Governação integrada: a experiência internacional e desafios para Portugal
III. Integrated governance and public administration in The Netherlands Dr. Philip Marcel Karré Senior Researcher, Research Group City Dynamics, Inholland University of Applied Sciences Rotterdam (Holanda)
Introduction In this article we focus on experiences and lessons with integrated forms of public administration in the Netherlands. We will touch on the following three points: (1) Why is there a need for integrated governance in the Netherlands?, (2) what are examples of integrated governance in the Dutch context and (3) what are strategic and operational issues with these forms of integrated governance? Before we do so, we will first have a brief look at the Dutch politico-administrative system in order to provide some contextual information.
The Netherlands in brief The Kingdom of the Netherlands is a constitutional monarchy in Western Europe. It is a very densely populated country with 16,929,326 inhabitants (ie. 407.5/km2). The Netherlands (with a GDP of $818.249 billion) have fared better during the recent financial and economic crisis than other countries. Since the last national elections of 2012 it is governed by a coalition of Conservative-liberal party VVD and Social Democratic PvdA. On the national level, its system of public administration consists of 11 departments. The country is further divided into 12 provinces and 393 municipalities. Compared with other countries, the Netherlands has a relatively small public sector. This has to do with the history of the country, in which many public services were originally not provided by the state but by societal groups such as churches, trade unions but also entrepreneurs. After an expansion of the public sector following the Second World War through nationalisation, since the 1990s many service providers were autonomised following New Public Management and New Public Governance reform movements. Public service provision is now mostly done by hybrid organizations that mix the institutional logics of state, market and society (Karré, 2011).
Rationale for joined-up working Over the last fifteen years, many governments experimented with joined-up (JUG) or whole of government (WG) structures in the hope “to achieve horizontally and vertically co-ordinated thinking and action.” (Pollitt, 2003, p. 35)and briefly reviews some of the relevant academic literature. Having thus clarified the key concepts and situated the current fashion for a ‘holistic approach’ within the broader literature on co-ordination, the paper also considers a range of approaches to the assessment of progress with JUG.”,”DOI”:”10.1111/1478-9299.00004”,”short 25