structure of labor unions in welfare state and support of labor unions for welfare state development. A comparison between the development of pension provision programs for older people in the Netherlands and Great Britain following World War II is presented. Worker mobilization and the welfare state, political aspects of pension programs, and the concepts of solidarity and egalitarianism are addressed. The relationships between craft unions, industrial unions, and national governments are also explored.

In 2001 the Dutch government adopted a new policy in its Fourth National Environmental Policy Plan. Its transitions approach seeks radically more sustainable socio-technical systems, and represents an attempt to reinvigorate ecological modernisation. To explain the rise of this distinct policy storyline, a coalition of researchers and policy-makers forming the transition storyline is analysed. The interpretative flexibility of the storyline in relation to prevailing institutional priorities explains its success but also builds in limits by making subsequent institutionalisation susceptible to capture by incumbent interests, as illustrated by implementation in the energy sector. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article looks at politics in the Netherlands in 2007. A chart is presented which reviews the number of seats in the Dutch parliament held by political parties, including the Christian Democratic Party, the Labour Party, and the Christian Union. Several major issues in national politics are discussed, such as the founding of the "Proud of the Netherlands" political movement founded by Minister for Foreigners and Integration Rita Verdonk, the cabinet formation of Prime Minister Jan Peter Balkenende, and the results of provincial elections held on May 29, 2007.

Because of the managerialization of health care and the rise of health care managers, professionals and managers increasingly ‘clash’. To reduce clashes, managerial and professional domains have not only been (re)connected; they have also been restructured. Managers, in particular, have started to make sense of their own ‘professionalism’. Health care managers are professionalizing in order to cope with reform consequences. They have established professional associations, which establish educational programmes, journals, and codes of conduct, in order to define and standardize managerial work. By tracing the evolution of a new profession of Dutch health care executives, and by studying its educational underpinnings, this article will analyse whether the professionalization of managers homogenizes occupational definitions and standards. It will show that managerial education masks ideological struggles over the substance of ‘good’ health care management. Different ‘schools’ have arisen, producing heterogeneity in executive circles. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The coordination of policy networks, or network governance, poses threats and opportunities for democracy. Against the norms of liberal democracy, multi-actor partnerships do not fare well: they appear to lack responsiveness, public accountability and democratic legitimacy. But in terms of promoting deliberation and participation, networks could potentially deepen democracy. This paper injects some empirical insights into this debate by exploring network governance from the perspective of inclusion. It argues that any account of ‘democratic’ network governance must look beyond outputs, and consider the extent to which network arrangements include both ‘functional’ and ‘descriptive’ representatives of those potentially affected by decisions. An analysis of the inclusivity of network governance in recent Dutch energy reforms finds that partnerships are dominated by industry and government elites, at the expense of broader democratic engagement. A series of strategies are proposed for how to make network governance more accessible and accountable to affected publics. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Can we meaningfully compare within a single theoretical framework the politics of interest representation in the European Union with its counterparts in the United States and other national political systems? We address this question by first considering several candidate explanations for the lack of broad-ranging comparative research on interest representation, focusing in the end on the problem of context. We then argue that much of the recent progress in the literature is a result more of segmentation of theoretical issues. The third section discusses how this successful strategy of segmentation has unfortunately raised new theoretical barriers to comparative analysis. This argument is explored by comparing work on organised interests in the EU with two other cases - the hyper-pluralistic interest politics of the United States and the neo-corporatist politics of the Netherlands. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

According to theories on coalition formation, parties with a key position in the coalition game receive higher office and policy payoffs than their coalition partners. In this article, I use two models of government-formation -- the portfolio allocation model and the political heart model -- to identify key players in the coalition game. Both models are modified to incorporate institutional and political constraints on coalition-formation, and the predictions of key parties from the four models are compared with the governments that actually formed in five European countries: Austria (1983-2002), Belgium (1985-2003), Germany (1980-2005), Ireland (1982-2002) and The Netherlands (1977-2003). I argue that the modified models are preferred to the original ones on both theoretical and empirical grounds. Using the key parties identified by the modified models, I find that if a coalition member is a key party, then it is able to assert its policy views more effectively than its coalition partners can, but, contrary to expectations in the literature, that it is unable to capture a surpassing share of cabinet offices. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The period since the early 1990s has seen a marked shift in the terms of Dutch European discourse, as dramatically highlighted by the country's 'No' vote in its 2005 referendum on the European Constitutional Treaty. The present paper examines the trajectory of this discursive shift, suggesting that a traditional 'federalist' referential has been replaced by an elite discourse focused primarily on defining the 'limits of Europe' in intersecting substantive and geographical terms. A general framework for the understanding of national discourses of European integration is first set out, highlighting the key role played by national elites as mediators between the European and the national political systems. The Dutch case is then examined against this background, chronicling the general terms of the 'critical turn' in national European discourse, the 2005 referendum campaign, post-referendum party positioning and discussions surrounding the 2007 Reform Treaty. Despite the persistence of strong, underlying support for Dutch EU membership, it is finally argued that The Netherlands has not (as yet) found a stable, cohesive national narrative of its 'fit' and 'place' in the contemporary (post-enlargement) project of European integration. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The central question in this study is whether the power of the media agenda over the political agenda has recently increased. The agenda-building dynamics are established using cross-country time-series data on four issues, covering fifteen and eight years respectively of British and Dutch parliamentary debates and newspaper articles. Structural equation models show that the parliamentary agenda is more influenced by the media agenda than the other way around, and that the power balance has shifted even more in favour of the media. It is additionally found that media power is especially associated with issues within the European domain. This study contributes empirically to the 'mediatization' debate in a EU context, which is largely limited to the realm of theoretical speculation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper will empirically analyse the evolution of national rule changes for the domain of post-war Dutch higher education. We focus on rule changes because in the life cycle of rules – births, changes and repeals – change is the most common event. Our theoretical framework is mainly based on the organizational ecology and top management demography literatures. We will be integrating these perspectives, adapting them to our research context. In so doing, we focus on rule density, a minister’s demographic characteristics (such as age and tenure) and cabinet features (for example, power and turnover) as deteminants of rule changes. The empirical results provide significant support for the majority of our theoretical predictions. Overall, the results suggest that the ecological processes are the most robust, followed by the characteristics of ministers and the features of cabinets. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The Netherlands has always been the odd case out regarding trust in public institutions. In the 1980s and 1990s, contrary to international trends, trust in government remained high and even increased. Suddenly, from 2002 onwards, public trust in government declined dramatically. In this article we examine the plausibility of ten explanations, embedded in the international scholarly literature, and explore whether they are empirically supported or rebutted in case of the Dutch drop. We find that because most of the literature concentrates on the cross-national erosion of political support over a long period within Western democracies, explanations tend to focus on gradual, long-term demographic, social, and political trends. Sudden dips in trust levels, however, require different sets of explanatory factors; they are better explained by political or economic contingencies, such as sudden political or economic crises. In the case of the Dutch drop, the most plausible explanation is a combination of an economic decline, combined with high political instability and contestation during the first Balkenende cabinets. As of 2007, with a new cabinet in office, and an economic recovery in place, trust figures are on the rise again. Points for practitioners Sudden dips in public trust in government are better explained by political or economic contingencies, such as political or economic crises, than by a deterioration in government performance or by long-term demographic, social, and political trends. In the case of the sudden drop in trust in The Netherlands, the most plausible explanation is a combination of an economic decline, combined with high political instability and contestation during the first Balkenende cabinets. As of 2007, with a new cabinet in office, and economic recovery in place, trust figures are on the rise again. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article looks at how managers in large infrastructure projects in The Netherlands deal with difficult choices, which are labelled dilemmas in this article, in their managerial activities. It presents the results of a survey of 32 managers in 18 complex decision-making projects in which public-private partnerships (PPPs) play an important role. The managers were presented with a number of choices and asked to rate the amount of attention they paid to each of the choices. The article focuses on four (groups of) dilemmas managers face in the inter-organizational context of these processes: (1) interaction with parties, (2) strategic orientation, (3) management style and (4) process dynamics. After a brief elaboration of the role of (network) managers in complex PPP projects and the nature of the dilemmas they face, the four groups of dilemmas are explored by looking at how managers scored on the dilemmas within each group. Conclusions are drawn about managers' perceptions of these dilemmas and the differences between projects. The different choices of dilemmas are then compared with the differences between the scores of the outputs of the projects as perceived by the managers. Finally, general conclusions are drawn about the dilemmas chosen by managers and the consequences of these choices. Points for practioners Pay attention to commitment, goal searching, communication and vertical relations if you want good outcomes in complex environmental projects. Do managers of complex spatial and environmental projects in general choose to open up the decision-making process for stakeholders to enhance support and use the knowledge of stakeholders or do they choose a more closed decision-making process that reduces the number of actors and might speed up the decision-making process? In general, one can see many of these managerial choices between a more project oriented style, that focuses on control, specifying goals, keeping the budget etc., and a more process oriented style that focuses on activating actors, creating support, or exploring possible content If we look at the 32 managerial strategies that were researched, there are a few strategies that are positively and strongly correlated to positive perceived outcomes of projects: commitment goals searching, vertical relationships and communication. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Christian democracy is still posing theoretical problems of definition and empirical puzzles of classification and interpretation. Analyses based on secularization theory produce puzzles and anomalies and have little to offer as explanations for the variation in Christian democratic power mobilization. Empirically, this article focuses on Christian democracy in The Netherlands and offers an explanation of the party's decline in the 1990s and its remarkable recovery. From this, lessons are drawn for further theory-building on party and party system change, and on Christian democracy. It seems that modern Christian democratic politics is evolving as neither religious nor secular, but as a version of unsecular politics. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

We study the impact of the 'foreigners issue' on centre-right politics in the Netherlands. This issue concerns a complex of problems related to migration, asylum-seekers, nationalism, multiculturalism and European integration. The Dutch centre-right has moved towards hard-line and restrictive policies in these areas. By connecting issues of immigration to right-wing core issues of law and order, centre-right parties hope to win an electoral advantage and to find an answer to populist political entrepreneurs. However, the politicization of immigration issues is a double-edged sword. Centre-right parties can benefit since they own the law and order and nationalist issues. But hard-line right-wing stances on immigration and multiculturalism also go against core centre-right values and may scare away voters. Too harsh a law and order, nationalistic and anti-foreigner profile can rip the centre-right apart. The direction of Dutch immigration and integration policies partly depends on the type of solution the centre-right finds for this dilemma. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper summarises the empirical results of a study on the scale, nature and outcome of corruption cases in The Netherlands. It turns out that the number of convictions for corruption offences in The Netherlands has remained very stable in recent decades. Research into the nature of corruption leads to the conclusion that civil servants who are found to be susceptible to corruption tend not to be low-profile officials, but rather personalities with a reputation in the civil service organisation for being noticeable, colourful and astute 'fixers'. They frequently possess or demand the freedom to arrange matters on their own and are known as thorough and enterprising people. The research material further shows that the briber and the bribed usually know each other well before the violation of integrity occurs. This is not confined to business or instrumental relationships, because an element of friendship or affection is regularly involved. Something that plays a role in this setting is that trust is pivotal to prolonged corruption relationships. Research into the outcome of corruption cases leads to the conclusion that criminal prosecutions, once instituted, result, in nine out of ten instances, in a criminal conviction. Although suspects are sometimes acquitted on certain counts, complete acquittals are rare. The punishment most frequently handed down is a community service order. Combinations with other punishments occur regularly, with a custodial sentence or fine often being suspended. An average of five civil servants and three bribers actually end up behind bars each year. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article addresses the development of local policy networks in the Netherlands in the period 1996-2005. It is argued that there is a surprising stability in such networks seen from the perspective of local policymakers. Those working inside city hall as politicians and as members of the local administration remain the core members of the inner circle in policy networks, while societal groups remain outsiders and political party groups are absent from local policy networks. This conclusion is based on three identical standardised surveys among local politicians and top administrators at the local level, which were conducted in 1996, 2000 and 2005. This outcome is surprising, because it is contrary to the high expectations arising from numerous institutional reforms taking place in this period, aimed, among other things, at diminishing the gap between citizens and policymakers; the numerous experiments in co-production, public-private partnerships, and interactive policy processes; and the widespread documentation and dissemination of the outcomes of such experiments. Possible explanations for the results are that the experiments, however successful they might have been, never had a structural follow-up, and that the structural reforms, no matter what they accomplished otherwise, did not achieve their goal in enhancing interactive policymaking because they overlooked the fact that local policymakers see the local political system as a representative democracy and not as a direct or participatory one. On that basis it is to be expected that support for policies by policymakers is mainly sought among influential actors who are elected or appointed to develop policies and whose interests have to be taken into account. The public and societal groups do not satisfy that criterion. They can and do seek support from policymakers but the latter are hardly inclined to seek support from them. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In November 2004, the assassination of the filmmaker Theo van Gogh in Amsterdam by an Islamic extremist shocked The Netherlands. Critics of multiculturalism quickly linked the murder to the perceived failure of ‘soft’ integration policies and questioned the authority and legitimacy of Amsterdam’s political leadership. This article studies the response of political leaders to those challenges from a performative perspective. Analysing governance as performance illuminates the importance of actively enacting political leadership in non-parliamentary settings such as talk shows, mosques and other religious meeting places, and improvised mass meetings in times of crisis. The authors distinguish different discursive means of performing authority, make suggestions for dealing with crisis events in ethnically and culturally diverse cities and draw some lessons from this approach as well as for methods of studying public administration. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article presents an overview of political developments in the Netherlands as of December 2007. It includes information on the agendas and electoral fortunes of political parties such as the Christian Democratic Party, the Labour Party, and the Socialist Party. Changes to the cabinet of Prime Minister Jan Peter Balkenende are also noted. National political issues are analyzed, including a controversy over Member of Parliament Ayaan Hirsi Ali's Dutch citizenship, the increasing popularity of populist politician Geert Wilders, and a fire which killed 11 political asylum seekers in a detention center.

Redistributive policies concerning migrants in The Netherlands bear a striking degree of ethnic specificity. This characteristic seems to follow from the doctrine 'integration with maintenance of own culture' that has long informed Dutch minority policies. However, both central and local governments stopped subscribing to this doctrine at least a decade ago, while ethnically specific policy arrangements have continued to grow. This article explains the anomaly from an administrative mechanism: the logic of categorization for policy-making contradicts the logic of policy implementation. The use of what we call 'replacement categories' creates an administrative opportunity structure that unintentionally promotes ethnic fragmentation. We examine the workings of this mechanism in a case study of minority policy in The Netherlands. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

We estimate the fraction of hidden unemployment in the disability insurance (DI) inflow rate on the basis of a longitudinal administrative data set of Dutch employers for the period 1994–2003. This fraction can be identified by imposing so-called exclusion restrictions on variables that are thought to impact the layoff rate but not disability risk. We find that the fraction of hidden unemployment in DI inflow amounts to 11 per cent. This implies that 2.6 per cent of all layoffs took place via the DI scheme. In addition, we find that this share has declined substantially over time, suggesting that various policy measures taken have been effective. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article uses evidence drawn from Dutch policy arenas to challenge claims about the erosion of national identity due to globalization. More specifically, it complements and revises neoinstitutionalist arguments about the enactment of world culture within nationstates by showing how the redefinition of national identity takes the form of reflexive discourse, varies across sectors and over time, and entwines local with global pressures. Reinforcing a thrust in recent scholarship on globalization that focuses on the continued impact of national paths and the resilience of national traditions, the complex pattern in Dutch identity redefinition illustrates the importance of locally oriented analysis in assessing 'macrophenomenological' arguments. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article discusses the polarising character of Islamophobia as a factor in Dutch politics. The political messages of the right wing members of parliament Pim Fortuyn and Hirsi Ali is framed in terms of their anti-Muslim rhetoric and its influence on the development of open opposition to Muslim culture in Dutch society. More integrationist approaches to religion and state are framed in terms of the work of Ella Vogellar, who reinforced multiculturalism in her position as the cabinet minister responsible for social integration.

The article discusses the planning and selection practices used by performance auditors at the Netherlands Court of Audit. It is stated that the goal of the performance auditors is to audit the financial matters of the political system with the intention of obtaining the quality of the government policy and operational management. The financial matters being audited amount to approximately 350 billion euros and will be audited by 80 auditors. Here, it highlights the tools necessary to achieve the department's objectives to improve the regularity, effectiveness and integrity for public administration.

The employment structure of The Netherlands and other advanced countries is evolving from industrial to postindustrial. Yet existing social class schemata, like the well-known Erikson, Goldthorpe and Portocarero (EGP) class schema, were constructed for an industrial employment structure. In this study, we adjust the EGP class schema to account for this transformation by using new class theories. We distinguish a 'new' class of social and cultural specialists and an 'old' class of technocrats with both a higher and a lower version in the service class. Our research question concerns the extent to which the adjusted EGP class schema is a better predictor of people's political orientation than the standard EGP class schema. We assume that the 'new' classes differ in their political orientation from the 'old' classes. We also assume that, during their formation, the 'new' classes become increasingly effective in explaining differences in people's political orientation. Experts' knowledge is employed to classify the occupations. In addition, we use the data of 34,856 respondents gathered between 1970 and 2003 in The Netherlands. The adjusted EGP class schema explains people's political orientation substantially better than the standard EGP class schema; the 'new' classes vote significantly more for leftist parties and differ substantially in their political orientation from the 'old' classes. Furthermore, our results show that the political orientation of the low-grade social and cultural specialists has become more crystallized since 1970. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Copyright of Cultures et Conflits is the property of Centre d'Etudes sur les Conflits, Revue Cultures & Conflits and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

The article presents abstracts on sociological topics which include the analysis of family narratives in Warsaw, the reasons behind the Dutch "nee" to the Constitutional Treaty, and the integration of Turks in France and Germany.

Copyright of Revue des Sciences Sociales is the property of Universite des Sciences Humaines and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

The article acknowledges the need for transparent relations in general and the importance of transparency as a policy instrument in many areas. The deployment of transparency in relation to a policy of stimulating corporate social responsibility (CSR) is emphasized. The article used Dutch policy documents to stress that the administrative view of CSR is one that is actually endorsed in governmental circles. The application of the concept of transparency in all kinds of policy arenas is discussed. A brief overview of the Dutch policy on CSR is presented.

The Dutch government has made it its purpose to stimulate Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR). Two of its main instruments are a policy to increase the transparency of markets and a policy of persuasion, in which it is claimed that CSR overlaps the (long term) self interest of companies. This paper questions the properness of these instruments. It is argued that the instruments only make sense, given a specific conceptualization of CSR. In this conceptualization - which is labelled the administrative account - CSR is defined in terms of (outer) goals companies must achieve, such as a proper balance between People, Planet and Profit. Another characteristic of this conceptualization is that it is neutral with regard to an actor's motive for being involved in CSR. CSR is made sense of in this conceptualization by referring to the latter-day crisis of government. In the paper it is argued that the administrative account of CSR must be rejected. CSR looses its meaning when in its conceptualization the inherent relation with morality is lost. An alternative conceptualization - labelled Kantian - conserves this inherent relation. This is an important reason to favour it over the administrative conceptualization. However, the two main instruments of Dutch CSR policy are not very well suited to promote this conception. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article looks at politics in the Netherlands in 2005. Topics discussed include the privatization of health care, social security reform, and funding for political parties. Changes to the cabinet of Prime Minister Jan Peter Balkenende are reviewed, noting the replacement of Thom de Graaf as Minister for Institutional Reform and Relations with the Dutch Antilles by Alexander Pechtold and the appointment of Laurens Jan Brinkhorst as Deputy Prime Minister on March 31, 2005. The results of a referendum on the establishment of a European Constitution are discussed.

The paper discusses the policy approach for facilitating sustainable development of the tourism and recreation sector inside the Netherlands. Taking a national perspective, it reflects on the sustainability challenges facing the sector, and how the currently used governance and policy styles address them. It observes that a mismatch exists between the preferred governance policy-making style of the central government, and what numerous entrepreneurs and sub-national actors argue would be desirable. The central government prefers national level, direct regulations and policies based on themes such as spatial planning, integrated water management, nature conservation, and environmental protection, for which the tourism recreation sector is just one of many target groups. Tourism businesses and many sub-national public actors and private stakeholders, on the other hand, consider new national level regulations targeted specifically at the tourism-recreation sector most desirable. The central government believes that policy measures of the 'new-modes-of-coordination' type are most appropriate to specifically target sustainable tourism. To underpin the possible contributions of such measures for sustainability, an analytical framework is proposed to evaluate the sustainability depth of instruments and initiatives. Two 'new-modes-of-coordination' instruments are then evaluated. The conclusion drawn is that these instruments had rather modest ambitions in design, insufficiently facilitating a shift towards sustainable patterns of tourism-recreation development. The paper argues that, under the general expectation of significant increase in demand for recreation and tourism in the Netherlands, there is a need to reconsider the administrative boundaries of the sector in terms of governance structure, policy-making styles, and policy instrument types that would adequately support sustainable development in the sector. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Advocates of regional political cooperation find favor with political theorists while encountering widespread rejection by real-world governments. Why do practitioners often fail to follow the reformers? Employing a comparative perspective, this analysis examines theories of regional reform and then surveys metropolitan political cooperation within a context that theorists expect should be highly supportive of it--Randstad Holland and the Amsterdam metropolitan area. Regional political development finds little success in this region. Dutch experience suggests that regional theory makes unrealistic assumptions about the conditions that favor intergovernmental cooperation and underestimates the political barriers to this kind of reform. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article looks at politics in the Netherlands in 2004. A chart is presented which compares the number of seats held by various political parties following the elections to the European Parliament held on June 10, 2004, including the Labour Party, Christian Democratic Party, and the People's Party for Freedom and Democracy. Criticisms against the European Union from the liberal Volkspartij voor Vrijheid en Democratie (People's Party for Freedom & Democracy) are reviewed. The author also comments on the reaction of Prime Minister Jan Peter Balkenende to the murder of film maker Theo van Gogh.

The shock 2002 general election result in the Netherlands has provided a wake-up call to those who believed it would withstand the Europe-wide rise of the far right more successfully than others. This article firstly investigates why Lijst Pim Fortuyn performed so well, and suggests that its popularity owes more to its anti-establishment stance than its xenophobic outlook. The second half of the article links the upheavals to normative deficiencies in the ‘third way’ framework, and concludes that a more distinctive left-of-centre agenda needs to be formulated, both in itself and in relation to containing the far right. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Assesses Netherlands' democratic form of government. Rating of the country in terms of cooperation and competition; Recognition of the Netherlands as a classic case of consociational democracy; Definition of neo-corporatism; Political conflict resolution between parties; Advantages of consensus politics.