Ellen Wayenberg

Ghent University | UGhent · Department of Public Governance and Management

Policymaking has witnessed significant changes over the past decades, most of which stem from perturbations in the context where policy is made. These developments have emphasized considerable shortcomings of conventional approaches to both theories and practices of policymaking, whether in terms of policy design or analysis. Accordingly, several n...

The links between policy learning and policy innovation seem self-evident. Yet these areas of scholarship have developed independently of each other. The articles in this special issue all push on aspects of the learning/innovation relationship. This introduction sets the scene by getting the policy learning literature into conversation with key di...

This book aims to contribute to our theoretical and empirical understanding of comparative intergovernmental studies and public administration during a period of increasing political, social, and economic crises. These crises have meant that, over recent years, those involved with intergovernmental relationships (IGR) have had to cope with new chal...

Local governments play a crucial role in crisis response and policymaking, necessitating robust digital capacity to effectively tackle complex challenges. To meet the contemporary demand for building local capacity, especially in the digital domain and in anticipation of future crises, European countries are increasingly pursuing municipal amalgama...

Our book has taken a distinctive, policy-oriented approach to IGR in analysing both specific crisis-driven problems and new, longer-term, and emerging policy issues confronting European governments. We have explored the shifting balances of power within IGR systems focused on the challenges of vertical and horizontal coordination within cross-count...

Over the years, policy learning has emerged as a theoretical lens to provide an alternative understanding to powering-based approaches to the policy process and policy outcomes. This has been a success story, with policy learning gaining presence among theoretical frameworks on the policy process. However, the puzzling-powering dichotomy is reducti...

Policy learning plays an important role during crises, where it can empower effective crisis responses or derail policy . Accordingly, a crisis like the COVID‐19 pandemic has created a surge in research on policy learning. In this article, and more than 3 years from the crisis’ onset, we systematically review what COVID‐19 policy learning research...

Policy learning plays a significant role in shaping policy during crises. While scholarship has explored many of the mechanisms and outcomes of such learning, little is known about how policy learning takes place across different levels of a multilevel governance architecture. This is despite their prevalence and influence on crisis responses. Usin...

Understandings of different policy learning types have matured over recent decades. However, relatively little is known about their nonlinear and interactive nature, particularly within crisis contexts. In this article, we explore how two of the most prominent learning types (instrumental and social) shifted and interacted during the COVID-19 crisi...

COVID-19 bracht ons land in een sluipende beleidscrisis. Het virus kwam in golven, liet zich voelen op tal van vlakken en zette aan tot maatschappelijke discussie en conflict. Overheidsbeleid errond was van meet af aan cruciaal, maar zeker niet evident. En dat maakte beleidsleren tijdens de voorbije twee jaren tot een belangrijke must. Inzicht in d...

While digital policies provide significant value within contemporary governance, not many governments' digital policies are adapted to rapidly changing technologies and associated expectations. The limited adaptability can be explained by governments' focus on institutional shifts as an instrument to generate policy changes. Therefore, this article...

This introduction and the special issue are a contribution to comparative intergovernmental studies and public administration. This introduction provides an analytical overview of the intergovernmental relations policy responses to the Covid-19 pandemic across ten European countries, focussing on the early waves of the disease. These policy respons...

Policy learning is an increasingly salient concept in public policy research and practice. With growing theoretical advancements, it offers substantial value for policy analysis. However, the field's conceptual state calls for refinement, and its burgeoning literature calls for a much-needed synthesis. We address these calls by conducting a systema...

The COVID-19 pandemic has emphasized the need to consider multiple and often novel perspectives on contemporary policymaking in the context of technically complex, ambiguous, and large-scale crises. In this article, we focus on exploring a territory that remains relatively unchartered on a large scale, namely the relationship between economic inequ...

How did Belgian and Dutch mayors experience their own role and that of local government during the first few months of the COVID-19 outbreak? This question was addressed by drawing on three analytical perspectives (functional, territorial, and political) on local government systems and using a qualitative case study design. Interestingly, the posit...

The COVID-19 pandemic has brought forward myriad challenges to public policy, central of which is understanding the different contextual factors that can influence the effectiveness of policy responses across different systems. In this article, we explore how trust in government can influence the ability of COVID-19 policy responses to curb excess...

Hoe hebben Vlaamse en Nederlandse burgemeesters de eerste maanden van de coronacrisis ervaren? Om dat te achterhalen, zoomen we eerst in op het lokale bestuurssysteem waarbinnen burgemeesters opereren. Dat systeem verschilt tussen de lage landen vanuit functioneel, territoriaal en politiek perspectief. Een grondige documentenanalyse en een reeks in...

This chapter illustrates how intergovernmental fusion challenges local government reform in Flanders. In this northern part of Belgium, regional and local governments are closely interwoven. For decades, this fusion has put the Flemish government in a leading role as far as local strategic policy planning is concerned. Since the 1990s, field admini...

Where is local self-government heading in the future? Among trends identified is firstly an intensification of multilevel, intermunicipal, and cross-border governance. In the future even more of cooperation and coordination among different political and administrative levels will be required. Territorial boundaries have become increasingly incongru...

All over Europe, cities and municipalities face new and numerous challenges to uphold their unique self-governing role in society. This intriguing reality underscores this volume’s ambition of brightening the future of local self-government. After further elaborating on this relevant background and the approach taken, the first chapter introduces t...

This book presents new research results on the challenges of local politics in different European countries, including Germany, the Netherlands, the Nordic countries and Switzerland, together with theoretical considerations on the further development and strengthening of local self-government. It focuses on analyses of the most recent developments...

In this article, we explain how the COVID-19 wicked crisis context influences the quality of critically needed epistemic policy learning and undermines policy effectiveness. We explore those influences on two main dimensions: Vertically (pertaining to the selection of core scientific advice) and horizontally (pertaining to managing scientific inter...

If the COVID-19 pandemic has already taught us anything, it is that policymakers, experts and public managers need to be capable of interpreting comparative data on their government’s performance in a meaningful way. Simultaneously, they are confronted with different data sources (and measurements) surrounding COVID-19 without necessarily having th...

If the COVID-19 pandemic has already taught us anything, it is that policymakers, experts and public managers need to be capable of interpreting comparative data on their government’s performance in a meaningful way. Simultaneously, they are confronted with different data sources (and measurements) surrounding COVID-19 without necessarily having th...

De Vlaamse overheid wil met haar omzendbrief plaats- en tijdsonafhankelijk werken van 2014 inzetten op een nieuwe manier van werken. Daarbij stelt ze zelf doelstellingen voorop, maar laat ze haar entiteiten vrij in de manier waarop ze die realiseren. Dit onderzoek heeft tot doel om te achterhalen hoe Vlaamse entiteiten omgaan met de verplichtingen...

Kuhlmann, Laffin and Wayenberg point out three main strands of subnational changes that have significantly dominated the research field and focus of Permanent Study Group 5. Elaborating upon the Study Group’s contributions, the chapter overviews relevant research questions, approaches and findings that have been touched upon concerning local and re...

Today, Belgium counts one local government with sub-municipal units on its territory: Antwerp. Its nine SMUs—labelled districts—are operational from the 1st of January 2001 onwards in the fields of public affairs; youth, culture and sports policy; senior policy; traffic policy; public works; festivities; and communication. Over the years, the Antwe...

This chapter provides an overview on analytical key-concepts and outcomes of comparative local government research. It focuses on local government systems in Europe and their reforms from a cross-countries and overtime perspective. This chapter presents various frameworks that have been put forward in order to capture the multi-faced institutional...

This chapter seeks to analyse an often-unexplored policy level: the Belgian Municipalities. What is the state of policy analysis in Belgian municipalities? Which instruments and styles do local policy-makers adopt to deal with the complex choices they have to make? What are the interactions with the other policy levels? To tackle these three questi...

This book presents the first systematic overview of policy analysis activities in Belgium. Contributors from both sides of the Dutch-French language border use original empirical data to provide a comprehensive, comparative study of multi-level policy-making both within and outside government.

This book provides the first comprehensive examination of the practice of policy analysis in Belgium and its federated entities. The book integrates available and new knowledge about the science, art, and craft of policy analysis by all relevant policy actors at different levels of government. The book’s investigation of policy analysis in and outs...

Although there has been a general trend towards local government mergers in Western European countries, the trajectories of municipal amalgamations vary widely per country. Through a comparative in-depth analysis of the Netherlands and Flanders we explore what factors help to explain the differences between trajectories of municipal amalgamations,...

Institutional impact assessment in multi-level systems: conceptualizing decentralization effects from a comparative perspective Comparative literature on institutional reforms in multi-level systems proceeds from a global trend towards the decentralization of state functions. However, there is only scarce knowledge about the impact that decentraliz...

Comparative literature on institutional reforms in multi-level systems proceeds from a global trend towards the decentralization of state functions. However, there is only scarce knowledge about the impact that decentralization has had, in particular, upon the sub-central governments involved. How does it affect regional and local governments? Do t...

Hoe ‘evidence-based’ zijn ‘Beter Bestuurlijk Beleid’ (BBB) en ‘Copernicus’? Beide hervormingen hebben respectievelijk de Vlaamse en de federale administratie ingrijpend veranderd. We kunnen daarom veronderstellen dat zij niet lichtzinnig zijn ingevoerd, maar weloverwogen en gefundeerd zijn opgebouwd. Is dit wel zo? In dit artikel bestuderen we het...

This article deals with the governance challenges related to equitable funding of public services that are used by residents of a city region regardless of where they pay their taxes. Focusing on spill-over effects of leisure policies in two Flemish city regions, this article shows how various services to some extent are consumed by residents of mu...

In dit artikel maken we een bestuurskundige analyse van de stadsregionale problematiek in Vlaanderen. Twee vragen staan hierbij centraal: (1) Welke bestuurlijke antwoorden kunnen lokale besturen in Vlaanderen bieden en voor welke aspecten of soorten stadsregionale problematiek kan dat? (2) Wat is de impact van de bestuurlijke en institutionele cont...

In this article three cases of territorial reform affecting the local tier of government in Belgium are analysed from an evaluation perspective. The debate and discourse preceding the centrally introduced reforms were screened in order to identify which types of evaluative criteria and governmental motives underpinned the reforms. On the other hand...

Zijn de nieuwe kaders voor het provinciaal beleid ‘grensverleggend’? Wat leert ons de provinciale ervaring met de nieuwe beleidsinstrumenten? Terwijl de gebiedsgerichte en de interbestuurlijke samenwerking in zekere zin als ‘grensoverschrijdend’ kunnen beschouwd worden, vormen de territoriale grenzen van de provincies alsook hun inhoudelijke invull...

By examining both analytical and empirical differences and similarities between the European Union and the United States, this comprehensive book provides a better understanding of (inter) governmental systems, settings and actors operating in the post New Public Management Era. The expert contributors consider processes of policy formulation and i...

The Oxford Handbook of Local and Regional Democracy in Europe analyses the state of play of democracy at the subnational level in the twenty-seven member states of the EU plus Norway and Switzerland. It places subnational democracy in the context of the distinctive Anglo, the French, the German, and Scandinavian state traditions in Europe asking to...

Mapping the Flemish architectural culture policy: stakeholders, possible connections with other policy fields and an analysis of current subsidization schemes. Contains an analysis of Dutch and Austrian architectural culture policy.

Net zoals in andere beleidsdomeinen wint beleidsevaluatie geleidelijk aan aandacht binnen het domein van politie, justitie en veiligheid. Potentiële actoren van beleidsevaluatie zijn de wetenschappelijke onderzoeksinstellingen die op basis van onafhankelijk beleidsevaluerend onderzoek een antwoord kunnen formuleren op de vraag naar de wenselijkheid...

The federalization of Belgium can be considered both as the result of an ongoing divergence of mind and practices as well as an important new institutional impetus towards the establishment of divergent regimes of local government. Is there an evolution towards a Flemish and a Walloon local regime? At the heart of those regimes is the conceptualiza...

Inter-municipal cooperation in Flanders is currently regulated by the framework decree of 6 July 2001, which aimed to drastically renew inter-municipal practice by introducing a full set of reforms. Each of them sprang from one of three guiding principles to which the Flemish government had adhered with regard to inter-municipal cooperation. The fi...

Throughout Western Europe, local government is modernized. Central and regional governments carry responsibility for this modernization because they decide upon its nature. However, this responsibility reaches out further since a higher-level government also carries responsibility for the success of its modernization at the local level. The article...

'This book provides solid academic evidence of a lively debate and dialogue between US and EU scholars about Multilevel Governance (MLG) and Intergovernmental Relations (IGR). Beyond the contingencies of the terms and the path dependency of their historical developments, there are elements of convergence and overlap. This publication is a good exam...

Renewal in Flanders' central-local relations: towards partnership ? During the late 20th century local governments throughout Western Europe have been subject to a number of Central Government reforms. The scholarly literature is specifically concerned with the nature of and impact of these reforms. However, the literature appears less concerned...

This chapter describes the local government system in Flanders and developments towards local governance. In Section 2, the chapter starts with a brief description of the place and role of Flemish local government within the Belgian federal state. Developments towards local governance are described next. Section 3 discusses initiatives to strengthe...