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Policy analysis in the Netherlands: an introduction
Frans van Nispen and Peter Scholten
1.1: Introduction
The Netherlands is commonly regarded as one of the strongholds of policy analysis, both in academia and in policymaking. Few countries have such a high density of institutes specialised in policy analysis, and in few countries have such institutes played and continue to play such a key role in policymaking as in the Netherlands. For instance, so-called planning bureaus, a specific Dutch phenomenon, have a played a central role not just in the evaluation and monitoring of policies, but also in setting issues on the political agenda, raising policy alternatives and sometimes even directly affecting political decision-making. Even in the political arena, it is institutionalised practice in the Netherlands that policy analyses are made by authoritative institutes of the social and economic impacts of the political programmes of different parties. Policy analysis is clearly an authoritative factor without which it is impossible to comprehend the dynamics of policymaking and politics in the Netherlands.
This is also reflected in the strong presence of policy analysis in research groups and teaching at universities throughout the Netherlands. Most Dutch universities have research groups specialised in policy analysis, sometimes as part of departments of public administration, but sometimes also as part of more specialised departments for the technological or agricultural sector. Some of these groups have played a key role in the development of the international literature on policy analysis, for instance, providing a stronghold for the development of rational as well as critical and post-empiricist perspectives on policy analysis. Moreover, in between universities and policy agencies, an amalgam of institutes has evolved that are specialised in policy analysis. The Dutch setting is characterised by an abundance of what can be described as 'boundary organisations' (Halffman and Hoppe, 2005).
The aim of this book is to provide an overview of developments in policy analysis in terms of academic thinking, as well as in terms of its role in policy and politics in the Netherlands. It brings together contributions from key Dutch scholars in this field, as well as from practitioners from institutes specialised in policy analysis. Rather than focusing on one of the schools of academic thinking or practices of policy analysis, we attempt to capture the diversity of academic thinking and policy analysis practices as evolved in the Netherlands over the last decades. We believe that it is this diversity and plurality of perspectives that positions the Dutch case in an international comparative setting, as well as accounts for the strength of policy analysis in Dutch academia and policymaking. Various contributions in this volume explicitly pay attention to this diversity in perspectives on policy analysis. Furthermore, in each of the contributions, we will substantiate empirically the role that policy analysis can play in the Netherlands by looking at cases not just from various types of institutes, but also from different policy domains. This includes such diverse domains as financial policies, public management, education policies, welfare state policies, water governance and migrant policies.
In this introduction, we first sketch the contours of Dutch policy analysis, in relation to academia as well as to government (Dunn, 1983: 1), in an effort to position the Dutch case for an international audience. Then, we will provide a more conceptual analysis of what is referred to as policy analysis, followed by an outline of the different sections and contributions of the book. Finally, we sketch the contours of what we believe to be a valuable agenda for the future of policy analysis in the Netherlands and beyond.
1.2: Policy analysis in Dutch academia
Policy analysis in the Netherlands has been driven by specific developments in Dutch academia. In the period of genesis of many of the Dutch institutes for policy analysis, the 1970s, there was already a strong policy orientation among the social sciences in the Netherlands (Blume et al, 1991). There was a strong willingness to connect knowledge and policymaking, and personal networks between research and policymakers were particularly strong. This policy orientation has persisted ever since among at least a significant proportion of Dutch social scientists, while there has undeniably also been a significant growth of a more academic (and international) orientation in Dutch policy analysis.
Most Dutch universities have established research groups specialised in policy analysis, and many provide specific teaching programmes on policy analysis. In most large universities, policy analysis is incorporated as an integral part of public administration departments and teaching in public administration and policy sciences (eg Leiden University, the University of Amsterdam, the Free University of Amsterdam, Erasmus University Rotterdam, University of Utrecht, Tilburg University, Nijmegen University, Twente University and Maastricht University). Several universities, such as Delft University of Technology and Wageningen University, provide more specialised programmes in policy analysis for the technological sector and for the agricultural sector, respectively. In addition, several inter-university institutes have evolved in which policy analysis plays a key role, like the Netherlands School for Public Governance (NSOB) and the Netherlands Institute of Government (NIG).
The proliferation of policy analysis in academia over the past decades has also contributed to a growing diversity in theoretical perspectives on policy analysis. This can be considered a signal of maturity of policy analysis as an academic field in the Netherlands. At the same time, it has also contributed to what Goemans (1988: 351) has described as a 'battle of analysis' or Radin (2000: 31) as 'dueling swords': government is often faced with the impossible task of encompassing various and sometimes contradicting studies under one umbrella (Klaassen and Van Nispen, 1996).
In the international literature on policy analysis, Dutch scholars have played an important role in the development of very different schools of thinking about policy analysis. In this book, we bring together not only contributions that cover various aspects of policy analysis and evaluation in the Netherlands, but also contributions by Dutch scholars that represent different 'schools of thinking' about policy analysis in the Netherlands. In fact, many of the Dutch scholars represented in this book have also played a key role in the international development of these different schools of thought in policy analysis.
First of all, as Bekkers shows in this volume (Chapter Fifteen), in the 1980s, academic thinking about policy analysis in the Netherlands was already characterised by plurality, with rational as well as more political perspectives. In particular, Hoogerwerf has been internationally recognised as one of the founding fathers of the rational perspective of policy analysis, whereas other Dutch scholars like Snellen, Ringeling and later Hoppe have been recognised internationally for their contribution to a more critical and political perspective.
However, as various contributions to this volume show, diversity has increased, in particular, since the 1990s. One of the perspectives to which Dutch scholars have contributed in particular involves the network perspective, which involves analysis of policies in complex networks of actors (elaborating many elements of the earlier political perspective). Koppenjan and Van Buuren, both important representatives of this mode of policy analysis, show in this volume how network analysis offers not only a different perspective on policy analysis, but also a different approach to policy analysis, involving processes of active joint fact-finding of the policy analyst together with policy stakeholders.
Another strand of policy analysis in the Netherlands elaborates more on the institutionalist perspective of policy analysis (such as March and Olsen, 1989). Of particular relevance in the Dutch context and beyond has been the work of Hemerijck (2001, 2003), who elaborated on March and Olsen's distinction between the logic of consequence and the logic of appropriateness in four questions about sources of legitimacy of policies. In this volume, Fenger and Koning, among others, elaborate on this type of policy analysis when referring to the relevance of 'negotiated knowledge'. This type of policy analysis is closely associated with more participatory and interactive forms of policy analysis, as advocated by various Dutch scholars (see Bekkers, Chapter Fifteen, and Hoppe, Chapter Four).
Finally, perhaps one of the strands of policy analysis on which Dutch scholars have left their clearest mark is the so-called social-constructivist approach to policy analysis, which is composed of several sub-strands. First, it includes what Fischer and Forrester (1993) have described as the argumentative turn in policy analysis, which articulates the importance of public debate and free speech. Second, a more cultural or interpretive policy analysis that attributes particular attention to the role of deliberation in policy-making and -implementation (Hoppe, 1998). As Van Bommel, Van Hulst and Yanow show in this volume, Dutch scholars have been strongly involved in the development of interpretive policy analysis from the very beginning, somewhere in the 1980s. Dutch scholars like Wagenaar, Hajer and Hoppe, as well as Yanow, who is currently based in the Netherlands, closely worked together with international scholars like Rein, Fischer and Laws in pioneering this mode of policy analysis. Since then, Dutch scholars and research groups at specific Dutch universities (like Tilburg University, Leiden University, Amsterdam University and Twente University) have continued to play a key role in this perspective. However, as Van Bommel et al show in this volume, it does not make sense to speak of one coherent 'paradigm' of interpretive policy analysis in the Netherlands, as different sub-strands have emerged over the past decade or so (including discourse analysis, framing analysis, category analysis, narrative analysis and practice studies).
1.3: Policy analysis in the Dutch polity
Besides these more academic factors, we can also point at several policy or political factors that have influenced the development of policy analysis in the Netherlands. As various contributions in this volume show, the Dutch case is characterised by a high density of institutes specialised in policy analysis and a strongly institutionalised role of policy analysis in policymaking. Various factors can be identified that account for this (in comparative perspective) relatively strong role of policy analysis in the Netherlands. Perhaps most commonly referred to is the consociational character of Dutch politics and democracy (Lijphart, 1969). Research and expertise have traditionally played a key role in consensus-building in the highly fragmented political system in the Netherlands (see also Blume et al, 1991). Expertise provided a non-partisan and authoritative source on which political consensus could be constructed, and may also have helped to avert political controversy on policy issues that could threaten the political consensus (see also Scholten, 2011). Even now that the consociational character of Dutch politics appears to be weakening, there is a continued demand for 'evidence-based policymaking', not just in government departments, but increasingly also in politics, such as with the establishment of parliamentary investigative and inquiry committees.
The consociational character of Dutch politics also helps account for three specific traits of policy analysis in the Netherlands. First, it has enabled the founding of relatively independent institutes for policy analysis. It is this relative independence that provides these institutes with the authority needed to forge consensus on a variety of policy topics. For instance, the Netherlands is one of very few countries to have established a high-level scientific council to advise government and politics, the Scientific Council for Government Policy (Wetenschappelijke Raad voor het Regeringsbeleid; WRR); in many other countries, the establishment of such a council would have been considered an obstruction of political primacy (Scholten, 2011). The same applies to the Council of State, a high council established already in the 16th century with a strongly institutionalised role in advising government on new policies and legislation.
A second specific trait of policy analysis in the Netherlands that the consociational setting helps account for involves the mix of 'interests-cum-expertise' that continues to play a key role in Dutch politics up to this very day. As an exponent of the Dutch 'polder model', involving cooperation of employer organisations, trade unions and government in addressing a variety of social and economic issues, the use of tripartite structures for policy analysis and policy advice has been common practice in the Dutch setting. The most important example in this respect involves the Social and Economic Council (Sociaal-Economische Raad; SER). The SER is the most important advisory board for the cabinet and Parliament on social-economic issues. It brings together representatives from employer organisations and employee organisations, as well as independent experts (so-called 'crown members').
A third trait of policy analysis in the Netherlands that consociationalism accounts for is the relatively weak politicisation of expertise. The politicisation of expertise and the role of party-political think tanks has been much less developed in the Netherlands than, for instance, in the UK or the US (Fischer, 1993). Whereas most political parties have established, or are associated with, specific party-political think tanks, their role in Dutch politics has remained relatively marginal, especially when compared with more independent advisory bodies and planning bureaus. More generally, the Dutch system is characterised by an asymmetry in terms of the information and knowledge position of political parties and Parliament versus that of government departments. However, the last decade especially has witnessed a gradual strengthening of the information and knowledge position of Parliament in particular. Among others, it has established a Parliamentary Bureau for Research and Public Expenditure (Bureau Onderzoek en Rijksuitgaven; BOR) to facilitate the growing number of parliamentary investigative or inquiry committees that have been established over the last decade.
It is important to recognise the diversity of the institutional landscape of policy analysis in the Netherlands as it is today. First, some forms of policy analysis are incorporated into government agencies. For instance, like Van Nispen shows in this volume, already in the 19...
