In this introduction to the special issue of Bestuurskunde on Good Governance, we first introduce the central theme of this issue. We notice that many laudable values are usually included in codes of good governance, but that these values conflict in the context of public governance - conflicts that need to be managed. How this could be done and in which way values clash in (semi-)public organizations, is the main theme of this special issue

In this literature review we present and discuss the key concepts of this symposium issue: (good) governance, (public) values, and the management of tensions between public values. The article concludes with an overview of strategies on how to deal with public values as a prelude to the remainder of the symposium, and discusses the implications of the distinguished strategies for public administration practice.

In this contribution we introduce the principles of proper administration and the principles of good administration as public values and the definitions of these terms including the concept of good governance. Two main developments in relation to these principles are described here. The first line is from unwritten principles (developed by the judiciary) to written principles of proper administration by which there is in addition to the classical legal protection function, the instrumental function of these principles that has become more important. The second line is from the starting point of the principles of good administration - which can be found more in the legislation and the (policy)regulation but in a fragmentary way - to the application. This application is checked by the National Ombudsman, the Court of Audit and - more recent - also the European judiciary are working with these principles. For guaranteeing the public values there is - from the concept of good governance - now a need for integration of these principles of good administration in the Netherlands General Administrative Law Act and in the case law of the Netherlands judiciary.

Good governance takes a central role in development policy. A considerable amount of development aid is used to support anti-corruption initiatives, democratisation, or the improvement of public administration. The number of governance indicators has grown tremendously, and these indicators appear to play an ever more important role in aid allocation. These indicators, however, are not value-free and reflect a certain view of good governance, one that is furthermore changing continuously. In this article, we first use the ever-expanding literature to explore how donors define ‘good governance’, and how it is measured. We subsequently analyse whether good governance really matters for development. Finally, we look at international experiences with good governance promotion, and the value tensions inherent to this process.

Public Private Partnerships (PPP), especially those geared to exercise public legal powers (‘Authoritative PPP’), are suggestive of tensions between private party involvement and public legitimacy. Hence, public legitimacy is analyzed primarily on the basis of work done by David Beetham, and complemented with Public Law legitimacy considerations concerning the exercise of legal powers and law on public organizations. The findings project that there is room to convincingly frame legitimate PPP involving public authority, but that the scope is restricted both in terms of legal constraints and of political sensitivity.As a result of this, truly wicked policy projects, which in theory stand to gain most by PPP, in practice seem to be considered less suited for Authoritative PPP (and probably more for Network PPP).

In this article we present the results of research on how five hybrid social housing associations tried to create public value. We link Moore's Public Value Management framework to theories on good governance and discuss the tensions that arise when hybrid organizations create public values and how they are dealt with. Based on this, we describe several recommendations for Dutch social housing associations.

Good governance is a contested concept in public administration theory and practice. This concluding article builds on the presented contributions as well as on additional research. First, we summarize the diversity, leading to a sketch of two basic approaches towards good governance (organizational and value oriented). Additionally questions concerning the normativity, the pluralism of values and the object of good governance (process or policy) are addressed. Second, attention is paid to strategies to cope with values in governance, acknowledging the tensions between those values. Basic strategies aim at ‘choosing’ between values, ‘accommodating’ (in time, project, context) and ‘connecting’ values (through institutions or hybridization).

A surprising difference between the Netherlands and Flanders is that a Flemish minister may appoint more than 20 advisors, while Dutch ministers can appoint only one or two ‘political assistants’. However, this difference was hardly studied before, although it is a relevant and actual theme. This article analyzes the differences in role and position of Flemish ministerial advisors and Dutch political assistants. We show that there exist large differences between both types of advisors and we discuss the reasons for and consequences of this difference. The institutional context in which both actors work determines a lot their role. Differences in political culture and administrative organization in particular seem to be important explanatory factors.

Whilst embedding democratic innovations that increase and deepen citizen participation in decision making now is a common policy of governments in many countries, and theorists in democratic theory also tend to emphasize how good citizen participation is to democracy, the empirical evaluation of democratic innovations is still a rather unexplored area of research.

This article evaluates two types of democratic innovations, participatory governance and deliberative forums in the Netherlands and a large number of other Western countries. The findings show, for both types of innovation, that citizen participation contributes to the quality of democracy in several ways. The analysis also makes it clear that different designs produce different democratic effects, which also reflects tensions between democratic values; participatory governance projects are better at giving citizens influence, whereas deliberative forums appear to be better at promoting the exchange of arguments. Also, whereas cases of participatory governance are more open than deliberative forums, representation is higher for the deliberative type of cases. As a consequence politicians and policy makers can have a major impact on democracy; by choosing for a specific design of citizen participation they may encourage certain aspects of democracy more than others.

The literature on the management of organizational change is mostly based on private sector research. Research on the management of change in public sector organizations is relatively scarce. Because of the specific characteristics of public sector organizations, insights in the management of change may not be translated from one sector to the other. In this essay, four recent books about organizational change in public sector organizations are reviewed. Based on these books and other literature, an overview of the contemporary insights in the management of change of public sector organizations is presented.The essay concludes with an agenda for future research.