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Klantmanagers en hun Logica's

Bij de gemeenten beslissen klantmanagers over de toegang tot uitkeringen, over mogelijke sancties en de deelname aan een re-integratietrajecten. Zij zijn de frontline professionals die binnen hun discretionaire ruimte beslissingen nemen over de uitvoer van de participatiewet. De autonomie van deze professionals wordt begrensd door de logica’s van de markt en de bureaucratie. Hun handelen kan worden geduid vanuit het spanningsveld tussen deze logica’s.Door decentralisaties zijn verantwoordelijkheden voor de re-integratie van bijstandsgerechtigden verplaatst van de rijksoverheid naar gemeenten. Met het opgaan van delen van de Wet Werk en Bijstand en de Wajong in deze Participatiewet verandert de rol van de klantmanager en daarmee ook de opgave van hen om bijstandsgerechtigden aan een betaalde baan te helpen. In de semigestructureerde interviews zijn 14 klantmanagers van een grote gemeente gevraagd te verhalen over hun opvattingen over arbeid, hun positie, bijstandsgerechtigden en hun ervaringen met de participatiewet.De klantmanagers redeneren veelal vanuit een professionele logica en formuleren daarbij nadrukkelijk doelen, die op het welzijn van bijstandsgerechtigden zijn gericht, en die breder liggen dan de toeleiding naar betaald werk. De handelingsruimte wordt begrensd door de participatiewet maar zij geven aan de grenzen ervan zoveel mogelijk op te zoeken wanneer zij dit zinvol achten. Bij het handelen baseren zij zich veelal op individuele ervaringen uit het verleden en ze geven aan horizontale sturing te missen.

Enhancing Institutional Learning and Embracing Disruptive Interventions as a Bottom-Up Way to Innovate Planning Practice

Amsterdam strives to combat a shortage of homes by launching an ambitious housing development scheme for 32 designated most deprived neighborhoods. After decades of urban renewal projects, the local communities still suffer from difficult to resolve socioeconomic problems. Aside from a minimum of 40% social dwelling units, 40% of homes are reserved for the middle class and only 20% for high-end. Mixing income segments on its own will not lead to an improved socio-economic status of the inhabitants thus, a new urban renewal program has been developed. On top of that, the new progressive municipal council, intends to democratise the urban renewal processes towards more community-led developments with local support and structural solutions. Some experts may argue that we require a radical new way of planning whilst others counter, that current standardised planning procedures cannot be easily changed.In partnership with themunicipality, we reflect on Amsterdam’s urban regeneration program and enhance collective crossborder learning by organising monthly learning sessions with the managers involved. Now that thefirst phases of the planning process have been completed, we follow a Grounded Theory (GT)method to structure the collected data and analyse the perceived barriers hindering the modernisation of planning practice. Observations and promising actions to make the participation process more inclusive, interactive and influential will be discussed. One example is that some managers on the ground who have to work with the system, are taking short cuts in planning procedures to ensure that citizens’ needs are incorporated in the developed plan. These disruptiveinterventions may be used to formalise and implement new policy and more effective pathways ofcommunity-based development.

Aspiring to Dutchness: Media Literacy, Integration, and Communication with Eritrean Status Holders

Based on 13 interviews with Eritrean status holders and professionals in Amsterdam this article explores how paying attention to media skills and media literacies may help gain a better understanding of what matters in exchanges between professionals and legal refugees in the mandatory Dutch integration process. Media literacy needs to be decolonised in order to do so. Starting as an inquiry into how professionals and their clients have different ideas of what constitutes “inclusive communication,” analysis of the interviews provides insight into how there is a need to (a) renegotiate citizenship away from the equation of neoliberal values with good citizenship and recognising needs and ambitions outside a neoliberal framework, (b) rethink components of formal and informal communication, and (c) reconceptualise media literacies beyond Western‐oriented definitions. We propose that professionals and status holders need to understand how and when they (can) trust media and sources; how what we might call “open‐mindedness to the media literacy of others” is a dialogic performative skill that is linked to contexts of time and place. It requires self‐reflective approach to integration, and the identities of being a professional and an Eritrean stakeholder. Co‐designing such media literacy training will bring reflexivity rather than the more generic term “competence” within the heart of both media literacy and inclusive communication.

Integrating data, knowledge, and expertise for policy advice: understanding the practices of Dutch organized crime control professionals

Current research on data in policy has primarily focused on street-level bureaucrats, neglecting the changes in the work of policy advisors. This research fills this gap by presenting an explorative theoretical understanding of the integration of data, local knowledge and professional expertise in the work of policy advisors. The theoretical perspective we develop builds upon Vickers’s (1995, The Art of Judgment: A Study of Policy Making, Centenary Edition, SAGE) judgments in policymaking. Empirically, we present a case study of a Dutch law enforcement network for preventing and reducing organized crime. Based on interviews, observations, and documents collected in a 13-month ethnographic fieldwork period, we study how policy advisors within this network make their judgments. In contrast with the idea of data as a rationalizing force, our study reveals that how data sources are selected and analyzed for judgments is very much shaped by the existing local and expert knowledge of policy advisors. The weight given to data is highly situational: we found that policy advisors welcome data in scoping the policy issue, but for judgments more closely connected to actual policy interventions, data are given limited value.

Bureaucratic, market or professional control?

Street-Level Democracy?

In 2017 the municipality of Amsterdam launched a programme to combat a housingshortage and realise ambitious societal goals for 32 of its most deprived neighbourhoods. After decades of urban renewal projects, these areas still scored poorly on most socio-economic indicators. The programme aims to develop more affordable housing for low- and middleincome households, to revitalise the existing public spaces of these neighbourhoods and to improve the residents’ socio-economic position. In addition, the progressive municipal council installed in 2018 intends to democratise urban renewal processes with the aim of increasing community involvement.