Culture in Action : The 'Rotterdam Approach' as Modernization through Tradition

This article discusses the relation between administrative culture and the capacity to act. It analyses how the Dutch city of Rotterdam radically altered its safety and ‘livability’ approaches in the face of new challenges, and how the city used its cultural make-up and traditions in doing so. This takes its importance from that fact that local governments are almost continuously confronted with the need to reform policies and methods in the face of challenges such as individualism, cultural diversity, and safety problems. The notion of culture or administrative culture is often invoked to explain why innovations have been unsuccessful. We will argue that this line of argumentation hinges on wrong assumptions about the influence of culture on action. Culture is conceptualized as too static and homogeneous, and too much focused on cognitive aspects. By proposing an alternative, action-oriented concept of culture, we will argue that administrative culture can be a source of innovation.