Citizens’ Initiatives: How Local Governments Fill their Facilitative Role

In the context of drastic cutbacks many Dutch municipalities consider citizens’ initiatives (CIs) as an attractive alternative for municipal policies aimed at improving the livability and safety in neighbourhoods, simultaneously building responsible citizenship. In this paper we combine different theoretical perspectives to analyse the institutional settings in which CIs are being realised, and how municipalities try to facilitate such initiatives. Municipalities can do this by either trying to structure the relevant networks or by various forms of process management. This analysis sheds light on how municipalities use a variety of instruments to mobilise citizens to participate in CIs. In using such instruments they can influence various factors (like motivations, personal resources, social capital and expected responsiveness; cf. Lowndes et al.’s CLEAR model) that increase the likelihood of civic engagement.     

Contested hybridization of regulation: Failure of the Dutch regulatory system to protect minors from harmful media

The hybridization of regulatory modes and instruments is currently a popular way to improve public regulation. However, it is still unclear whether combinations of hard law and soft law, co-regulation, and legally enforced self-regulation really make regulation more effective. Using the analytical framework of the “really responsive regulation” approach, in this article we explore effectiveness problems in a hybrid regulatory system that tries to protect minors from harmful media. In our analysis of low compliance rates in the context of system failures, we argue that effectiveness problems seem to arise from poorly informed staff members, lack of internal and external controls, low rule enforcement, insufficient overlap between public and private interests, poor social responsibility in the Dutch media sector, deficiencies in the institutional framework, an inconsistent regulatory strategy, and inadequate responses from responsible regulators. Furthermore, based on our case study we argue that institutional dynamics of standard-setting activities can be detrimental to regulatory goal achievement if there is no compensation at the systemic level. Ongoing “regulatory care” through control, corrective responses, and rule enforcement seems to be crucial for a hybrid regulatory system to perform well.     

Legal Theory and Sociological Facts

The authors investigate MacCormick and Weinberger's claim that the Institutional Theory of Law provides a conceptual framework for the study of legal phenomena from a socio-legal point of view. They evaluate this claim by confronting both the Institutional Theory of Law and Weinberger's theory of action with two approaches in socio-legal theory, i.e. the instrumentalist and the constitutive approach. The conclusion is that the Institutional Theory of Law lends itself to empirical research from an instrumentalist perspective, for both place the concept institution in the context of law. Weinberger's theory of action may provide a basis for empirical research from a constitutive perspective. The authors make some suggestions for refinement of Weinberger's theory of action in order that the relation between institutions and action can be labeled dynamic.