Abstract
Within governance literature the dominant narrative is that government is losing its hierarchical position and cannot authoritatively steer public policy. As a result new modes of public governance arise which have been described as network governance (Rhodes, 1997). Civil society organisations (CSOs) play an important role in such networks (Stoker, 1998). Part of this change is a focus on the involvement of citizens and their organisations. In the last two decades many Western welfare states have granted their citizens more choice and voice in the provision of public services (Clarke et al., 2007). This does not only apply at the individual level, where citizens can influence their own service provision, but also at the collective level where CSOs can play an active role. The activities of CSOs are expected to foster many positive results: they are expected to revitalise the social by increasing social capital and social trust, improve the quality of public services, and make these services more democratic. However, activating these organisations is also driven by more instrumental objectives such as shifting responsibilities from the state to its citizens and their organisations, thereby saving costs (Van Oorschot, 2006; Trappenburg, 2008; Van de Bovenkamp et al., 2010). Moreover, as we will show in this chapter, CSOs can also be used by governments to accomplish other policy goals.
| Original language | English |
|---|---|
| Title of host publication | Governance and Public Management |
| Publisher | Palgrave Macmillan |
| Pages | 70-95 |
| Number of pages | 26 |
| DOIs | |
| Publication status | Published - 2014 |
Publication series
| Name | Governance and Public Management |
|---|---|
| ISSN (Print) | 2524-728X |
| ISSN (Electronic) | 2524-7298 |
Bibliographical note
Publisher Copyright:© 2014, Maikel Waardenburg and Hester van de Bovenkamp.
Funding
According to the policy documents, the patient movement needed restructuring in order to perform the third-party role depicted by government. It was concluded that disease-specific organisations were either not able to participate or not interested in participation. Moreover, the problem was identified that patient organisations only sporadically worked together; there were no regional or national umbrella organisations. Regional authorities were therefore asked to finance patient organisations in order to create such organisations at the regional level. In the first half of the 1980s these regional platforms were indeed created with the aid of government funding (VWS, 1988). After their creation government influence continued; for instance government wanted to ensure that disease-specific organisations could influence the policy of the umbrella organisations in order to do justice to the diversity of the patients they had to represent. A national umbrella organisation was also created with financial support from government and started to employ interest-representation activities according to government wishes (Trappenburg, 2008). In addition government ensured a place for this umbrella organisation in advisory councils, thereby further enabling it to play its designated role.
Keywords
- Civil Society Organisation
- Patient Organisation
- Policy Document
- Social Capital
- Sport Club