Within the Dutch political context, citizen participation is widely implemented. Co-production – a particular form of participation – is increasingly seen as an effective means for tackling so-called ‘wicked problems’. Yet, for the public professional working at the national, regional or local government, this implies important challenges and changes in everyday practices. From the literature, we already know for instance, that co-production requires a different skillset. However, less attention is paid to the potentially conflicting interests that occur in the co-production context. Public professionals need to behave in a complex web of often conflicting interests, originating from the various actors and organizations they need to interact with. Currently, literature does not provide insight in the dilemma’s that these conflicting interests create for professionals, and how they balance the different interests. Insight in this is required to progress both the academic field and co-production practice. In this article, we focus on the local governmental level and describe the complex nexus of different interests. We present three dilemma’s public professionals are confronted with: (1) focus on doable decisions that could be implemented or on inclusiveness in the co-production process; (2) steering, facilitating or leading; and (3) deviating from or complying to the rules.

During the coronavirus crisis, Dutch Universities of Applied Sciences gained experience with ways of working characterised by experimenting and informal forms of collaboration. This leads to the question what the coronavirus crisis means for the agility and the capacity for innovation of Universities of Applied Sciences. The experiences during the coronavirus crisis can be used as catalyst for the development towards more agile and innovative organizations. Based on group discussions with board members and managers from several Universities of Applied Sciences in the Netherlands and literature about crisis-induced learning and conditions for agility and innovative capacity, five methods are suggested to strengthen the agility and the capacity for innovation of the Dutch Universities of Applied Sciences.

Over the years, the Dutch Tax and Customs Administration (DTCA) has been criticized. This criticism escalated in the child benefits scandal. Moreover, it has become visible that the DTCA is dealing with an institutional crisis. Institutional crises seem to appear out of nowhere. However, in this article I show that public organizations can foresee institutional crises. I develop an identification and reflection framework which identifies the first seeds of an institutional crisis. New in this framework is the focus on the internal dynamics of the institutional structure of public organizations. The two dimensions, the foundation, and the operational practice, must be in line with each other. A discrepancy between the two dimensions either leads to a sag or an overburdened public organization. With help of the framework, I explore how the DTCA could have foreseen the institutional crisis.

Recently the Dutch government is confronted with various affaires and cases of policy failure that seriously impaired citizens. Evaluations blame the dominant instrumental thinking within public organisations, as a result of New Public Management. The focus on effectiveness and efficiency drives out other public values and makes it difficult for agencies to address the specific needs of clients and citizens. In this contribution the question is addressed to what extent the literature on public values provides suggestions to correct the instrumental orientation of administrators, public managers and public service providers. Three approaches to public values are discussed: public value as policy outcome, public values as competitive values, and public values as internalized values that shape the behaviour of administrators, public managers and providers. The exploration of this literature identifies various suggestions on how the various public values that are at stake in the development and realization of policies and public services can be weighed in a more balanced way. However, the literature also shows that empirical research that validates these suggestions is much needed.

Like many other public administration journals, the Dutch journal Bestuurskunde (Public Administration) is committed to fostering exchanges between academicians and practitioners. In this article the author presents the results of a review of 1230 articles, that were published in Bestuurskunde, between 1992 and 2021. The questions are: What were the trends in the journal’s content in the past three decades? Who were the journal’s authors? What are the topical and theoretical developments reflected in it? The analyses show that, although participation of practitioner authors declined steadily, Bestuurskunde has been able to maintain its role as an exchange platform. This may be due to a remarkable continuity in the prominence of normative argumentative methodologies in its publications. Moreover, some observations are shared of topics that should be given more attention. Among these are diversity and inclusion, transnational administration, and the actual use of Bestuurskunde as a source of information by practitioners.