Arwin Van Buuren

Erasmus University Rotterdam | EUR · Department of Public Administration

In general, the issue of climate change is characterized by uncertainty, complexity, and multifacetedness. In the Netherlands, climate change is in above highly controversial. These characteristics make it difficult to realize adaptation measures that are perceived as legitimate. In this article, we analyze the main difficulties and dilemmas with r...

This article investigates the relationship between the connective style of network management and outcomes of governance processes and explains differences and developments in managerial styles in complex governance networks in relation to outcomes. We found that a strong connective style of network management is related to good outcomes. We also f...

ABSTRACT Different ways of knowing (WOKs) present in governance processes easily give rise to controversies and conflicts and forestall collective action. To resolve these conflicts it is necessary to understand what constitutes a WOK and how we can organize inclusion through collaborative governance. This paper argues that WOKs contain different k...

Citizens with a lower social status are underrepresented in participatory democratic innovations like citizens’ initiatives. Much research focuses on the barriers to participation that these citizens experience. The current study concentrates on civil servants tasked with advising on what initiatives to support and how. Informed by research on the...

The attention for applying design-oriented approaches in public administration has increased significantly. Applying design is seen as a promising way to deal with wicked problems and create more responsive policies and services. We aim to contribute to the debate on the value of design for public administration and the development of the latter in...

Governmental organizations face the challenge to integrate different sectoral policy perspectives and interests to deal effectively with the wicked issues of late-modern societies. This article delves into attempts of governmental organizations to realize such integrated policies and unravels the intra-organizational dynamics of collaborating on po...

Introduction Public sector organisations face many intractable issues, such as climate change, migration and integration, chronic diseases, aging and inequality. These issues touch upon different interests and values and are surrounded with uncertainty and controversy. Furthermore, governments also face financial pressures, urging them to come up w...

Introduction Policy-making is in essence a matter of design. It is essentially about creating or constructing a means (for example, a plan, set of rules, instruments, interventions) for a certain end (to manage or to solve a societal problem). However, as this volume shows, we can witness an interesting shift in the logic or kind of design that is...

Introduction Governments see themselves as increasingly confronted with complex or wicked problems (such as climate change and migration). Characteristic for such issues is that many different stakeholders are involved, with different ambitions, interests and perceptions. A solution for one actor may imply an increase in problems for others (Head,...

Approaches to design in public policy and service delivery have turned a corner. Many governments are experimenting with applying all kinds of design methods or design thinking to their primary processes of policy-making, service delivery and decision-making. This new use of ‘design’ is characterised by a process of reframing the problem, mobilisin...

Active citizens who take initiative are generally regarded as desirable. However, the precise reasons why citizens’ initiatives are considered valuable and what their value consists of remain unclear, vague, and often unanswered. In this study, we used Q methodology to explore how civil servants, local politicians, and societal actors in a Dutch mu...

Public organizations are increasingly turning to design thinking to address wicked societal issues, enhance innovation, and improve services. However, in general, public organizations do not provide the most receptive context for design thinking. To be applied effectively, design thinking requires sufficient tolerance for uncertainty, capacity for...

In recent years, design approaches to policy-making have gained popularity among policy-makers. However, a critical reflection on their added value and on how contemporary ‘design-thinking’ approaches relates to the classical idea of public administration as a design science is still lacking. This introductory chapter reflects upon the use of desig...

In this final chapter we reflect upon the application of more designerly, and thus creative or playful, ways of making policy, the ‘second face of public sector design’ (Clarke and Craft, 2018), how they relate to the more traditional forms of design, and what their pitfalls and promises are. Moreover, we reflect upon the consequences of this trans...

Policy integration required for delivering multi‐functional blue‐green infrastructure (BGI) is difficult to achieve, because environmental policymaking is characterised by sectoral responsibilities and institutional structures that hinder collaboration. Both theory and practice consider urban living labs (ULLs) as promising vehicles for policy inte...

Realizing a multifunctional blue-green infrastructure (BGI) as a nature-based solution for the urban water system and built environment within crowded city areas is seen as a promising route for the process of climate adaptation. BGI projects like rain gardens, green roofs, and water squares can be combined to achieve a variety of technical (draina...

Crowding theory has highlighted the unintended consequences that well-meant financial incentives can have on behaviour. Using field research, this study applies crowding theory to self-organising citizens’ initiatives in the Netherlands. Citizens’ initiatives create different kinds of goods and services and are sometimes supported by governmental ‘...

In the network society, the capacity to deal with societal issues is spread among interacting actors in governance networks. Knowledge about this capacity, often called “governance capacity,” is still fragmented and quite incoherent. The aim of this study is therefore to gain an integrated understanding of governance capacity. To do this, we conduc...

This study identifies network management as a facilitator of effective policy transfer. We reconstruct the unconventional collaboration between Dutch private-sector experts and national governments of Vietnam and Bangladesh to develop multi-sectoral, long-term strategies (‘delta plans’). We identify the network management strategies used by the Dut...

This paper tests to what extent the dimensionof the CLEAR model can be used as reliable predictors of an individual’s decision to pursue council membership. By using the CLEAR framework as an extension of known frameworks such as self-determination theory and public service motivation that only focus on motivation, we develop a more comprehensive v...

This paper therefore examines the durability of public value coalitions over time, specifically before and after project appraisal, and how this impacts the delivery of public value. 2 Consequently, our aim is to analyse the lifecycle of public value in water management projects, i.e. from the initiation stage to the implementation stage. Our resea...

This paper examines the durability of public value coalitions in the Dutch Marker Wadden project: an internationally acclaimed water project. The paper compares public value creation by coalitions before and after project appraisal. Activities before project appraisal mainly worked towards the integration of values and interests, while activities a...

Many public issues require collaboration between governments, private actors, NGOs, civic organizations, and individual organizations. Initiating such a collaboration is challenging, but sustaining such a partnership can be even more difficult. This paper aims to explore what types of collaborative governance structures (CGSs) are found in urban ga...

Dit essay beschrijft een praktijk van lokaal klimaatbeleid, waarin beleid in de vorm van een klimaatakkoord met ruim 100 partijen tot stand komt. In plaats van dat de gemeente beleid afkondigt, maken partijen dit samen. Werkt dat, hoe werkt dat en wat kunnen we ervan leren? We gingen op zoek naar de kracht van de aanpak en hoe partijen die kracht h...

The rise of citizens’ initiatives is changing the relation between governments and citizens. This paper contributes to the discussion of how governments can productively relate to these self-organizing citizens. The study analyzes the relation between the social production of invited spaces and the invitational character of such spaces, as perceive...

Half juni 2016 is aan de Erasmus Universiteit Rotterdam het RePolis-programma (http://www.repolis.com) van start gegaan. Dit onderzoeksprogramma – een Research Excellence Initiative, gefinancierd door het College van Bestuur van deze universiteit – tracht de maatschappelijke meerwaarde van burgerinitiatieven en zelforganisatie bij het oplossen van...

There are many normative answers on the question how to realize climate adaptation, ranging from pleas for the government to play a decisive role, to calls for refraining from action and relying upon spontaneous adaptation of both government and non-governmental actors. In this article, we present a Q methodological study, aimed at investigating th...

Self-organized citizens’ initiatives are a form of collective action and contribute to society through the production of public goods and services. Traditional collective action theory predicts that such initiatives are near impossible because of the persistent problems of free-riding. Citizens’ initiatives however do exist and function properly, a...

Programme management is increasingly used in The Netherlands to realize more integrated regional development, where different sectoral policy objectives are combined. To understand how integration of different objectives is realized in programme management approaches, it is important to have in depth knowledge on how actors manage social, cognitive...

In the Netherlands, dealing with the risk of flooding in the face of the current climate change requires a governance approach that is less based upon the long-standing tradition of prevention and protection, and more oriented toward ideas of resilience and adaptivity. Such an approach is assumed to be more resilient compared to static approaches a...

In the public domain, design thinking is increasingly expected to create value by including service users in the fundamental aspects of these services. However, in order to create value, the design approach needs to be ‘translated’ into an applicable framework, appropriate for the public domain. Therefore, we first explore what kind of value is sup...

The Netherlands is an extreme example of a country highly susceptible to both sea-level rise and river flooding. After the disastrous flooding of 1953, the Dutch established a legal framework for flood protection and realized a series of impressive delta works. A powerful institutional regime of autonomous regional water boards, a well-developed ex...

This article explains the rise of the Dutch Delta Approach (DDA) as the Dutch trade-mark for exporting knowledge about adaptive delta management. We consider policy branding a specific tool for policy translation that can enhance our understanding of how policy is mobilised for international application. Using the concepts of policy translation and...

Increasingly Dutch water authorities are considering to make their public (water) assets available for private initiatives to create more public value. However, developing multifunctional public water works asks for other ways of asset management. In this article we present a fourfold typology of styles of public asset management. We analyse-with h...

For public service organizations (PSOs) it is essential to be able to simultaneously optimize and innovate policies, processes and services. This article explores how PSOs shape these dual practices by examining optimization and innovation practices in eight Dutch regional water authorities (RWAs) using focus groups. It uncovers mutually reinforcin...

This introductory article discusses the proliferation of different forms of participation in water governance. It is argued that creating public value through participation can only succeed when effective co-creation between public authorities and communities emerges. However, challenges to realizing co-creation are manifold, and differ among the v...

Community-based initiatives (CBIs) are emerging in many domains such as care, sustainable energy and water management. This paper examined three initiatives in Dutch water management, focusing on their relationship with water boards. CBIs present issues that water boards find difficult to respond to because of two reasons. First, CBIs are demarcate...

To enhance public service performance (PSP), public organizations are challenged to optimize and innovate their processes, techniques, policies and services. But can public organizations go too far when innovating and optimizing? Based on survey data from Dutch water authorities, we show that optimization initially contributes more to PSP than inno...

This study takes the stagnation in the transfer of knowledge about strategic delta planning as a starting point and identifies the interplay of constraining factors. We conclude that the way the process of policy transfer is executed is crucial. The Dutch government aims to transfer the Dutch approach to delta planning (labelled ‘the Dutch Delta Ap...

The attention for applying design-oriented approaches in public administration has increased significantly. Applying design is seen as a promising way to deal with wicked problems and create more responsive policies and services. We aim to contribute to the debate on the value of design for public administration and the development of the latter in...

In recent years, design approaches to policymaking have gained popularity among policymakers. However, a critical reflection on their added value and on how contemporary ‘design-thinking’ approaches relates to the classical idea of public administration as a design science, is still lacking. This introductory paper reflects upon the use of design a...

De voorliggende rapportage is onderdeel van wat in het DMEC-projectplan het Valorisation Accelerator programma wordt genoemd. Dit werkpakket heeft als doel een vraaggestuurd (product)ontwikkelingsprogramma uit te voeren om daarmee het traject van “kunde naar kassa” te verkorten. Het ontwikkelingsprogramma zal op basis van de resultaten van de uitge...

This article makes two contributions to the literature: it tests the impact of innovating and optimizing on perceived public performance. Secondly, it examines the contribution of connective, ambidextrous, and learning capacity to both innovation and optimization in public organizations. Building on previous research, the relevant attributes of con...

Climate change adaptation creates significant challenges for decision makers in the flood risk-management policy domain. Given the complex characteristics of climate change, adaptive approaches (which can be adjusted as circumstances evolve) are deemed necessary to deal with a range of uncertainties around flood hazard and its impacts and associate...

Although studies on policy transfer have expanded, a general and comprehensive understanding of policy transfer is lacking. This study offers an evidence-based explanation of policy transfer processes. We extracted constraining and facilitating factors from 180 empirical studies using PRISMA (Preferred Reporting Items for Systematic reviews and Met...

Het onderzoek naar de mogelijkheden om de invloed van de Enschedese Gemeenteraad op de besluitvorming over de zoutwinning en andere (toekomstige) gebruiksfuncties in de diepe ondergrond laat zien dat deze vooral te vinden zijn in zg. ‘soft power’ instrumenten. Met ‘zachte instrumenten’ wordt bedoeld dat de beïnvloedingsmogelijkheden niet op formele...

The OECD Principles on Water Governance aim to contribute to good water governance. Learning and change through assessments are useful ways to strengthen water governance systems. This article presents a methodology for a learning assessment based on the OECD principles. The methodology has been applied to the Dutch Flood Protection Programme. The...

Innovative policy measures often imply institutional adjustments. Whether such adjustments are accomplished often depends upon the presence of institutional entrepreneurship: actors who take responsibility to initiate the necessary actions to redesign existing institutional practices. The question arises under which conditions can institutional ent...

Pilots are frequently used to explore the possibilities for policy innovation at a distance from the policy regime in a safe environment, but they can also function as a boundary organization and contribute to the development of trust, mutual understanding and reciprocity among different actors with different viewpoints. However, the question of ho...

Governments increasingly choose facilitation as a strategy to entice others to produce public goods and services, including in relation to the realisation of sustainable energy innovations. An important instrument to implement this governance strategy is discursive framing. To learn how public authorities use discursive framing to implement a facil...

When dealing with wicked problems, policymakers increasingly are confronted with three competing ‘knowledge claims’: the notion of evidence-based policy, alternative ‘commons knowledge’ created by citizens, and ‘fact-free’ politics. Consequently, the knowledge base for dealing with wicked problems is becoming increasingly contested. This paper anal...

Adaptation to climate change is not only a technical issue; above all, it is a matter of governance. Governance is more than government and includes the totality of interactions in which public as well as private actors participate, aiming to solve societal problems. Adaptation governance poses some specific, demanding challenges, such as the conte...

In The Netherlands an innovative flood risk policy is under development: multi-layered safety. This innovation is a move from a preventive approach (levees) towards a risk approach. Mitigation of consequences for spatial measures and disaster management too are considered in reducing flood risks. The theory of path dependence teaches us that many t...

Taking stakeholders into account while making plans helps to increase legitimacy. But in long-term planning involvement of stakeholders encounters severe problems. It encounters problems because of the misfit in planning horizons between asset manager and stakeholders. Furthermore, the ambiguous and indistinct character of stakeholders' ambitions m...

There is a growing recognition of resilience enhancement as an additional objective for adaptation. This will typically involve enhancing the preparedness and capacity to respond to the impacts of climate change. Within flood risk practice, resilient strategies focus on reducing impacts from flooding through better prevention and preparedness. Such...

Dutch flood management policy was for a long time dominated by a protection-oriented approach. However, in the last 10 years a more risk-oriented approach has gained ground, denoted by the introduction of the concept of multilayered safety in 2009 in the National Water Plan. Since then, the dominant policy coalition focusing on resistance has found...

Veel problemen rondom water zijn feitelijk governance vraagstukken doordat samenlevingen voor sociale, economische en politieke opgaven staan om water meer effectief te beheren. Dit geldt ook voor de waterveiligheidsopgave in Nederland. Voor het Hoogwater-beschermingsprogramma (HWBP) is het belangrijkste governancevraagstuk om, in nauwe samenwerkin...

The importance of government support for innovation is widely acknowledged, but the way governments support innovation is changing. We discern three trends: local innovation policies are gaining importance; governments increasingly choose a bottom-up, tailor-made approach to support specific innovations; and there is more collaboration between publ...

Op dit moment lopen er vier project overstijgende verkenningen (POVs) bij het Hoogwaterbeschermingsprogramma (HWBP). Deze POVs zijn kennisintensief en er wordt dan ook veel kennis ontwikkeld. Deze kennis is soms te vatten in documenten, maar soms betreft het ervaringskennis, welke moeilijker overdraagbaar is. Het leren tussen de betrokken partijen...

In recent years stakeholder participation has become a popular topic in flood management. Little is known about how and under which circumstances local stakeholders initiate and develop successful flood management strategies and how governmental actors respond to them. Drawing on theories of social movements, stakeholder participation, and citizens...

Different bodies of literature deal with the question what constitutes innovation capacity of organizations and of inter-organizational collaborative arrangements or networks. These different streams highlight different aspects of innovation capacity. Within the literature on business administration, the issue of ambidexterity is emphasized: the ca...