What Governance Roles do Municipalities use in Dutch Local Social Support Networks?

Abstract

Until now, there is no consensus about variations in governance roles. This consensus is necessary to enable researchers to examine how network are governed well. In this article, the governance roles are considered to be clusters of consistent choices on a top-down versus bottom-up continuum, regarding nine governance activities. Our results reveal that three governance roles can be discerned: top-down, intermediate and bottom-up governance roles. Furthermore, these roles are applied by municipalities with specific (network) characteristics. Our results open the black box of network governance and might facilitate municipalities to make choices regarding their role in the new network era.

Key words:

• Network governance roles
• local public networks
• latent cluster class analysis
• network characteristics

Notes

Note The Netherlands Institute for Social Research/SCP is a government agency that conducts research into the social aspects of all areas of government policy. The main fields studied are health, welfare, social security, the labour market and education, with a particular focus on their various interfaces.