Whereas constitutions establish the institutions of government, human beings actually govern countries, municipalities, and regions. The institutional position of these people may be constitutionally constrained but the people who occupy these positions always have some discretion with regard to the way they fulfil their duties. Either consciously or unconsciously these officials develop their styles of governance. A style of governance reflects a combination of personal traits, institutional constraints, and a genuine set of beliefs with regard to what these duties exactly entail. While some people in a government position believe that a debate in Parliament constitutes the core of their work others may prefer developing policies or meeting citizens. Twenty years ago, observational research conducted in Dutch municipalities led to a set of five coherent beliefs or styles of governance. Over the past two decades, politics in the Netherlands has changed dramatically. The stable pillars that characterized and stabilized the Dutch political system have been replaced by political online and offline swarms, the volatility of the electorate has increased more than in other European countries, and incident driven politics has replaced the ideological and managerial political styles of the 1970s, 1980s, and 1990s. In this article we explore the implications of these dramatic changes for the styles of governance in the Netherlands. As recent empirical research is not available yet, we analyse the changes in the Dutch political context to derive a number of implications for the styles of governance.

Credibility is an essential quality for executive politicians but cannot be taken for granted. The literature on political leadership suggests that credible politicians are competent, trustworthy, and caring. Existing studies, however, often do not take into account differences between various offices and tend to ignore the distinction between disparate layers of government. In this article, we analyze as yet unutilized data from local and provincial councilors’ and executives’ evaluations on the qualities they ascribe to their fellow executive politicians. The data were collected for the 2015 Best Dutch Executive election and covers almost all executives who were in office at the time. In contrast to what the existing literature often presumes, our secondary quantitative analysis of this data on 1,776 executives shows that there are significant differences in the qualities that are used to evaluate the most appreciated local and provincial chairpersons on the one hand, and the most appreciated executives on the other hand. Whereas municipal mayors and provincial King’s Commissioners are championed for being particularly caring and showing decisiveness, municipal aldermen and provincial executives are valued in particular for their expertise. This finding indicates that a politician’s credibility for his peers depends on his office as each position requires a particular set of qualities.

Today’s aldermen work in several different environments. They should reckon with society but also with local council, the municipal organisation, the mayor and fellow aldermen. The tasks are very clear, but how an alderman completes these tasks is very personal. For alderman Rensen his authority starts with trust. Personal and sincere relationships are the key for Rensen. His goal is to connect society to local politics and reduce the gap between the two. It is of great importance to be aware of your position and authority as an alderman. By means of this essay, he would like to give you a glimpse into his world as a social-demoratic alderman and the way in which he applies his core values in his daily work.

Over the last four years, one in five Dutch aldermen was forced to step down involuntarily. Drawing on a survey among the 2018 population of these local political-executives, the article evaluates office holders’ self-perceived authority in four authorizing environments, that is the municipal council, the municipal board, among civil servants, and among citizens. The results show that, contrary to the authority-crisis thesis, Dutch aldermen perceive quite a high level of authority overall. Current office holders name trustworthiness as their main source of authority, followed by their personal style in executing their tasks and their moral leadership. This finding illustrates the individualization of contemporary authority at the expense of institutional and positional sources of authority.

What happens in the case of massive deregulation in the local public domain? Despite the widespread call for ‘less regulation’, the effects of large-scale deregulation have received surprisingly little academic attention. In this article, we present the results of a longitudinal study on the effects of deregulation in the Dutch municipality of Hollands Kroon. The municipality abolished a vast number of regulations on public order offences in a radical two-year policy experiment, encouraging citizens to exercise more social control. In contrast, criticasters expected that the experiment would lead to more public offenses and conflict. Based on our data collected over three survey rounds; focus groups with citizens, politicians and civil servants; and several secondary data sources, we conclude that there was little effect: neither an increase in public order offences, nor an increase in social control. Our research shows that, in the short term, deregulation did not significantly affect the behavior of citizens.

The election of Donald Trump, the referendum on the Brexit and the election victory of the Five Star Movement and Lega in Italy have led to the believe that democracy is at a crossroad. Many scholars and opinion makers raise concerns about the future of liberal democracy in Europe and the United States.
This article gives an overview of recent publications on the future of liberal democracy. The article focuses on the causes and possible solutions that are presented in these publications.