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Discover the latest news about Politics and Public Governance: new published articles, presentations, our members in the news,...

19 December | Prof. dr. Ria Janvier explains in 'Het Laatste Nieuws' the seven new measures on pensions that will come into force in 2025. 

9 December  | Prof. dr. Ria Janvier is interviewed by 'De Morgen' about future pension reforms by the next Belgian federal government and their consequences.   

3 December  | New article titled "How do elite core actors assess trust in national and EU authorities? The varying role of generalised trust at diferent governmental levels", authored by dr. Moritz Kappler, prof. dr. Rahel Schomaker, dr. Edoardo Guaschino and prof. dr. Koen Verhoest, published in Comparative European Politics. 

• Abstract: In this paper, we position generalised trust as central to the debate on elites’ assessments of trust in EU multi-level governance. We leverage one of the most influential factors in explaining political trust in single-government studies to understand variations in trust towards political authorities at various levels. Departing from existing studies, we hypothesise the dual nature of generalised trust: while it influences how individuals assess their trust in political authorities, its impact varies depending on different degrees of perceived similarity of these authorities at either the national or the EU level. To test our hypotheses, we conducted an elite vignette experiment involving 567 decision-makers from public and private stakeholders within regulatory regimes in eight countries. The results reveal a significant positive effect of generalised trust on political trust when evaluating a national-level regulatory agency. However, trust assessments of EU-level regulatory agencies appear to be largely unaffected by generalised trust levels. Furthermore, we observed notable differences in trust assessment between private and public stakeholders, reinforcing our argument that similarity and community belonging underlie the influence of generalised trust on political trust. Our study suggests that EU-level political authorities may derive less benefit from high levels of generalised trust, compared to national political authorities. However, in instances where generalised trust is low, political authorities at the EU level have comparatively more opportunities to cultivate trust in them.
  

29 November | Prof. dr. Marijn Hoijtink is in a podcast of BNR where she talks about the use of AI in warfare. 

22 November | Prof. dr. Hans Bruyninckx publishes an article in newspaper 'De Morgen'. In this, he explains four gaps of the climate conference in Baku and emphasises which ethical principles should be central in such climate conferences.

15 November | New article titled "A reputational perspective on structural reforms: How media reputations are related to the structural reform likelihood of public agencies", authored by prof. dr. Jan Boon, prof. dr. Jan Wynen, prof. dr. Koen Verhoest, prof. dr. Walter Daelemans and dr. Jens Lemmens, published in the Journal of Public Administration Research and Theory. 

• Abstract: Despite recurrent observations that media reputations of agencies matter to understand their reform experiences, no studies have theorized and tested the role of sentiment. This study uses novel and advanced BERT language models to detect attributions of responsibility for positive/negative outcomes in media coverage towards 14 Flemish (Belgian) agencies between 2000-2015 through supervised machine learning, and connects these data to the Belgian State Administration Database on the structural reforms these agencies experienced. Our results reflect an inverted U-shaped relationship: more negative reputations increase the reform likelihood of agencies, yet up to a certain point at which the reform likelihood drops again. Variations in positive and neutral reputational signals do not impact the reform likelihood of agencies. Our study contributes to understanding the role of reputation as an antecedent of structural reforms. Complementing and enriching existing perspectives, the paper shows how the sentiment in reputational signals accumulates and informs political-administrative decision-makers to engage in structural reforms.
  

4 November  | New article titled "Performing policy conflict: A dramaturgical analysis of public participation in contentious urban planning projects", authored by Lisa De Roeck and prof. dr. Wouter Van Dooren, published in Policy Sciences.

• Abstract: Whether endemic or overt, conflict is an intrinsic part of policymaking. Public participation promises to give a place to those conflicts in a more inclusive and productive way. Previous research has primarily focused on the substance and discourse of conflict, studying what conflicts are about and how actors give meaning to conflicts. Less attention has been given to how conflicts are enacted and performed when citizens and the state meet. Using a dramaturgical approach, this paper explores how the performances, staging practices, and scenography of public participation influence policy conflicts. The research concentrates on two contentious urban projects in the Belgian city of Genk, employing ethnographic observation of participatory moments to expose the performative elements of participation. The analysis uncovers the artifacts and communicative methods that narrow the conflict scope, determine the micro-politics of the participatory meetings, and influence whose voices are heard. Using a dramaturgical analysis framework sheds light on some underexplored, micro-level dynamics of participatory efforts that may limit the scope of policy conflict. Understanding these micro-mechanisms is essential for a more inclusive and equitable urban transformation policy.