Actors in a Fuzzy Governance Environment

This chapter examines the nature of governance in the specific context of regional planning in the Netherlands, which has had a Provincial administration system in place since its origin as a nation state in the sixteenth century, and now includes twelve Provinces. The Dutch formal provincial planning system looks neatly arranged between the national and municipal planning systems, having legal duties in many different areas, including physical planning, traffic and transportation planning, water management, and environmental planning. The chapter provides an empirical illustration of the principles involved, based on an analysis of regional plans in the Province of North Holland. It argues that certain social dilemmas call for 'top-down' government. This problem is usually dealt with by introducing the subsidiarity principle, whereby the decision-making authority should reside at the level most appropriate to the problem being addressed.