In The Netherlands may local governments make public policy in a participatory way. Civilians and other interested parties are invited by policy makers to design public policy cooperatively. As a consequence many actors and information are embedded in the policy making process, because these actors describe the issue(s) and solutions for the policy problem differently. Some municipals are able to cope with the growing complexity of the policy process, others not. In order to deal with the growing process complexity, local goverments hire independent process professionals. These process professionals design and manage the participatory policy process. However, this is far from easy in practice. The process-architects and process-managers are faced with a lot of dilemmas for process-design as well as for process-management of participatory public policy making, and ways of coping with these dilemmas. (Author/publisher)
Abstract