Search

Although network governance has become increasingly popular in both research and practice, its anticipated benefits do not always materialize. Although literature on network governance acknowledges the challenges that result from its introduction, scholars tend to assume these challenges can be managed and rarely analyze how the different participating actors (strategically) react to the tensions surrounding its establishment. As such, the process of how “networking” actors establish, maintain, and negotiate a network remains understudied. In light of these shortcomings, this article zooms in on how actors, in their collaboration efforts with network partners, navigate the tensions between (a) their discretionary space and the parameters set by a central policymaker, and (b) their pursuit of both integration and differentiation. This ethnographic case analysis contributes by, first, revealing how local actors demonstrate agency in maneuvering between these tensions in everyday practice by adopting three strategies—that is, overwhelmed deflection, situational segmentation, and strategic reappropriation—and, second, by revealing how these tensions interact and subsequently affect the implementation of policies in networks.

Collaboration has become an imperative of many new healthcare policies; however, little attention has been paid to how system-level narratives in both policy documents and the media create boundaries that shape implementation processes. By using boundary work as a theoretical lens, this article critically analyses the discourse found in both policy documents and the media surrounding the 2015 Dutch LTC reform. This discourse analysis contributes, first, by revealing two separate narratives – one epic, one tragic – which we argue represent different rhetorical styles used to (de-)legitimise symbolic boundaries. Second, we contribute by unravelling boundary work in both the social and symbolic dimensions to show how the design of the 2015 reform led to a tension-ridden position for local actors: symbolic boundaries demanded integration, while social boundaries imposed differentiation. These findings have implications for literature on boundary work as well as for policy design and its local implementation.

Social policy development and reform in corporatist welfare states often follows a pattern of subsequent collectivization and de-collectivization. This has to do, the article argues, with the social problems these phases address. Early social policy development forms a response to Olson-type collective action problems that organized actors (labour and employers' organizations) in the field experience: state-obliged benefits solve free rider problems, while bipartite administration allows labour and employers' organizations to organize their constituencies. This solution to Olson-type collective action problems, however, also constitutes an Ostrom-type collective action problem. Such a system functions as a common pool resource. Individual benefit take-up is experienced as free and the costs of benefit take-up are collectivized in the common pool. The article illustrates this pattern with reference to Dutch disability insurance. © 2012 John Wiley & Sons Ltd.

Professor Ritzer's (Ritzer & Richer, 2012) critical comment on our article ‘From local to grobal, and back’ (Hoogenboom, Bannink, & Trommel, 2010) somewhat surprises us. In our article we employ hi...

This is a case study of Vlisco, a Dutch textile printing company since 1846 that produces batik cloth for the West African consumer market. We focus on the changing status of batik cloth in West Africa and related shifts in the relations of Vlisco with its consumers and local trade partners over a period of almost two centuries. We conclude that in the long run, globalisation does not necessarily result in the transformation of authentic and locally conceived products into empty mass products, and even if it does, in time the process can change direction.

The pursuit of a thriving European "knowledge economy" is hampered by a onedimensional conception of what it is. The authors of the following article conceptualise three types of knowledge society and outline the consequences of this analysis for the leaders of the EU and the Lisbon Agenda. © Springer-Verlag 2008.

In this article, the authors argue that there is no such thing as the knowledge society. Like many others authors, they claim that the fundamental transformations of our time can be typified as the end of the national ‘industrial society’ and the move towards some kind of global society dominated by the production and use of knowledge. They argue, however, that these transformations not necessarily produce a convergence of national and regional socio-economic structures. In industrial society two types of knowledge were dominant: ‘technical knowledge’ and ‘social knowledge’. In our time, the growing diverseness of individual and group identities produced by reflexivisation, globalisation and the advancement of information technologies calls for the development and application of a new type of knowledge: ‘cultural knowledge’. They analyse the consequences of the increased significance of cultural knowledge in the economic sphere in terms of the division of labour, and subsequently conceptualise three different types of knowledge societies: ‘the techno-cultural’, ‘the socio-cultural’ and the ‘socio-technical knowledge society’. Finally, they will portray three ‘categories’ of trailblazers of the knowledge societies, new professionals that perform ‘meta business functions’. These trailblazers directly or indirectly create new value chains by linking or destroying existing ones, and breaking up others in to pieces in order to create new combinations. These professionals, in other words, actively manage value chains.

Wat is de relatie tussen crisis en verandering? Die vraag staat centraal in het project 'Institutional Crisis and Reform' van Paul 't Hart en Arjen Boin waaruit de drie proefschriften voortkomen die hier worden besproken: Cast in Concrete? van Kuipers (2004), Leadership and Institutional Reform van Noll (2005) en Crisis and Change van Resodihardjo (2006). De vraag komt voort uit een inzicht dat centraal staat in de historisch-institutionele benadering in de sociologie; het inzicht dat verandering moeilijk is en bepaald wordt door 'path dependency' (vgl. Pierson, 1994). Daar waar verandering wél plaatsvindt is een breekijzer nodig – crisis. Crisis dwingt beleidsmakers tot een snelle reactie en crisis vermindert de legitimiteit van bestaand beleid. Dit gezamenlijk – zo stelt de 'crisishervormingsthese' (Resodihardjo, 2006, 2) – stelt beleidsmakers of 'policy entrepreneurs' in staat om beleidsverandering door te voeren.

Shifts in governance can be conceived of as a response to policy capacities being shared-in a material sense-between centralized and decentralized levels of government. A comparative case study is conducted of three conceptually different shifts in governance. Unclear responsibility relations lead to "paradoxes of decentralization," in which the applied mode of governance blocks the intended improvements. Three case studies are presented to illustrate these mechanisms. There is no "best" way of decentralizing responsibilities; requirements of governance modes are ambiguous. The sharing of policy capacities between central and decentralized levels of governance requires internally inconsistent governance arrangements. © 2012 SAGE Publications.

Bannink Duco, de Vroom Bert, van Genugten Marieke, Ossewaarde Ringo. II. Décentralisation et «activation ». Les changements dans les tâches et responsabilités des communes néerlandaises en matière de politique sociale. In: Droit et gestion des collectivités territoriales. Tome 29, 2009. L'action sociale des collectivités territoriales. pp. 223-241.

In dit artikel wordt de vraag gesteld of en in hoeverre de veranderingen die zich de afgelopen jaren in de overgang van werk naar pensioen voltrekken, leiden tot een toenemende onzekerheid en onberekenbaarheid. Daarmee zou afstand genomen worden van dat wat de traditionele verzorgingsstaten juist geacht worden te organiseren: zekerheid en voorspelbaarheid. Het antwoord op deze vraag wordt gezocht door vanuit een levensloopperspectief naar de veranderingen rond vervroegde uittreding uit het arbeidsproces en de intrede in pensioenregelingen te kijken. Beide veranderingen hangen nauw samen en zijn zowel een gevolg van de noodzaak om arbeidsmarktbeleid en zorgarrangementen te herzien onder druk van de demografische ontwikkelingen en de oplopende kosten voor de verzorgingsstaat, als van de veranderingen in individuele levenslopen. Het zijn vooral de destandaardisering, fragmentarisering en individualisering van levenslopen – mede als gevolg van uiteenlopende veranderingen in arbeidsmarkt- en pensioenbeleid – die tot een ‘onberekenbare’ organisatie van het einde van het werkende leven en de ‘onberekenbaarheid’ van pensioeninkomsten leiden.

Verandering, vernieuwing, transitie en transformatie – niet alleen in het socialedomein, maar ook in het mbo de sleutelwoorden en dat zal de komende jaren welzo blijven. Bestuurders en beleidsmakers spreken daar positief over: verandering envernieuwing staan immers voor verbetering. Maar zo gemakkelijk als deze begrippen op papier worden gezet of in de politiek worden uitgesproken, zo moeilijk blijken ze in de praktijk te realiseren. Het helpt dan als er een ‘Dinges’ is die dat voor elkaar krijgt.

This is a case study of Vlisco, a Dutch textile printing company since 1846 that produces batik cloth for the West African consumer market. We focus on the changing status of batik cloth in West Africa and related shifts in the relations of Vlisco with its consumers and local trade partners over a period of almost two centuries. We conclude that in the long run, globalisation does not necessarily result in the transformation of authentic and locally conceived products into empty mass products, and even if it does, in time the process can change direction.

This rigorous study sheds light on these issues. It assesses the extent to which six European multi-pillar pension regimes are socially inclusive, by micro-simulating retirement income for hypothetical citizens facing typical post-industrial risks. This timely book suggests that non-state provision has significant limitations, yet also identifies the political and institutional conditions under which private pensions are indeed reconcilable with social inclusion.