The state has been expanding throughout the twentieth century but now seems to be in retreat. This special issue addresses the question how central governments can organize their retreats. It is a theme with a double-sided focus. On the one hand, we will offer an empirical and theoretical state of the art of the ‘state of the state’. On the other hand, this special issue will thematise how a retreat of the state can be organized in a proper way. The special issue consists of eight different articles; some more theoretical and normative and others clearly empirical. Together the articles provide a colourful overview of the state of the Dutch state in the early 21st Century.

In this paper it is argued that the discourse on the retreating government is a story about mobilizing executive power deemed necessary for enforcing a neoliberal worldview. The intellectual discourse about the retreating government, the argument goes, develops as a radical and neoliberal critique of the Keynesian planning and organization of the enlightenment – an organization that is above all expressed in the postwar welfare state. The Dutch policy discourse, by contrast, is of a practical nature: it is about the organization of the government retreat. In the reconstruction of the policy discourse, as it is manifest in leading policy documents of the Dutch central government, it is observed that this discourse has emancipated from the intellectual discourse. The policy discourse of the retreating government has developed into a financial management discourse, free from European ideals.

Many authors have claimed that the role of the Dutch government, and other governments, is changing. The overarching consensus is that states are now retreating after decades of expansion. This paper investigates, on the basis of a secondary analysis of existing data, whether, where and how the Dutch state can be said to be retreating. This leads to mixed findings: four different analyses of the ‘state of the state’. The first tale, focusing on macro financial indicators, suggests ‘stability’. The second tale, focusing on net changes in expenses, depicts further expansion, particularly in the domain of health care. The third tale, focusing on policy intentions, sees a retreat indeed. And the fourth tale would suggest that it is merely about a reorganization of the state itself.

The military is generally considered to act as a professional when it comes to retreating forces from military battleground or international conflict areas. At the same time recent national experiences with the withdrawal of national troops from international peacekeeping operations are filled with disappointments and crises. In this article the authors question the idea that these disappointments and crises are simply due to problems of reduced military competence or military morale. They argue that the military is still the alleged expert who knows how to perform military retreats and other military actions. At the same time they show that network-like decision-making structures that are inherent to the deployment of troops in international peacekeeping missions, have become a major obstacle for the military to act in its own right. The lessons that government can learn from the military experience are firstly, that decisions for national public cutbacks should be accompanied by a more in-depth (re)consideration of public (key) tasks than up to now was considered appropriate, and secondly, that more trust should be shown in the skills, knowledge and motivation of professionals to delineate and constrain the boundaries of their own fields of expertise.

In 2012 the Dutch government decided to implement severe budget cuts for the cultural sector, more than in almost any other European country. Not only for austerity reasons but also due to ideological motives 200 million in subsidies to the cultural sector were cut by the central government. Also local government cut their cultural budgets, but only for economic reasons. After an outrage among artists and cultural institutions they started to adapt. But cultural entrepreneurship proved difficult in an era of economic crisis. Sponsorship and donations were difficult to get. Visitors saved on their expenses for visits to theatres. Nevertheless just a small number of cultural institutions stopped their activities. Most cut their staff and are only working with freelancers. The consequences of cuts are mostly felt by individual artists. With the institutions they are trying to find new ways for reaching audiences. But it is too early to tell if they will survive. The government is developing new indicators for judging the performances of the cultural institutions. That has the danger of a cultural utilitarianism, without a vision on other values for society that the cultural sector could provide.

Various advisory councils for the government advocate a retreat of government. This can take the form of less government, i.e. abandoning certain public tasks, or a more modest government. This retreat of government is said to be necessary to give space to initiatives from society – which are now hampered by policy makers – and because of the failure of both the state and the market to perform public tasks adequately. Yet, it remains to be seen how realistic this call for the retreat of government is. In addition, it is unclear whether this process is already taking place (descriptive) or whether it concerns a desired situation to be achieved in the future (prescriptive). What does a facilitating government actually look like? The advisory rapports discussed in this paper share a thorough line of argumentation analysis which is plausible at first sight. At the same time, they miss out in the practical application for policy makers, they seem to be overly optimistic in their assessment of the role of citizens. Moreover, all advisory councils shy away from making fundamental choices about which tasks governments should discontinue and hand over to societal initiatives.

Nudging is currently high on the political agenda. The idea behind nudging is that the government can gently push citizens in the ‘good’ direction by anticipating their predictable irrational behaviour. In the Dutch discussion nudging often is seen as an instrument to influence citizens more. Therefore critics fear paternalism, manipulation and technocracy. However, we could also see nudging as a replacement of more coercive instruments. Then nudges might even offer chances for a state that is withdrawing under the condition that citizens have both the opportunity and the capability to make alternative choices in practice than the choices to which nudges aim. Therefore nudges by the government should not avoid reflective and conscious thinking processes, but rather stimulate deliberation and make citizens more aware of their decisions.

This paper draws some lessons, expected and unexpected, from the different contributions in this special issue on the retreating state. The special issue has shown that the retreat of the retreat of the state is a paradoxical and unequivocal development. The retreat of the state is also accompanied by active forms of central management and policy initiatives. Wider developments in the economy and international politics demonstrate that the state is not, as has often been suggested, obsolete. Disregarding this, however, many citizens are actively involved in shaping a new form of participative society.

Government employs Public-Private Partnerships as a remedial strategy directed at compensating for failures that typically occur in pure market arrangements, networks or pure hierarchical government settings. It is then possible to engage in Public-Private Partnerships corresponding with the three basic forms of social organization: market, network and government. The distinction between: (1) market-PPP, (2) network-PPP and (3) public authority-PPP is elaborated.

How far should governments go to keep their citizens safe? Not an easy question to answer, but the three books reviewed in this essay provide food for thought on this matter. Power (2004) describes how risk management could become such a dominant feature in today’s society while warning for the danger of risk management being misused to save one’s reputation if things do go wrong. Boutellier (2013) paints a picture of Dutch societal uncertainty and explains how crime became a part of Dutch risk society. According to Boutellier, Dutch government tries to deal with this complexity in an improvising manner. Van Duin, Wijkhuijs, and Jong (2013) present an edited volume of crises and incidents which happened in 2012. Lessons are drawn and warnings given, including the warning that it is impossible to prepare for all possible incidents, let alone plan everything ahead and distil those plans in rules and regulations.

In this contribution the author, who himself had a long and distinguished career as a top civil servant, reflects on civil servants advising their ministers. This process of ‘speaking truth to power’ can have its own challenges and dilemmas. The author discusses them based on recent cases and relevant developments in the Netherlands. He also proposes several recommendations on how to readjust the relationship between politicians and civil servants in their light.