Mainstream views of Dutch foreign policy seem to be based upon a persistent assumption that, as a small Western European country, foreign policy is characterized by fundamental stability and continuity. In some regards this stability has almost become a policy and organizational guideline; however, this emphasis on stability as an empirical reality and management standard may be the result of inadequate concepts and models of foreign policy and organizational change. The following research questions are addressed in this article. What are the main carriers and barriers in Dutch foreign policy and organizational change? How can insights from international relations studies, and policy and organization studies be combined to give a model of foreign policy and organizational change? We propose a model based on 11 carriers and barriers for change at four levels of analysis: the international system; the national system; the organizational system; and the individual system. These carriers and barriers are used to explain three types of foreign policy change: policy instruments; strategy and goals; and political and normative foundations. Organizational change concerns: (1) change of roles; (2) change of tasks; (3) change of size of tasks and roles; (4) change of division of tasks and roles; and (5) change of the portfolio of tasks and roles. We discuss Dutch foreign policy towards its former colony Surinam and end with some suggestions for further research.
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Teacher beliefs have been shown to play a major role in shaping educational practice, especially in the area of grammar teaching―an area of language education that teachers have particularly strong views on. Traditional grammar education is regularly criticized for its focus on rules-of-thumb rather than on insights from modern linguistics, and for its focus on lower order thinking. A growing body of literature on grammar teaching promotes the opposite, arguing for more linguistic conceptual knowledge and reflective or higher order thinking in grammar pedagogy. In the Netherlands, this discussion plays an important role in the national development of a new curriculum. This study explores current Dutch teachers’ beliefs on the use of modern linguistic concepts and reflective judgment in grammar teaching. To this end, we conducted a questionnaire among 110 Dutch language teachers from secondary education and analyzed contemporary school textbooks likely to reflect existing teachers’ beliefs. Results indicate that teachers generally appear to favor stimulating reflective judgement in grammar teaching, although implementing activities aimed at fostering reflective thinking seems to be difficult for two reasons: (1) existing textbooks fail to implement sufficient concepts from modern linguistics, nor do they stimulate reflective thinking; (2) teachers lack sufficient conceptual knowledge from linguistics necessary to adequately address reflective thinking.
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During the COVID-19 pandemic, the bidirectional relationship between policy and data reliability has been a challenge for researchers of the local municipal health services. Policy decisions on population specific test locations and selective registration of negative test results led to population differences in data quality. This hampered the calculation of reliable population specific infection rates needed to develop proper data driven public health policy. https://doi.org/10.1007/s12508-023-00377-y
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In January 2017, relations between Greece and Turkey were under severe strain when warships from both sides engaged in a brief standoff near a pair of uninhabited Greek ‘islets’ in the Aegean, whose sovereignty is disputed by Turkey. Theoretically informed by the literature of foreign policy analysis, we examine how the Greek diplomats, military officers and political analysts interpreted Turkey’s behaviour at that particular time. The article considers the following research question: which factors, from a Greek point of view, explain Turkey’s foreign policy in the Aegean in January 2017? Our theoretical expectation is that, in the aftermath of the coup attempt in Turkey, Greek diplomats, military officers and political analysts would ascribe domestic calculations into Turkey’s activities. We employed Q- methodology to uncover socially shared perspectives on this topic. Based on our findings, we uncovered two viewpoints: (1) Turkey’s diachronic strategy in the Aegean and (2) the strongman style. According to the former and most widely shared viewpoint, a consistent ‘rationalist’ strategy to change the status quo in the Aegean explains Turkey’s behaviour. According to the second one, the belief system of Turkey’s leadership legitimises the use of force in the conduct of foreign policy.
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This paper uses discourse theory to obtain a broader understanding of how research impact of sustainable tourism research develops in the environmental policy domain. Discourse theory shifts emphasis from the substance of science versus policy to the use of science in policy processes and explains the political dimensions of policymaking. We first review a well-documented science-policy gap in sustainable tourism research on climate change to develop an alternative conceptualisation of research impact. Then, using a case study approach, we investigate this framework by evaluating the impact of a PhD thesis about aviation’s global CO 2 emissions on the Dutch aviation policy process. The case study shows research impact is entwined with various other elements, and embedded in a specific governance context. Research influenced contrasting science-policy interactions and contributed to conflicting policy actions and reactions. The impact of research in this case was manifested through the formation and interplay of multiple knowledge objects that were both embraced and marginalised. In settings like this, research is used to legitimise pre-existing policy positions rather than to develop new policies. We discuss the implications of narrow conceptions of research impact. The paper highlights the need for advanced policy analysis in sustainable tourism research.
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This article addresses European energy policy through conventional and transformative sustainability approaches. The reader is guided towards an understanding of different renewable energy options that are available on the policy making table and how the policy choices have been shaped. In arguing that so far, European energy policy has been guided by conventional sustainability framework that focuses on eco-efficiency and ‘energy mix’, this article proposes greater reliance on circular economy (CE) and Cradle to Cradle (C2C) frameworks. Exploring the current European reliance on biofuels as a source of renewable energy, this article will provide recommendations for transition to transformative energy choices. http://dx.doi.org/10.13135/2384-8677/2331 https://www.linkedin.com/in/helenkopnina/
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Social innovation and co-creation have been discussed in academic literature for the last twenty years. However, the interrelatedness and application of these concepts in European Union policy deserves more attention. In our study, we focus on this relationship and application, by analysing the value of co-creation for social innovation. By analysing a large EU dataset, we showed that social innovation and co-creation were used more and more widely and that their use took off after 2010 and 2015 respectively. By applying a contextual analysis, we also revealed that both concepts became connected in EU policy on research and innovation. Our analysis also shows that co-creation became an indicator for successful social innovation in the Horizon Europe Framework programme. These results show the importance of co-creation in policies, but because the concept has not been defined properly, this carries the risk of simplifying co-creation into a box-ticking exercise.
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Wikipolicy: the development of institutional policy using social software. In 2008, the University initiated a project entitled “Policy Workshop 2013” to deliver the “2009 - 2013 policy framework”. This new policy should encapsulate the insights, opinions and wishes of students, staff and stakeholders. It was decided alongside other methods to use a wiki as a policy instrument. Results: A wiki has power, participating in the wiki was very limited and the wiki was used for a topic that was not close to non-participants. In general, the attitude with respect to an open dialogue is not positive unambiguously. Does everybody have to co-decide everywhere? Does it have any bene-fits for the organisation?
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In this policy evaluation report, the results of the first 2 years of the Interreg funded ABCitiEs project are presented. In total 16 entrepreneurship collectives have been studied in 5 partner regions, i.e. Athens, Vilnius, Varazdin-Cakovec, Manchester and Amsterdam. The report contains an analysis of the cases and gives an overview of the most important opportunities and challenges faced by these cases. On the basis of these result, 4 policy directions have been selected in which improvement are considered most successful, i.e. access to funding, intermediaries, monitoring and experimental learning environments. Also, the report presents the action plans that have been formulated on the basis of these policy directions for the cities involved in this project. In the last 2 years of the project, project partners will implement these action plans in their respective cities.
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The relationship between project management and sustainable development is rapidly gaining interest from both practitioners and academics. Studies on the integration of the concepts of sustainability into project management, approach this topic mostly from a conceptual, logical or moral point of view. Given the fact that the relationship between sustainability and project management is still an emerging field of study, these approaches make sense. However, they do not diminish the need for more empirical studies to understand how the concepts of sustainable development are implemented in practice. This paper reports an analysis of 56 case studies on the integration of the concepts of sustainability in the way organizations initiate, develop and manage projects. The research question of the study was: To what extent, do organizations consider the concepts of sustainability in the initiation, development and management of projects? The study uses the maturity model for sustainability integration that was presented at the 2010 IPMA World Congress for the assessment of the level of sustainability consideration. The study found an overall average level of sustainability consideration in the actual situation of 25.9%. For the desired situation, this score is almost 10 percent higher, showing an ambition to take sustainability more into consideration. The study also showed that the way sustainability currently is considered, shows the traditional ‘less bad’ approach to sustainability integration and not a more modern social responsibility approach.
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