Marcel Boogers

• prof. dr.
• Professor at University of Twente

The organisation of local parties Since 1989, the parties participating in the Dutch elections have been obliged to opt for the legal form of an association with full legal capacity, if they wish to be stated on the ballot under their own name. What this has meant in practice for the structure of local party organisations is, however, unknown. For...

How do local political parties work in intergovernmental networks? Because local political parties are by definition only active in one municipality, the assumption is that they are less effective compared to national parties because they have no representation at other levels of government and in other municipalities. It is then expected that alde...

Getting Party Activists on Local Lists This article examines what explains the performance of Dutch local party branches in the recruitment of candidates for municipal councils. Fielding a list of candidates is the most basic function of political parties. In the Netherlands, party branches are under pressure from the low number of party members. T...

Energy and democracy: on the democratization of complex governance processes This article clarifies the democratic problems of multilevel governance, with a focus on the Regional Energy Strategy decision-making process. First, the risks that these democratic problems entail for democratic support and for the quality and speed of decision-making are...

Local government in Flanders and the Netherlands: an exploratory comparison. Introduction to the special issue ‘The city council in Flanders and the Netherlands compared’ There are many good reasons to dwell a little longer on current developments in Dutch and Flemish local government and to examine what both countries can learn from each other. De...

Decentralization, scaling-up and local democracy In this article in the series on the local democratic audit, the authors discuss the relationship between decentralization, scaling-up and local democracy. Decentralizations and scaling-up operations have changed the face of local government in the Netherlands considerably in recent decades. What hav...

Uitkomsten decentralisatie en schaalvergrotingen De onderzoekers van de Universiteit Twente hebben onderzoek gedaan naar de herindeling van gemeentes. Deze schaalvergrotingen hebben (vaak onbedoelde) gevolgen gehad voor de lokale democratie en voor het functioneren van raadsleden, wethouders en burgemeesters.

Dit essay start met een korte bespreking van het toegenomen belang van regionaal bestuur en de achtergronden hiervan. Hierna ga ik in op de problemen en ingewikkeldheden van regionaal bestuur en de verschillende pogingen die regio’s en de rijksoverheid hebben ondernomen om die aan te pakken. Vervolgens geef ik aan welke lessen kunnen worden getrokk...

This article examines the effects of the structure of intermunicipal cooperatives (IMCs) on the perceived transaction costs and benefits of IMCs. Hypotheses based on a polycentric theory of regional governance are tested using data from Dutch municipalities. The findings are mixed. In line with polycentric theory, networks characterized by a multip...

In this chapter, we describe some of the features of the Dutch way of organizing inter-municipal cooperation, using a nation-wide study. The permissive institutional structure provides municipalities with a wide range of organizational structures for cooperation, including both public and private law options. This has resulted in a wide range of al...

Local democracy audited: introduction In recent years, attention has increasingly been focussing on the quality of local democracy. Through the transfer of central government tasks to the municipalities, the importance of local government for citizens in the Netherlands has increased. This also places higher demands on the way local democracy funct...

• De juridische vraag luidt als volgt: is er sprake van belangenverstrengeling als een raadslid vanuit een andere functie (die van ondernemer, lid van bewonersorganisatie, etc.) gemeenteraadsleden benadert? Meer concreet gaat het om de vraag of de e-mail van dhr. W. Oostveen van 6 oktober 2015 aan de raad in strijd is met conclusies en aanbevelinge...

Strategy, structure and society: three dimensions of regional implementation strength Nowadays municipalities in the Netherlands work together more intensively with other municipalities in the region. Also cooperation with companies, institutions and societal organizations is more often looked for at the regional level. In practice this brings alon...

The study of local power structures is highly relevant for a better understanding of local governance networks. Not only does it draw attention to the power dimension of local governance, it also brings to focus the individuals who play a role on and behind the scenes of governance networks. This article gives a comparative analysis of informal loc...

Two perspectives on ‘the first government’ Dutch local government is more and more regarded as a ‘first government’. Vision documents of the association of municipalities and national policy plans stress the importance of local government for improving public governance. This ‘new localism’ builds upon two conflicting perspectives to local governme...

Before and after Fortuyn: continuity and change in citizens’ attitudes towards democratic government in The Netherlands For several years, Dutch and international survey research programmes, such as the European Values Studies, the Eurobarometer, and the Dutch Parliamentary Elections Studies, have registered the judgements of (Dutch) citizens regar...

De dynamiek in het lokale bestuur. Thema-artikel voor het VNG-jaarcongres 2010.

In the last 15 years, the Netherlands has witnessed the enormous growth of independent local parties and of their electoral support. In order to assess the success of independent locals in the Netherlands, this paper explores how independent local parties distinguish themselves ideologically, organisationally, and operationally. It presents the res...

Using conceptual dimensions identified by the literature on political leadership, this article compares its transformations at the local level in Europe. Often associated with the alleged shift to governance, the strengthening of the executive comes forward as the underlying tendency in contemporary local leadership. Empowered individualised leader...

Local political parties are usually regarded as parts of larger party organisations prevalent within all levels of representative institutions. Nonetheless, many European countries are familiar with independent local parties that have no formal links with supralocal parties. As the existence of these parties has often been seen as a political anoma...

Soft governance is an approach to policy implementation in which the central government relies less on hierarchy than on information to steer local organizations. This allows for a combination of formal accountability and professional autonomy that improves the quality of public services in both the short and the long term. Guidelines of an advisor...

Soft governance is an approach to policy implementation in which central government relies less on hierarchy than on information to steer local organisations in the desired direction. This allows for a combination of formal accountability and professional autonomy, which will improve the quality of public services in both the short and the long ter...

This article assesses the role of political web sites in the campaign for the Dutch parliamentary elections of 2002. It presents the results of an online survey of 18,000 visitors to political Web sites to examine how far, 1) political Web sites can engage people in politics and, 2) party Web sites in particular can reach floating voters. The resul...

Verslag van een onderzoek, uitgevoerd in opdracht van het Landelijk Beraad Rampenbestrijding naar de status en toepassing van informele richtlijnen op het terrein van de rampenbestrijding.