Characteristics

What makes Dutch local governance stand out? Dutch local governance is known to be about cooperation, striving for broad support and consensus, an integrated approach to social problems, citizens’ initiatives, ingenuity, transparency and openness. Research carried out by Master’s students from the University of Utrecht shows that 4 characteristics can be labeled as truly, typically Dutch: cooperation, solution-oriented, consensus and stability. This is underlined by the cases on this web page, which show how these characteristics work out in practice

characteristic

Cooperation

Dutch local governments are aware that they do not necessarily have all the answers to the complex issues arising in their cities. Therefore, they choose to collaborate and cooperate with other relevant stakeholders from an early stage, to identify possible challenges and to jointly formulate answers to them.

Solution-oriented

In general, Dutch local governments have a pragmatic and entrepreneurial attitude towards the problems in their territories. The local governments work towards the most efficient and achievable solution, reviewing current policies and approaches where necessary.

Consensus

Consensus is deeply rooted in Dutch local governance, but still sees innovation. An important element of consensus is that you actively search for broad support for policies and actions. This requires that the different involved actors are willing to seek compromises and to share power.

Stability

Dutch local governance is known for its stability. This characteristic builds on the previous three characteristics. Since policy decisions are based on broad involvement of stakeholders, pragmatic in character, and based on consensus, newly elected politicians feel less need to completely overturn the work of their predecessors.