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Minister Kajsa Ollogren (Internal Affairs) about citizens’ participation:

‘To be honest, citizens’ participation is most often used as a check in the box, while the policy improves massively by the involvement of citizens’ (De Koster & Hendriksma, 2018)

Abstract

Co-production, the collaboration between citizens and the government to deliver public services, is getting more common nowadays. Still, most research about this phenomenon is focussing on initiatives on the local level, while the regional and national government are co-producing as well. Despite the use of co-production, it is not always used in its full potential as the quote of the Minister of the Internal Affairs suggests. This research is about examining the variety between the different governmental levels in the use of co-production. Eight cases of co-production have been selected. Based on twenty interviews, three boxes have been created that represent the check in the box, inspired by the statement of the Minister. At the local level co-production is used for the implementation of complementary tasks. The support is related to the short-term results and the co-producers are most often regular citizens. A pilot allows the co-productions. If the co-production has not developed enough in that period to act independently, the city council needs to make a statement about the continuance of the co-production. At the regional level the co-productions are about the implementation of core governmental tasks. The support offered by the government is aiming to get the full potential out of the co-producers. The support differs from case to case, because the co-producers vary from regular citizens to professional organisations. The continuance of the co-production is related to the civil servant and the highest political representative. At the national level co-production is used for designing and implementing complementary tasks. Co-production is only allowed for efficiency reasons. The co-producers are professional organisations. The national government shares its expertise and its civil servants as form of support. The co-productions are allowed based on personal interests by the Minister in charge. When they are substituted, the co-productions need to find other interested organisations that want to support them. The final chapter concludes with a discussion of the practical implications of this research and these findings.

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Table of Content

1. Introduction 6

1.1 The development of Public Administration 7

1.2. The research question 8

1.3. Methodology 9

1.4. Added-value of this research 9

1.5. Reading guide 10

2. Co-production in theoretical perspective 11

2.1. Co-production 11 2.2. Citizens 11 2.3. State actors 13 2.3.1. Local Government 14 2.3.2. Regional Government 14 2.3.3. National Government 15

2.3.4. The different governmental levels compared 15

2.4. The ladder of participation 16

2.5. Summary 18

3. Methodology 20

3.1. Qualitative research and research design 20

3.2. Interviewing 21

3.3. Coding 25

3.3. Criteria for qualitative research: trustworthiness and authenticity 32

3.4. The selected research cases 33

3.4.1. Case studies about co-productions with the local government 33

Hydroelectric station in a small community 33

Neighbourhood gardens in an average city 34

Redecorated wasteland in a big city 34

3.4.2. Case studies about co-production with the regional government 35

The underpass of the provincial road under a small town 35

The sustainability of the production chain of an alcoholic drink 35

Dyke Thinkers 36

3.4.3. Case studies about co-production with the national government 36

The stimulation of consuming more vegetables and fruit 36

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4. Results 38

4.1. Co-production at the local level 38

4.1.1. A new perspective: from directing to serving on complementary tasks 38

4.1.2. Conditions to co-produce: formal and informal 40

4.1.3. Support, effort and limitations: short-term related 43

4.1.4. Political dependency: Democracy vs Co-production 46

4.2. Co-production at the regional level 48

4.2.1. A new perspective: involving citizens in the core of the regional government 48

4.2.2. Conditions to co-produce: informal 51

4.2.3. Support, effort and limitations: creating a level playing field 53

4.2.4. Political dependency: involvement of the highest representative 55

4.3 Co-production at the national level 58

4.3.1. A new perspective: co-production based on supply and demand 58

4.3.2. Support, effort and limitations: success of the co-production 60

4.3.3. Political dependency: co-production based on political goodwill 61

5. Conclusion 64

5.1. Summary main findings 64

5.1.1. Local government 64

5.1.2. Regional government 65

5.1.3. National government 66

5.2. The co-production check-off box 66

5.2.1. The governmental paradigm 67

The local government 67

The regional government 70

The national government 71

5.2.2. The supportive role of the government and the civil servant 72

5.2.3. The professionalism of the co-production 74

5.2.4. The pilot paradox 75

5.3. Co-production: a check in the box or more than that? 76

6. Discussion 80

6.1. Added value literature 80

6.2. Validity 82

6.3. Limits 82

6.4. Future research and practical suggestions 83

7. Afterword 85

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1. Introduction

Democracy and the Rule of Law in equilibrium (2019) is the title of the report of state about

the functioning of the Dutch democracy. More often, we see that all forms of government aim to minimize the gap between citizens and government by implementing several forms of citizens’ participation. However, the actual role of citizens varies among the governmental institutions, as Van Eijk describes in her article (2013). Citizens are involved in the policy process, for example, by making use of a G1000, a dialogue between citizens and government about how to make a change (Michels, 2011). In Heerenveen, the G1000 has been used to develop policy about the facilities in the city centre (Heerenveense Courant, 2018). The G1000 is a collaboration between citizens and the local government where the citizens create the input, and the government carries out the final proposal. This is a form of citizens’ participation1 although it is not necessarily active participation. Government can use it as

a manipulative instrument, i.e. the lowest level of Arnstein’s ladder of citizens’ engagement (Tritter & McCallum, 2006, p. 157). Citizens can advise in favour of a policy change, but the government holds the power to make actual change. The power to affect the outcome is out of balance.

The next step of citizen participation is co-production, which is also a form of citizens’ participation, but this time the citizens take care of governmental tasks instead of only giving input to a particular policy issue (Fledderus, 2016). Citizens and the government collaborate to fulfil public goods (Van Eijk, 2017). The citizens have the Right to Challenge (RTC) the government in order to make public services better, more efficient, or cheaper. Citizens not only give their input, they also actively participate in the provision of public services. For example, the neighbourhood watch schemes in which citizens take the responsibility to check their neighbourhood for suspicious situations in order to help the local police. With the neighbourhood watch schemes, citizens have a more significant responsibility in the execution of the task. The neighbourhood watch schemes are placed higher on Arnstein’s ladder of citizens’ engagement. On the surface, the power is more evenly shared compared to the G1000, because the citizens and the local police act together to execute the task. However, acting together does not include deciding together (Tritter & McCallum, 2006, p. 157). Besides the question about whether it is desirable to have full shared powers, the neighbourhood watch schemes have a manipulative part like the G1000, because the officials still can decide whether or not the watch schemes are allowed and in which form. Van Eijk (2013) shows the diversity in institutional measures used by different local governments to promote citizens’ engagement. Currently, approximately 75 local governments in the Netherlands give citizens the opportunity to co-produce (Hendriksma, 2018). This number will probably increase in the next couple of years, in accordance with national government intention. This trend will not only apply to local government. When it comes to citizens’ engagement, regional and national government also have a role to play.

1. In this report the term ‘citizens’ participation’ refers to all forms where citizens are involved in the policy-making and policy-implementation process.

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Due to changes in the national law, like the so-called Omgevingswet, a more significant role will be assigned to the regional government to stimulate and facilitate citizens’ participation. The Omgevingswet is about the modernisation of the spatial planning policy. Within the Omgevingswet, participation gets a central role within this new policy. Different governmental levels are required to set rules for this participation. Due to the complexity of the tasks and the distance between the government and citizens, participation and participation policy have not been as common on the regional and national levels as on the local level. Although there are some examples of co-production in which the citizens interact with regional or national government, they are infrequent compared to the local level. Regional and national governments are experimenting with the RTC or a variation thereon, with the Right to Bid (Van Buuren & Van Popering, 2018). The purpose of this thesis is to examine what those differences are and how the governmental levels handle the increase of citizens’ engagement.

1.1 The development of Public Administration

The phenomenon of co-production is originally from the United Kingdom (UK). The RTC is part of the Localism Act. Besides commercial organisations citizens were officially embedded in the legal order and allowed to take over governmental tasks. The raise of co-production in the public sector fits in the broader development of the government and the relation with society. This development can be divided in three different phases, namely Traditional Public

Administration (TPA), New Public Management (NPM), and New Public Governance (NPG).

Within the TPA, the government’s main goal was to protect the rights of citizens (Bryson, Crosby, & Bloomberg, 2014). The politicians determined the policy goals and executed them. The government worked hierarchically, with administrators responsible for democratically elected officials. They tried to work efficiently through bureaucratic procedures. Their citizens are mainly involved during elections. The interaction between government and citizens in the TPA is minimal.

In the UK, criticism emerged that the TPA was no longer suitable for the country (Gray & Jenkins, 2006). As the central actor, the national government was not well connected to local and regional entities. The government was too big to operate as effectively and efficiently as possible. Therefore, the concept of NPM arose; run the government as efficiently as a business (Gray & Jenkins, 2006). The politicians still decided the policy goals, but instead of doing it all themselves, the government delegated tasks to businesses and non-profit organisations where possible. Citizens were approached more as a customer than as a voter. The difference is that citizens’ opinions were expressed and heard more often during the policy-making process. The G1000 in Heerenveen is an example of the involvement of citizens in an NPM setting. Nevertheless, the government had the authority to make the final decisions.

The complexity of the implementation of government policy was still a problem, even within the NPM (Osborne, 2010, p. 9). NPG covered this issue better by seeing citizens as problem-solvers. The role of the government is even more minimized compared to NPM. Citizens participate actively in the different policy-making phases in order to create public goods.

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The government’s role differs case by case. Sometimes the government is a collaborator or partner, other times the government remains out of the way to allow citizens and other organisations to run their course. Co-production is part of this approach by actively involving citizens in the policymaking and implementation process.

1.2. The research question

The introduction of the RTC is very recent. In 2011 the RTC was embedded in the national legal order of the UK. In the Netherlands, the government is still in transition but aims to increase the number of local governments that support the RTC (De Koster & Hendriksma, 2018). The Minister of Internal Affairs stated that she would like to double the number of local governments that offer the RTC (De Koster & Hendriksma, 2018). In the coalition agreement, the government states that co-production is mainly aimed at local governments (Rutte, Buma, Pechtold, & Segers, 2017, p. 7). However, there are some examples of co-production known in which the citizens interact with regional or national governments. Regional and national governments are experimenting with the RTC or a variation thereon with the Right

to Bid (Van Buuren & Van Popering, 2018).

The transition towards NPG may lead to different approaches at government institutions. All levels of government can argue that they practice co-production, but in what level of Arnstein’s ladder of citizens’ engagement does the use co-production by different levels of governments fit? Is co-production always a partnership between citizens and government on all the levels? The Minister of Internal Affairs stated that citizens’ participation is most often used as a check in the box, while policy improves massively by the involvement of citizens’ (De Koster & Hendriksma, 2018). With the introduction of the so-called Omgevingswet in which citizens’ participation is essential, the Minister stimulates participation on other governmental levels in addition to the local level. Nevertheless, the statement shows that there is some deviation in the approach to citizens’ participation.

The more central role of citizens’ participation is part of the transition towards NPG. Some authors describe this transition as a linear process where the governmental paradigms follow one another quickly (E.G., Denhardt & Denhardt, 2000; Dunleavy, Margetts, Bastow, & Tinkler, 2006; Entwistle & Martin, 2005). In their view on the transition, the process of development will be ongoing with NPG as a result. Others say that this description of the transition is too theoretical (E. G. Haveman & Roa, 2006; Wiesel & Modell, 2014). In practice, this transition from TPA to NPM to NPG is less fragmented and more fluid. Wiesel and Modell (2014, p. 180) stated that it is a partial transition where vital elements of paradigms are still part of the newly formed configuration. The newly formed configuration is the result of a battle of conflicts, where some parts will remain the same. This suggests that co-production as a form of citizens’ engagement can still be used as a manipulative instrument, because the transition from TPA to NPG is still ongoing. In line with Wiesel and Modell (2014), parts of TPA where the government is the central actor and makes the decisions, can be related to the use of co-production. A difference is therefore expected between the governmental levels on how they handle the increase of citizens’ participation, based on the fragmentized transition. The difference between local, regional, and national government and their

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approach to co-production will be the central theme of this research. Therefore, the research question will be as follows:

‘How do different levels of government handle the increase of co-production and thereby, the increase of citizens’ participation in public administration?’

The main goal of this research is to present an overview of the differences between the local, regional, and national governments in how they handle the involvement of citizens in the policy process. To my knowledge, the relation between co-production and the different governmental levels has never been thoroughly researched. The added value of my research will be described in more detail in paragraph 1.4. The aim of this study is to determine the expected differences between governmental levels based on the ongoing transition and differences in approaches, as described above. Based on my findings, suggestions can be made for further research on the matter. This will be elaborated in the discussion.

1.3. Methodology

This will be an interpretivist research to gain an in-depth understanding of the different situations. Co-production is a relatively new phenomenon, which makes it interesting to dive deeper into the subject. As far as known, there is no theory about the difference between governmental levels that can be tested. These theories must be generated first. An inductive and interpretivist approach gives a more detailed insight into this concept. There are two or three cases selected for every government level, and eight case studies in total. Each case study includes at least one interview with the co-producer and one interview with a civil servant of the government that supports the initiative. Where possible, an interview with a political representative is added to the case. Each interview is semi-structured with specific topics. The interviewee has the opportunity to steer the interview in any associated direction as long as it is related to the main topic of co-production and citizens’ participation. This research gives the opportunity to compare between and within government levels.

1.4. Added-value of this research

This research gives more insight into the phenomenon of co-production. Co-production is linked to NPG. The governments’ role in NPG varies from case to case and is not as clear as at TPA. The transition from NPM to NPG is still ongoing, which may lead to differentiation in the intention of the phenomenon. Currently, co-production is mostly promoted at the local level of government (Hendriksma, 2018). This research explores the possibilities and use of co-production at other government levels, which is in line with the developments in the participation policy like the Omgevingswet. Other governmental levels get a more significant responsibility to facilitate and coördinate co-production, while not much research has been done on their practices. The opposition or conviction of (the value of) co-production among the government levels has not been researched before.

Most of the existing research about co-production is a single-case study as literature reviews show (Voorberg, Bekkers, & Tummers, 2015). With the used methodology and the number of selected cases, a comparative case study is possible. Different aspects of the co-production

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process, like the different approaches between the governmental levels, can be emphasized with the research design used here (Toshkov, 2016, p. 259). Besides the methodology used, the focus of this research will be more on the process and the outcome of the co-productions, instead of the influential aspects like income, education, and community which is most often the scope of the research (Voorberg, Bekkers, & Tummers, 2015).

1.5. Reading guide

This research is structured in several chapters. Firstly, the theory chapter presents an overview of the concept of co-production, the actors of co-production and Arnstein’s ladder of participation. Due to the interpretivist design of this research, the theory chapter will be minimalized to the necessary essentials. The method chapter elaborates on the used method. It presents an overview of the interviewees and the created codes that form the base for the results. In the result chapter the generated data will be described for each governmental level. The conclusion of this research starts with a summary of the results. Based on these results the characteristics of each governmental level will be presented and the newly generated theory will be introduced. The final chapter, the discussion, includes an interpatation of the generated theory in context of the society. The limitations and recommendations for further research will be discussed.

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2. Co-production in theoretical perspective

In this chapter an overview will be presented about the phenomenon co-production. This includes the reasons to co-produce and the actors of co-production. The actors will be divided in a category of citizens and a category of state actors. Next, Arnstein’s ladder of participation will be presented in order to reflect theoretically on the phenomenon of co-production. The chapter finishes with a short summary of the most important findings.

2.1. Co-production

Co-production is related to the involvement of citizens in the public service (Brandsen & Pesthoff, Co-production, the third sector and the delivery of public services, 2006, p. 494). The idea emerged in the 1970s and 1980s in the USA by Elinor Ostrom (1996). At that time the government was a big and central actor that made and executed most of the decisions, which made it a massive and rigid actor. The Traditional Public Administration ruled with a lot of well-defined rules, hierarchy and bureaucracy to coordinate the process as efficiently as possible (Bracci, Fugini, & Sicilia, 2016, p. 1). The large and centralized governance was not able to provide better and more direct services to citizens. The service of the governance and the desire of the citizens was disconnected. They determined that it was difficult to deliver a service without the input and active participation of those who received the service (Brandsen & Pesthoff, Co-production, the third sector and the delivery of public services, 2006, p. 496). That is how co-production emerged.

Several scholars have defined co-production. It all started with Elinor Ostrom (1996, p. 1076) who described co-production as “the process through which inputs used to produce a

good or service are contributed by individuals who are not in the same organisation”. Over the

time the ambiguous terms used by Ostrom have been elaborated on and became clearer. Co-production contains two actors, the regular producers and the consumer producers (Pestoff, 2006, p. 506). The regular producers include the government, the ‘actor that produced the good or service before the input of individuals from outside the organisation’. The consumer producers include the citizens. These actors and their motivations to co-produce will be described in the following paragraphs.

Ostrom (1996) stated that public services required the participation of citizens. Participation is not the same as involving citizens in the decision-making process. Participation consists also of formulating and executing public policy (Alford, 2014, p. 300). The G1000 as mentioned in the introduction is thereby excluded as form of co-production, because it only insists an advisory role. Co-production is an umbrella concept that captures a wide variety of activities that can occur in any phase of the public service cycle, and in which the state actors and the citizens work together to produce the public service (Nabatchi & Sancino, 2017).

2.2.Citizens

The consumer producers, one of the actors in a co-production as Pestoff (2006) describes, is fulfilled by citizens. Citizens can act on an individual, group or organisation basis. They can take several roles. Voorberg, Bekker and Tummers (2015) make a distinction between

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a co-implementer, co-designer and initiator. The role of the co-implementer contains executive tasks like the neighbourhood watch schemes as described in the introduction. The co-designer is someone who has influence on the design of the policy. The third role is the initiator of a certain initiative and the government follows (their lead?). No matter what role citizens take, they can collect different rewards from coproducing. This can be personal benefits, which are benefits that can be related to an individual person or group, or social benefits that cannot be related to a specific individual or group but refers to the society in general (Nabatchi & Sancino, 2017). These benefits can be related to the outcome of the co-production (Bovaird & Loeffler, 2013). Citizens can make use of a more sustainable service, which improves the quality of life. Bovaird & Loeffler (2013, p. 2) argue that ‘the end does not

justify the means’. The process of co-production is just as important for the co-producers as

the final outcome. The process of co-production itself already increases the social capital and the social cohesion of citizens, which is a benefit for the consumer producers. Alford (2002) makes an additional category of consumer producers; the volunteers. Contrary to the previous categories, a volunteer is someone who does not consume directly from the co-production and does not receive any benefits for their work. The experience of coproducing is already a reward for the volunteer, because it gains knowledge or experience it can use for its career. The volunteer does not receive the benefits of the co-production, but they will benefit from personal development.

The literature makes a distinction in motivations for citizens to co-produce. Van Eijk et. al. (2017) describe three factors that influence the willingness to co-produce: citizen’s perception of the task and the competences needed to perform, citizens individual characteristics and citizens’ self-interest and community focus. This is relevant to the research question, because the state actors try to involve citizens. In order to know what kind of citizens are willing to co-produce, some background information about the motivation mechanism of citizens is necessary.

First, easy access to co-production is important. The more effort citizens have make to participate in a co-production, the more the co-production must be personally relevant for them in order to partake (or otherwise they are not willing anymore) (Verschuere, Brandsen, & Pestoff, Co-production: The State of the Art in Research and the Future Agenda , 2018, p. 5). Secondly, the willingness to co-produce is partly determined by individual characteristics. This includes socioeconomic status and social connectedness (Van Eijk & Steen, 2016). Citizens need to have the resources and the knowledge to participate. Citizens with a low income and lower educational level are underrepresented in the co-production process (Verschuere, Vanleene, Steen, & Brandsen, 2018, p. 248). In addition, women more than often than men participate as individual co-producers (Van Eijk & Steen, 2016, p. 32). When the co-production acts in a group formation, men tend to participate more often. However, this finding needs to be interpreted with caution, because women tend to participate under the name of their husband, which is common in formal communication (Thijssen & Van Dooren, 2016, p. 95). Also, citizens are more willing to co-produce if their social network expects them to or gives them the opportunity to do so. For example Van Eijk and Steen (2015) stated that church attendance and group membership are factors that affect the willingness

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to co-produce due to the social network of the co-producer. Thirdly, citizens will more often co-produce if the co-production is really important for them and their community. The co-producer is more willing if the co-production has a direct impact on their life (Verschuere et. al., 2018, p. 6). This does not mean that the local issues are the more important for citizens than national issues (Treisman, 2007, p. 157). Citizens are expected to be equally as willing to co-produce at the national level as at the local level.

So not much research has been done on the negative effects of co-production. Van Leene et. al. (2015, p. 18) say that based on their literature review, most scholars only mention the benefits of co-production. The authors only mention the self-serving bias. Based on the self-serving bias theory Bendapudi and Leone (2003) show that co-producers are likely to claim more credit and responsibility than partners if the co-production is successful, and less responsibility than partners if the outcome of the co-production is less than expected. In other words, co-producers are likely to overestimate their own share in the success if the co-production is successful, when the co-production is less successful than expected however, they attribute that to external factors.

Within this sub-chapter the motivational mechanism of the citizens was described. This is an essential factor for the governments to take into account when making proper policy about co-production. In the next sub-chapter, I will elaborate on the different state actors.

2.3. State actors

Co-productions are beneficial for state actors because they can improve efficiency of services (Bovaird & Loeffler, 2013, p. 4). Co-productions are more cost-effective because they don’t rely on paid government officials, but instead rely on the knowledge and network of their citizens. Besides improvement of efficiency, Van Leene, Verschueren and Voets (2015) argue that co-production improves the relationship between citizens and government, because there is an exchange in knowledge and perspectives. Bovaird and Loeffler (2013) already argued that citizens’ knowledge helps to make the public services more efficient. Van leene et. Al. (2015, p. 7) found that collaboration between government and citizens gives government a better insight in the popularity of its (proposed) policy among its citizens. On the other hand, it also gives citizens insight in the complexity of governing.

Normally in the co-production literature the state actor is the local government. This is not only based on the dominance of case study research design that involved local governments (Voorberg, Bekkers, & Tummers, 2015), but also the small nuance of Brandsen Steen and Verschuere (2018, p. 3) that local governments embrace citizens’ participation. Most literature is based on the implicit assumption that co-production is most common at the local level. In this research the state actor is divided into the three tradition governmental levels; local government, regional government and the national government. The next paragraphs will further detail these governmental levels. The paragraph will end with a comparison between the different governmental levels.

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2.3.1. Local Government

The local government is the government closest to the citizens. Decisions made at this level will impact the community directly. The local government is therefore the most visible governmental level for citizens. An example would be the placement of benches in a park or the construction of a shopping mall. The decisions are taken by the local council and executed by the deputy mayor. The major of the town runs the local council. The deputy majors are supported by civil servant, 145 015 in total among all municipalities (Ministerie Binnenlandse Zaken en Koninkrijksrelaties, 2018, p. 8).

The amount of local governments has decreased the last couple of decades. In 2000 there were in total 537 local governments (Breeman, Noort & Rutgers; 2015, p. 105), while in 2019 there were only 355 municipalities left (Rijksoverheid, 2018). Most of the time small municipalities merge together into a completely new municipality or a smaller municipality joins a bigger one (Breeman, Van Noort, & Rutgers, 2015). The merge can have several reasons (Fraanje, Herweijer, Beerepoot, Van Assenbergh, Brouwer, & Heins, 2008, p. 123). The merge of municipalities gives the opportunity for bigger municipalities to grow their housing capacity. Smaller municipalities that merge together most often do so because of financial problems / reasons. Working together can increase governmental efficiency and decisiveness. Together they can be more decisive. Furthermore, bigger municipalities are more attractive to companies, which in turn will benefit the local economy.

Aside from the above-mentioned positive effects, some negative effects have been determined. The perceived distance between citizens and government has increased according to Fraanje and Herweijer (2013). The results of their empirical research show that citizens experience a bigger distance between them and the local government, both physically and figuratively. Despite this negative effect however, citizens still feel more connected to the local government than to the other two levels, because the political issues are specific and the relations are transparent (Van Eijk, 2013, p. 256).

2.3.2. Regional Government

The regional government, so called province, takes the middle management tasks within the governmental levels. When issues are too big for a single local government, but too small for the national government, the province takes over. The regional government mostly makes decisions about the living environment. Issues handled by the regional government are the regional infrastructure and environmental topics within the region. Besides that the province controls the local government and the special governmental embodies2 that cover

the water management. The decisions are made by the representatives of the Provincial council and executed by the Provincial-Executives3. The Provincial-Executives are supported

by civil servants, 10 516 in total (Ministerie Binnenlandse Zaken en Koninkrijksrelaties, 2018, p. 8). The chair of the Provincial council is the King’s Commissioner.

Compared to the local government, the regional government is somewhat invisible for the

2. In Dutch: Waterschappen 3. In Dutch: Gedeputeerde Staten

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citizens (Breeman, Van Noort, & Rutgers, 2015, p. 85). The turnout at elections is low compared to the other two governmental levels. Also, there is a debate about the functionality of the province. While the local governments increase in size and become more decisive, it is unsure if the regional governments are still needed in the future. On the one hand, more citizens move from the Dutch countryside to the cities, because they don’t feel connected to their province. On the other hand, there is also a (large?) group of people for which the province offers a form of identity, causing them to refrain from moving at any cost (Duijvendak, 2008).

2.3.3. National Government

The national issues will be handled by the national government. The national government makes decisions about various topics too big for the regional government. Topics like education, health care and national infrastructure are attributed to the national government. Decisions are made by the parliament members and executed by the minister. The chair of the parliament meetings is a member of the parliament itself. The debates and decisions mostly take place in the Second Chamber. The First Chamber controls the Second Chamber and needs to vote in favour of all the decisions that are taken in the Second Chamber before the act is in play. The Ministers with each their own topic, are responsible for the execution of the decisions made by the parliament. Each Minister has its own department of civil servants supporting them. In total in 2017 there were 118 330 civil servants who supported the ministers with their work (Ministerie Binnenlandse Zaken en Koninkrijksrelaties, 2018, p. 8). It is impossible for the national government to interact with all its citizens in a decision-making process. One of the possibilities that citizens have to influence the national government is by elections or referenda. These are the only moments when citizens can influence the national government directly. In order to receive the input of citizens on different topics, a lot of issues are decentralized to local and regional governments (Treisman, 2007, p. 157). The argument is that local authorities can give a better and more meaningful opportunity to citizens to participate. The national government uses the local and regional government to voice the input of the citizens. These governmental levels are innovative and have more options for citizens to participate. While on the national level, the participation of citizens has been decreased (Van Houwelingen, Boele, & Dekker, 2014, p. 35). At the same time, the national government expects citizens to take more responsibility for society and expects them to be more independent; the so-called participatiesamenleving.

2.3.4. The different governmental levels compared

Co-production is not easy for all governmental levels. In order to get citizens willing to coproduce, Van Eijk, Steen and Verschuere et. al. (2017) argue that the task must be easy to understand and in line with the competences of the citizens. This is easier to achieve at the local level, because citizens have a more direct stake in local issues and therefore are more willing to participate (Piotrowski & Van Ryzin, 2007, p. 309). Whereas the task complexity increases among the governmental levels, it would be more difficult to co-produce for citizens. The complexity of the tasks is also reflected in the amount of civil servants. Local government have less civil servants on average compared to the national government. This means that on national level the tasks are executed by more professionalized employees.

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With the growing complexity of the tasks among the higher governmental levels, the relationship between the government and citizens becomes more abstract. The local level partly executes the policy of the higher governments, which makes their acting more visible and more concrete compared to the others (Lambooy, 1989, p. 18). According to the literature citizens feel more connected to the local government, because their topics are more related to their daily life. They know where the city hall is, but do not know how they could get in contact with the regional government. The distance between citizens and government is literally bigger. As research by the Wageningen University shows that it is more difficult for regional and national government to connect to the citizens (Van der Wielen & Vader, 2011).

2.4. The ladder of participation

In order to examine how different governmental levels handle the raise of co-production and citizens’ participation, the legal powers of citizens must be elaborated. This will be done on the basis of Arnstein’s ladder of participation (1969), which is classic in categorizing citizens’ participation and used by many scholars (E. G. Tritter & McCallum, 2006; Hurlbert & Gupta, 2015 & Blue, Rosol, & Fast, 2019). Within her ladder, Arnstein makes a distinction between empty ritual of participation and having the real power to affect the outcome. At the bottom of the ladder she defines non-participation. This includes the first two steps;

manipulation and therapy. Manipulation is an

illusionary form of participation. Arnstein illustrates an example of an advisory committee, which includes citizens. Instead of the citizens advising the officials, the officials gave advise to the citizens. In the meantime, the organisation proudly promoted the participation of the citizens. Therapy as Arnstein (1969, p. 218) describes, is a form of nonparticipation in which the experts set the agenda. The goal of the meeting is to ‘cure’ the citizens from values that are not in line with the experts. Cornwall (2008) argues that there are several reasons for nonparticipation. Some groups of people are not able to participate, because of the timing and the duration of the participation. Another reason is that the participatory events take place at locations which the citizens are unfamiliar with (Cornwall, 2008). This can hold them back from participating.

In the middle of the ladder, Arnstein (1969) defines tokenism. This consists of informing,

consultation and placation. Within these steps the power is still with the officials, but the

citizens can share their vision. Starting with informing, the officials inform citizens about their rights and opportunities. This is mostly one-way traffic. The officials use news media and posters. The timing of sharing the information partly determines the opportunities the citizens have (Cornwall, 2008, p. 271). Furthermore, the informationg might be superficial or

Figure 1: Arnstein’s Ladder of Citizen’s participation

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irrelevant as well. Consultation consist of citizens sharing their opinions (Arnstein, 1969, p. 219). Still, the citizens do not have the power to affect the outcome. The officials eventually decide on the final outcome. Despite the symbolic use of the consultation, officials will promote it in order to gain support for the decisions made. The officials still determine the agenda of the consultation and only ask for input on certain topics (Cornwall, 2008, p. 272). The last step of tokenism includes placation (Arnstein, 1969, p. 220). This includes activities in order to appease the situation. Arnstein gives an example of a board of an organisation that handpickes several citizens to join. Still the officials hold the majority of the seats and therefore they can outvote the citizens.

On top of the ladder Arnstein defines citizens’ power. This includes partnership, delegated

power and citizen’s control. Compared to non-participation and tokenism, citizens can affect

the outcome in this part of the ladder (Tritter & McCallum, 2006, p. 157). Partnership includes a distribution of power among the citizens and the officials (Arnstein, 1969, p. 220). As long as the citizens are trained, they can use the same powers as the officials. Delegated power is the first rung in which the citizens dominate most of the power (Arnstein, 1969, p. 221). Compared to partnership, citizens now have more power than the officials and the officials need to bargain about certain power. At the top of the ladder Arnstein defines citizen control (Arnstein, 1969, p. 222). This includes the almost absolute power of the citizens to determine what happens in a certain programme. There is less control from officials. The top rung is rhetoric, because citizens control is far from desired.

Within the ladder of participation co-production can be placed on the partnership rung in which they work together to produce public goods and public services. Rock, McGuire and Rogers (2018) argue that the distribution of power is not always equal. In their article they describe a co-production in a museum. Visitors and museum management tried to create a new exposition together. The authors argue that co-production is restricted by the management style. Top management could still set budgetary limits or put time pressure on the co-production in order to influence the co-production. This top-down managementstyle is a burden for the co-production, because it limits the co-production by the strict rules of the top management. Leaders are unwilling to risk the loss of an efficient process. Co-production asks for a more appropriate leadership style where everyday rules, regulations and inhibitions are suspended (Rock, McGuire, & Rogers, 2018, p. 546 & p. 547). This suggests that not all co-productions can be placed on the same rung but vary from case to case based on the role diviation.

Although a museum is not a public case, when transitioning from Traditional Public Administration to New Public Governance, a hierarchical management style can be a risk-factor. The government can still set the conditions for the co-production. Citizens are dependent of the support of the government in either a financial way or otherwise. In order to co-produce, a new appropriate managementstyle should be created together with the citizens. Due to the newness of co-production this is not a common thing. Co-production in the public sphere is therefore not always on the same rung as Arnstein would suggest.

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2.5. Summary

Co-production contains a collaboration of citizens and state actors to produce public goods or public services. State actors co-produce in order to make the delivery of goods and services more efficient by making use of the knowledge of citizens. Also, they co-produce to improve the relationship with citizens and showing them how the society is governed. Citizens co-produce on individual, group or collective basis. The co-production has an impact on their daily life and the citizens experience the benefit of the co-production. Certain factors influence the willingness of citizens to co-produce:

• The accessibility to co-produce: the more effort a citizen need to make to co-produce, the less they are willing to co-produce

• Individual characteristics: the socioeconomic circumstance and the network the citi-zen is interacting in determines the ability of the citiciti-zen to co-produce

• The importance of the co-production: the more important the co-production is for the citizens, the more they are willing to co-produce.

The state actors can be divided into the local government, regional government and national government. The national government cannot act on all issues and therefore it has delegated several topics to the local and regional government. There are three variables that differ among the governmental levels:

• Complexity of the task; local governments are more about the daily life of citizens, whereas regional and national government are tasked with solving more abstract and difficult problems.

• The amount of civil servants; compared to the regional and national government, the local government has the least amount of civil servant on average, whereas the national government have the most.

• The possibilities for direct influence; the local government offers more direct influ-ence compared to the national government.

Arnstein (1969) developed the ladder of citizens’ participation. She distinguished nine steps and divided those steps into three categories: nonparticipation, tokenism and citizen power. The ladder of citizens’ participation is a continuum in which the influence and powers of citizens compared to the state actor increase with each rung. Starting at the bottom, citizens do not have any power and are mostly manipulated. At the top of the ladder citizens have the absolute power and control the whole process. Theoretically co-production can be categorized on the partnership rung of the ladder. This includes equal powers between citizens and officials as long as the citizens are trained.

Still this does not mean that all the co-productions can be placed on the same rung of the ladder. The state actor can be resistant to accepted processes and set budgetary or time limits in order make it difficult for citizens to participate. A condition for co-production is a less hierarchal management style, where both a more level playing field is created.

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The different governmental levels all have other tasks and different relations with the citizens. The national government has the most complex tasks and only interacts directly with citizens during elections. The topics the national government covers are more macro-orientated and less related to the individual citizens’ environment. The local government is closer related to the citizens. The topics the local government covers are related to the direct environment of its citizens; for example, the bench on the corner of the street or the tree in the park. The regional government decides about topics that are too big for the local government, but too small for the national government. Mostly the regional government decides about environmentally related issues. The different topics and distance to the citizens would suggest a difference between the governmental levels in the way they handle co-production and the increasing citizens’ participation.

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3. Methodology

In the upcoming chapter, the used methodology will be described. This consists of the research design, the research methods for data sampling, and the data processing. Lastly, the criteria for evaluating qualitative research are explained.

3.1. Qualitative research and research design

The research will be an inductive qualitative research. Therefore there is no overview of the analysed indicators. Co-production is a relatively new research phenomenon and to the best of my knowledge the link between co-production and its political intendancy has never been researched before. This makes it challenging to present an overview of the indicators because the literary reasoning would be very narrow. An indicative research results in a better representation of the current state of knowledge about this topic.

An important aspect of inductive research is the role of theory. The theoretical framework in inductive research is generally rather short. Inductive research requires an open view of the world as it is. The researcher analyses the world as it appears to him/her. For this research project, a completely open view would not be possible and useful within the limited time available. Therefore a short theoretical framework is presented in order to create a more narrowed scope of data analysing (Lanen, 2010). Still, the majority of this research is inductive with no or very limited pre-existing literature to direct the data sampling and analysing. This research is conducted in a qualitative manner in order to set a new standard for future research. This research aims to create a new theory instead of testing existing theory (Toshkov, 2016, p. 38). In order to do so the data is sampled, and from there, a abstract theoretical propositions is presented. The data sampling method that has been chosen for this research is interviews.

Qualitative research also better fits this research because of the small number of appropriate cases that can be studied and the diversity within the cases. This would affect the outcome of quantitative statistics. In addition, qualitative research focuses more on the individual (Bryman, 2016, p. 33). This offers more room to highlight the specific circumstances of each case. Qualitative research is based on descriptions of real-life settings (Ospina, Esteve, & Lee, 2018). It reveals the participant’s understanding of the world.

For this research, the most different research design has been chosen. For a topic that has not been researched previously, that is the best way to get more information about the variety of co-productions that exist. The research question is about how governmental levels handle the raise of co-production. This is not a one-size-fits-all, and therefore the most different case design suits this research best. The advantage is that it shows the variety of cases and their development. The different governmental levels all take a different approach, and even within one level much variety exists. The disadvantage is that it is more difficult to compare all the cases with each other. That is not a big problem, because that is not the primary goal of this research. Co-production is a relatively new topic. A comparison would not yet be useful at this time, because the what-and-how of co-production is not clear yet.

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For this research, eight cases are selected. Each case is a co-production initiative related to improving environmental sustainability. This is a topic that is relevant for all the governmental levels. The topic of the co-production is the only factor that unites all selected cases. This enables to present the different approaches of the co-production better. The eight cases are divided over the three governmental levels: three initiatives on the local level, three initiatives on the regional level, and two initiatives on the national level. Of the initiatives on the regional level, two involve the province as a governmental actor and one involves a water board. The water board is shared under regional governance because the co-production covers several municipalities. One of the initiatives on the local level involves the local government as well as the water board. In this case, the initiative was very community-focused, but because of the weir, which is property of the water board, the water board was involved. However, the focus was mainly on the community, so the case is counted as an initiative on the local level. The cases selected on the local level vary in size of the local government. Based on the theory that small municipalities merge or join a bigger municipality for efficiency reasons, bigger municipalities should deliver a better service (Fraanje et. al., 2008, p. 123). At the same time, bigger municipalities have a more significant distance to their citizens. Citizens have the fear that the enlargement of a municipality also means the loss of personal identity (Fraanje & Herweijer, 2013). The size of the local government can affect the process of the co-production, because a big municipality can probably offer more support, while a smaller municipality has a better connection with citizens to stimulate co-production.

Co-productions on the level of regional and national governments are less common than on the local level. Hence there were not many cases that could be selected. The selected cases vary in type of governmental organisation involved. For example, a water board instead of a province on the regional level, or different ministries on the local level. The size of the government was less relevant for the regional and national cases because here the difference is not as significant as it is at the local level.

3.2. Interviewing

This is an interpretivism research, and therefore, interviews are chosen as data sampling method. The expressions of the respondents will be analysed in order to fully understand their interpretation of the world (Leezenberg & De Vries, 2012, p. 170). Compared to other sampling methods interviews have a more significant workload, but are best suitable in showing the nuances and details of the cases. This is in line with the chosen research design, namely to highlight the differences between the selected cases.

The interviews are semi-structured. This means that there is a topic list for each interview but no concrete list of questions that need to be ticked off in order to complete this research. The interviewer sets the topic for the interview, but the respondent is free to answer in any way that he or she thinks works best. At the end of each interview, the respondent is asked whether he or she has anything else to share that has not been asked yet. This is in line with the inductive research approach; the topic list narrows the scope of answering, but leaves many opportunities to the interviewees to express themselves in any way they want.

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In order to create a complete view of a selected case, interviews will be conducted from three different perspectives; the perspective of the citizen, the perspective of the civil servant, and the perspective of the politician. The interviews with the citizens and civil servants are about the process of co-production and the relationship between the citizens and civil servants. This is relevant to the research question because it reveals how the governmental levels have handled the raise of co-production in the past. The intention with the politician perspective is to interview the alderman, the deputy of the province or the minister for a more political and philosophical interview about co-production. This is relevant to the research question, because it shows the underlying reasons why certain decisions are made. Due to elections, busy schedules of the interviewees and a lack of willingness to participate, not all cases include the political perspective. Although this might result in bias, I expect the impact to be limited as the politicians that have participated are part of political parties that are active among all governmental levels. Although they do not know about the case-specific information of different governments, members of their party would express a comparable statement about co-production. Second-hand data of citizens and civil servants is used for the information of the political perspective. It expresses their experience with political actors. The interviews with the citizens, civil servants, and politicians all have a different topic list, all of which aim to find a piece of the puzzle in order to answer the main research question. The used topic lists relate to each other but also give the opportunity to show a unique perspective on this topic. The interviews with citizens and civil servants are mostly based on experiences and less on political and philosophical considerations. The interviews with politicians are more based on political and philosophical ideas about the relationship between citizens and government. For the citizens, the topic list consists of the following topics:

• Co-production: some background information about the production, the co-producer, and the development of the co-production from the start until now.

• Skills and support: what skills does a co-producer need in order to co-produce and what support does the government offer the co-producer? Some personal characteristics determine the willingness to co-produce. The difference between the governmental levels, as stated in the summary of the preceding chapter, is about the complexity and the possibility to support due to the number of civil servants. This is relevant for the research question, because it shows what the citizens should arrange themselves and what support they can receive from the government. The higher the governmental level, the more complex the case would be. So, what does that say about the needed skills and offered support of the government to be able to co-produce?

• Relationship co-producer – government: how would the co-producer describe the relationship with the government, and what experiences does the co-producer have so far? The distance between citizens and government will increase the higher the governmental levels get. Does this influence the relationship between the co-producer and the government?

• Reflection and development: how does the co-producer reflect on the process of production from the start until now and what opportunities exist to take the

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co-production to the next step? Co-co-production is a relatively new phenomenon with an unclear policy framework. Most of the current policy is based on trial and error. This topic gives insight into possible future developments.

For civil servants, the topic list consists of the following topics:

• Co-production: what does the government aim to achieve with co-production, and what is the formal procedure to co-produce?

• Expectations and support: what expectations does the government have of the co-producer and co-production, and what support does the government offer the co-production? The difference between the governmental levels, as stated in the summary of the preceding chapter, is about the complexity and the possibility to support due to the number of civil servants. This is relevant for the research question, because it shows what expectations the government sets for citizens to co-produce. • Relationship government – co-producer: how would the government describe the

relationship with the co-producers, and what experience does the government have so far? This is relevant for the same reasons as for the citizens, but in this case, it is the governmental perspective.

• Reflection and development: how does the government reflect on the process of co-production in general and what opportunities exist to take co-co-production to the next step? This topic gives insight into the possible developments of the co-production from the perspective of the government.

For the politicians, the topic list consists of the following topics:

• Co-production: what should be the primary goal to achieve with co-production? • Accessibility and expectations: who should be able to co-produce, and what

expectations should the co-producer and government have of each other?

• Relationship co-producer and government: what should be the relationship between the co-producer and the government, and what power can be allocated to each actor?

• Development: what should be the spot on the horizon on how co-production should develop in the upcoming years?

The interviews were held in-person or by phone. In-person interviews were the standard, but in four cases the respondent was not able to meet in person in a limited time. Research has shown that interviews by telephone are often shorter than in-person interviews. However, in my study the interviews that took place in-person did not last much longer than the interviews by phone. Some interviews by phone even lasted longer than in-person interviews. The disadvantage of underreporting is less likely to occur in this case. Although it needs to be taken into account for the discussion of this research, the reduced likeliness of underreporting makes it possible to compare the content of the interviews with each other. Interviews in-person or by phone are nevertheless both valid methods to collect data (Rahman, 2015, p. 12). The next table contains an overview of all the interviews.

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Table 1: Overview interviews

Case Governmental Level

Actor Place interview Duration interview

(in minutes) Number

Hydroelectric station Local government Representing 29.000 inhabitants Citizen: co-founder hydroelectric station Telephone 40 1

Civil servant local government

City hall 59 2

Civil servant water board E-mail - 3 Neighbourhood Gardens Local government Representing 90.000 inhabitants Citizen: founder organisation Citizens’ home 66 4 Civil servant local

government

City hall 48 5

Alderman: liberal and responsible for citizens’ participation City hall 17 6 Redecorate wasteland Local government Representing 645.000 inhabitants Citizen: founder ‘Stadsgeneeskunde Citizens’ home 126 7 Civil servant local

government Café 46 8 Local politician: progressive social democrat City hall 56 9

Local politician: liberal democrat

City hall 43 10

Local politician: social democrat Work interviewee 53 11 The underpass of the provincial way Province Citizens: representative community council Citizens’ home 75 12

Civil servant province Telephone 44 13 The sustainability of the production chain of an alcoholic drink Province Researcher: representative foundation University 47 14

Civil servant province Provincial hall 44 15 Dyke Thinkers Water Board Citizen; participant

environmental platform

Telephone 38 16

Civil servant water

board Water board 42 17

Duo interview: Dyke Reeve & civil servant water board Water board 50 18 Stimulation of consuming more vegetables and fruit National government

Duo interview: Project manager & liaison ministry Office organisation 57 19 & 20 The strategic policy developing about food production and consuming behaviour. National government

Project manager Telephone 50 21 Civil servant ministry Ministry of

international affairs

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For this research, 11 interviews are held regarding cases on the local level. The citizens all have a job beside the co-production or work on multiple projects (paid and unpaid). The civil servants were all related to the co-production. The civil servant of the hydroelectric station case participated based on his expertise on sustainability for the local government. The other two civil servants both acted based on their expertise on citizens’ participation. They were responsible for the guidance of new initiatives that want to interact with the local government. The local politicians are all representatives of parties that are part of the local coalition as well. The invitation to participate in this research is sent to all the political parties that act in the city council. These three politicians responded. Although they all participate in parties that are part of the coalition, there are some differences in the way they approach the topic.

There are seven interviews held with cases on the regional level. Two of the three citizens had a job related to the co-production. The representative of the community council did not have a job that was related to the co-production. The civil servant, in the case of the sustainability of the production chain of an alcoholic drink, was not directly related to this case. The civil servant was a policymaker at the province and responsible for local democracy and participation within the province. The civil servant could tell about the normal process of co-production for the province, but did not know the details of this specific case. The water board arranged the citizen perspective of the Dyke Thinker-case. The contact information was not public, so the civil servant forwarded my request for an interview with the participants. The duo-interview was on request of the Dyke Reeve for support on the details of the case. There are three interviews held with cases on the national level. One of the interviews was a duo-interview with the project manager and the liaison of the ministry. The liaison works one day a week for the initiative and connects the initiative with the ministry. The project manager arranged the duo-interview. These two know each well, which made it an open conversation. Although they both had their own interests, the experience was that they both could speak freely. The ‘citizens’ perspective’ is represented by the project managers who are involved in the founding of the initiatives. The co-production is a fulltime job for them.

3.3. Coding

Each interview is recorded with permission of the respondent. The interviews were transcribed and anonymized afterwards. All transcripts were then coded. The coding was done per initiative per governmental level in chronological order. The coding took place after all the interviews had been transcribed. There are two rounds of coding. In the first round, the codes were not structured. After the first round, some codes were merged into one in order to create more structure and synergy. This research is considered inductive research, but to somewhat demarcate the findings, a small theoretical framework had been constructed. This framework formed the base for the topic list. Because of the semi-structured interviews, interviewees could respond to the question according to their own interpretation. This makes the answers less structured and less theory-based. Most of the codes are empirical codes that are generated through the examination of the data (Gibson & Brown, 2009, p. 130). This is because the research is mostly inductive.

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The codes that are formed and selected form the base for the result chapter. This chapter has three sub-chapters, one for each governmental level. The next paragraphs give an overview of the content. After the description of the paragraph, an overview of all the used codes per paragraph and code tree per governmental level are presented. The sub-chapter about the local government has four paragraphs:

• Changing role of the government: the local government takes a serving role instead of directing which is related to the use of co-production

• Conditions to co-produce: the policy on co-production set by the local government that states the conditions for the co-productions

• Support, effort, limitations: is about the support offered by the local government, the effort the co-producers need to make to start the co-productions and the limitations the co-productions experience during the process

• Democracy vs. co-production: with the use of co-production comes a tension between the city council and the decisions and responsibilities they have versus the co-production

The sub-chapter about the regional government also has four paragraphs:

• A new perspective for the regional government: is about the new role of involving citizens more with the process of the regional government

• Informal conditions: the regional government did not have a policy with set conditions like the local level did, but made use of more informal conditions

• Support: how to create a level playing field: the support that is offered makes it (more) possible to participate in the co-production and collaborate with the government • Political dependency: the political representative always takes the final decision The sub-chapter about the national government has three paragraphs:

• Role of the production compared to the role of the national government: co-production at the national level is used to execute existing policy goals

• Success of the co-production: specific personal characteristics and willingness to try to determine the success of the co-production

• Co-production based on political goodwill: co-production is allowed by the willingness of the minister in charge

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Table 2: Used codes per paragraph local government

A new perspective: from directing to serving on complementary tasks

Conditions to co-produce:

formal and informal Support, effort, limitations: short-term related Political dependency: democracy vs. co-production

Goal of the co-production Conditions to co-produce Civil servant as limiting factor

Politics Drive co-producer Knowledge Gap citizens and civil

servant

Political instability Changing role government Finance Gap citizens and

governance

Tension co-production and politics

Control government Support base Bureaucracy Limiting co-production Co-production not suitable Importance of the media Checking local government Inefficiency co-production Co-production as nerves in the neighbourhood Professionalization Co-production as competition Result-orientated Co-production not obligatory

Effort to co-produce Co-production with strict policy

Limited vision on co-production

Co-production for existing policy

Lacking support of the municipality

Strict policy, but flexible in reality

Political dependency Co-production as

rolemodel for civil servants

Time pressure Facilitating role local government

Co-production political underexposed Co-production as

extra tasks for the local government

Importance of a trustworthy government

Dynamic policy Celebrating co-production

Social aspect co-production

Ignorant local government Support for democracy Co-production as political statement

Civil servant as limiting factor Informal contact local government

Co-production a-political Gap citizens and civil servant Bottom-up thinking Limiting the role of the city

council

Gap citizens and governance Limits of co-production Govern past your own term Bureaucracy Different organisational

capacities co-production

Local interests co-production Checking local government Effort co-producers Bottom-up thinking Co-production as

competition

Experience of the co-producer

Limits of co-production Co-production with strict

policy

Different organisational capacities co-production Strict policy, but flexible in

reality

Table 3: Used codes per paragraph regional government

A new perspective: involving citizens in the core of the regional government

Conditions to co-produce: informal

Support, effort and limitations: creating a level playing field

Political dependency: involvement of the highest representative

Changing role government Conditions co-production Support co-production Political dependency Support civil servant Finance Co-finance Tension democracy and

participation Develop participation Formalization co-production Informal contact

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As mentioned towards the end of section 1.0, the possible academic relevance of this research question is that the study could of a little help on deeper comparing and

Digital participation forms are by far the best suitable form of co-determination / participation, according to the respondents, followed by work meetings, project groups and a

3p 14 Leg uit dat een zwakke base geschikt is en leg uit dat een sterke base niet geschikt is om in dit proces te worden gebruikt. In een folder over dit proces staat een

Using a sample of working papers from a Belgium Big 4 firm, the au- thors explore the controllable (i.e., managerial) and non-controllable (i.e., environmen- tal) factors