Samenvatting

The report Confidence in Citizens by the Dutch Scientific Council for Government Policy dominantly supports increased room for citizen participation. Based on many examples, the report shows how society benefits from the many citizens’ initiatives and how government interference can hamper or even obstruct these initiatives, which do not fit the logic of civil servants. The report gives four, rather general suggestions of how policy makers could respond to these citizens’ initiatives. The generic character of these recommendations can be ascribed to a weak problem analysis and a biased understanding of how government actions negatively interfere with citizens’ initiatives. The Council could have asked more critical questions with regards to citizens initiatives and how they should respond to the logic of government.