The opacity of and lack of democratic control over the European system of comitology - where detailed decisions are made by committees of national officials, chaired by the Commission - has frequently been criticized. With the entry into force of the Treaty of Lisbon and especially since March 1, 2011, this system of executive and quasi-legislative power has changed in a number of important ways, however: on paper, the committees of national officials play a less prominent role than before and the role of the European Parliament has intensified. The question addressed in this article is what these changes in practice exactly mean. Has there really been so much change, and, if so, what are the implications for national civil servants? Working with the new comitology system means working with two regimes: delegated acts and implementing acts. Although innovative, we conclude that this change seems less fundamental than might be expected. Yet, for both regimes an increased number of parties is involved, which makes working with the new comitology difficult. Stakeholders, including Dutch officials, will thus have to deal with comitology in another way, which could make the new world of comitology an even more important battleground in the European policy process than already is the case.

In recent years, European networks of national regulators and supervisors have emerged in a variety of policy fields. These networks are seen as a way to coordinate national implementation and enforcement of EU legislation in situations where centralization of these activities at European level is undesirable or politically infeasible. This article explores whether such networks indeed lead to a higher level of coordination between the member states. The authors do so by comparing four directives (two in the field of financial market supervision and two in the field of environmental policy) the implementation of which was coordinated within European networks. The results of this study show that coordination is strongest for those directives where the interdependence between national supervisors is greatest and national supervisors thus have a direct interest in coordination. This implies that European regulatory networks are only an effective form of coordination for issues involving strong interdependencies between national supervisors.

Agencies of the European Union (EU) are formally independent entities that collect information, provide advice and take decisions on technical, scientific or operational issues. While the original idea underlying their independence was that they could contribute to ‘depoliticize’ these issues, current discussions emphasize strengthening the control over EU agencies because it is often thought that they are too autonomous. The question is how autonomous EU agencies really are. I answer this question by studying the development of two agencies (for the authorization of medicines and food safety) in greater detail. The results of my research show that, in practice, not only do the creation and design of EU agencies result from political struggle, but this struggle continues during their development. Moreover, EU agencies are themselves part of this struggle. They must fight for their autonomy, but at the same time cannot position themselves too independently vis-à-vis other parties. This leads to the paradoxical conclusion that EU agencies are likely to be more autonomous when they cooperate more closely with other parties, especially with national agencies, whose positions in turn are strengthened rather than weakened.

Recent developments shed a new light on the role of Lipsky's classic analysis of the street-level bureaucrat. A growing number of social services is provided as a product of cooperation between different actors: government agencies, societal organizations, private businesses, citizens. As a result of this development, the street-level bureaucrat now increasingly operates in an interorganizational network, rather than within one single organization. This (partly) changes the dilemmas he has to deal with. The authors demonstrate this by analyzing the so-called ‘Achter de Voordeur’ projects, whereby house-calls of street-level bureaucrats are linked with full cooperation between local authorities.

By law Dutch companies providing drinking water have to remain in public hands. In practice, public shareholders often fulfil their role in an informal fashion and without much engagement. They hardly intervene to protect the public interest. Public ownership is deemed to be crucial but its effects are difficult to measure. In this article, we examine the (ever changing and varying) institutional conditions of two public water companies and discuss whether these conditions enable public shareholders to properly control these companies. By comparing the opinions and experiences of directly involved respondents, this article aims to answer the question whether and how public shareholders are able to act as regulators. There are indications that this kind of regulation will not be efficient enough when needed, though those involved do not see this as a problem. This article offers suggestions for municipalities and provinces to reflect more on their role in the drinking water sector.

In 2010 the Netherlands Institute for Social Research (SCP) concluded that the Social Support Act (Wet maatschappelijke ondersteuning, Wmo) is successful as it leads to greater coherence in policies, and because the public Wmo-advisory councils are satisfied with the role they play. Wmo councils provide solicited and unsolicited advice to municipalities. They defend citizens’ interests against those of health care providers and insurance companies. Despite the positive results of the SCP study, there is an ongoing debate about the restyling of the Wmo-councils to increase their influence on local policy making. Some studies even call for a national council to prevent bargaining between the Associations of Dutch Municipalities (VNG) and the Ministry of Health, Welfare and Sports (VWS).

In this exploratory article, the authors analyse the influence of five local Wmo-councils - Alkmaar, Delft, Kerkrade, Tilburg and Utrecht - on local policy making. They examined the recognition and authority of these five councils and studied if municipalities heeded their advice. The article shows, that Wmo-councils themselves are dissatisfied with the influence they have. Subsequently, it demonstrates that municipalities anticipated the actions of Wmo-councils but hardly ever changed their policies accordingly. Wmo-councils are meant as a horizontal counterweight but are in danger of not being taken seriously.

The various crises we are faced with today demand long-term solutions. The academic discipline of future studies can play a role in devising such solutions but struggles to do so. There still is no coherent body of knowledge and a diversity in approaches. In this review essay the author discusses three recent books from the field of futures studies. Based on this, he formulates several issues that arise with regards to a further professionalization of the discipline.

At first glance the notion that lower taxes will decrease the government deficit sounds like a nonsensical idea. Nevertheless this is one of the main arguments brought forward in Mitt Romney's bid to oust Barack Obama from the White House. In this essay, the author compares the arguments brought forward by the Romney campaign and other fiscal conservatives with those of their critics. He discusses the paradigms underlying Romney's fiscal conservatism from a mixed European/Asian perspective. The author argues that while lowering taxes may sound alluring during a political campaign, without them it will prove hard to maintain our standard of living.