 Hi welcome everyone here in the black box at Tilburg University. My name is Anderleek Koster and I'm a program manager at Studium Generale and at Studium Generale we organize events like these lectures, symposia, etc on campus and in town. You've all think received this leave letter with the upcoming events so if you think it's of interest to you then you're very welcome to join. Today there is a lecture in our series Introducing Netherlands that's a series of lectures that we organize together with ESN the people from ESN sitting over there that's the International Student Association and these lectures are introductions to topics that have a typical Dutch aspect or might have a typical Dutch aspect. Today it's about democracy because there are the elections, local elections actually tomorrow is the official date but it's also possible to vote at some places today already and we have a lecturer who is an expert on local democracy and that's Julien van Oostaien and I think Julien you will introduce yourself a bit in your presentation so very pleased that you're here and welcome to Julien. Thank you very much. We'll be discussing democracy today on all levels but mainly focusing on the local level because well as you've heard tomorrow but also today there are local elections in the Netherlands so a good opportunity good time to talk a little bit about democracy and how does the stage structure of the Netherlands look like. I'll be doing that and I think somewhere in between 30 45 minutes I don't know exactly how long I will be talking but somewhere in that line and afterwards there's of course time for questions and discussion or if you have urgent questions in between as well. So my name is Julien van Oostaien I'm an assistant professor at Tilburg University but also professor of law and safety at Avans University of Applied Sciences and I've been looking into local democracy mainly in the Netherlands but also some comparative work for about 20 years now and on the right you see my latest book published a few weeks ago and of course I wanted it published just in time for the local elections in the Netherlands it's a Dutch book unfortunately but I will in this short lecture will give you some insight I hope on what local democracy and democracy looks like in the Netherlands. So let's start conceptual. So the main layers levels of government in the Netherlands is national provincial and local and if you would visualize them you could say well on the left you see them pictures as a house because some actually say well it's actually a house because the top level is the most important and then you have on the bottom you have the local governments because they are the closest to citizens but maybe a better picture is the one on the right because there's no real formal hierarchy between the three governments so some say they function like a body like a human body so the state is the body but you have different parts of the body that are necessary to function you need the heart you need the brains and if one of those stops functioning well the rest pretty much ends and dies as well so that's also the way to picture or state structure you have the state three government layers and all need to function and there is some overlap in them as well I said there's no hierarchy between them but there is hierarchy in rules and regulations so of course when the national government makes laws or rules then the other levels provincial and local are bounded are they cannot ignore it they cannot make their own rules or regulations that contradict the rules of the national government but for the rest they can do whatever they want as long as it as they uphold the law then I forget before I will continue with this these three levels there's one more or less unique for the Netherlands that I forgot to mention and that's this one the water boards we also have a democratic level concerning water government and actually to all this form of government we had those in the Middle Ages small farmers that together discussed how to deal with water quantity and water quality at this moment there are very large professional organizations we had a few thousands of them ages ago but now we have 21 and you can see them on the map where they are located and I've set them a little bit apart because the three levels I just mentioned the province the municipality the national government they all have autonomy which pretty much means that you know they can decide to take on new tasks if they see new developments for instance in climate refugees crisis they can of course act on that the waterboards can't they have a strict job description so that's the difference between the waterboards on the one hand and local provincial national government on the other hand but it's a democratic body so we also elect not only our national representative body a provincial representative body local municipal council but we also elect the water boards and it has been researched if you want to know how they function and if you know they provide good good work in 2014 there was an OECD research so European Research Institute actually saying well they function quite well those water boards in the Netherlands with some attention points so a lot of citizens also in the Netherlands are not aware of what they do and what they are so if you don't know them well don't blame yourself people that have lived here in the Netherlands for a long time also are not really aware of what these waterboards do and also on supervision and a few other aspects there were some points of attention but interested to take a look something that is not completely unique they are visible in some other countries but not a lot and it fits our history because we have a history in with water as water that helps us it enables us for a lot of good things but also has been regularly a threat for instance which you can see on the picture there when the water quantity becomes too large but for the rest of the remainder of this lecture I will focus on these and mainly on local government but let's discuss national government provincial government briefly be amazed at this at first side complicated drawing this is a drawing from pro-demols pro-demols at Huis voor Democratie en Rechtsstaat house for democracy and the rule of law it's a Dutch organization that actually promotes democracy and the rule of law in the Netherlands for instance for young children I think it's a very good organization but I'm quite biased I've worked there a couple of years ago to support the goal and what they do in this drawing actually they wanted to show well pretty much all the levels I just mentioned and how they are established and how they function well I can understand it's pretty much too a lot to grasp at once but they're all in there the water boards on the left you have the municipality over here the province on top you have national parliament and even European parliament and government but for now it's important to remember from this picture that in the end all of those levels and I will discuss them after this slide actually are all based upon citizens who vote so they all have representative councils for which most people most Dutch people can vote and sometimes also non-dutch people but we'll get back to that in a minute so pro-demols if you want you can check it out on the internet I think they have some English information as well so let's start with national government we have parliament and parliament consists of two chambers like in many countries the most important one in the Netherlands is called the second chamber which is somewhat confusing maybe but well let's not go into much detail about it it's on the top left so instead of showing you all the pictures of the heads I thought maybe it's interesting to show you where they are located and in what rooms they meet and negotiate so you have the second chamber on the left and we also have a well what in the international literature is called a second chamber but the second chamber in the Netherlands is actually called the first chamber to make it a little bit more confusing but in I think you will be more familiar with the term the Senate so you can actually call that the Senate so we have the second chamber on the left which is directly elected by Dutch citizens the first chamber of the second chambers 150 people the first chamber the Senate on the right 75 people and that's gets elected indirectly by the provincial representative bodies so we as Dutch citizens choose the provincial representative body and they elect and the first chamber the Senate and we're a coalition country which means that our government consists normally out of a coalition of political parties that together have a majority in at least the second chamber well we just had a new government so I won't well I won't test you on all the new ministers but you might know him Mark Rutte or Prime Minister because he's been there for 10 years already this is his fourth government that he's leading and also from a European perspective he's one of the longest government leaders active now I think together with Auburn from Hungary so that about national government then we have of course the provinces and I hope you all are a layer of the province we're in now which is Brabant and director the boss sort of say of the university Bim van de Donk formerly was also leading the Brabant government and well the provincial government has all kinds of tasks I cannot give that would be if I would test you then this would be my question I cannot give an exclusive list of tasks the province performs why is that does anyone if I may ask you a question does anyone know who has paid attention so far you come close you're saying there's a list that the what the national government should do and well other things that the others should do it's what how it works for the provincial government and the local government is they get a few tasks so the law gives them several tasks they have to do but apart from those tasks they can choose everything they want to do except if it and that's what a few what I said a few slides ago if it goes against her rules of regulations from national government or in the case of local government if it also contradicts provincial government rules and regulation but in general provinces in the Netherlands deal with things like infrastructure public transport spatial planning climate nature things like that the use of the provinces do actually need provinces that's been a discussion that you know once in a while is being waged and I don't know I assume there are people from different countries here you might know that from your own country as well in Belgium for instance let's start close by also you know the level between the local and the national government it's always once in a while become is questioned you know do we need them are they you know can't the local government do it can national government do it and we see that in the Netherlands as well once in a while but on the other hand it seems that the fact the provinces function relatively well at least you know no cases of big mismanagement or controversy they're also don't deal with a lot of money so that they they are relatively modest in what they have to do and then we'll go to local government we have 345 municipalities at the moment but if I speak really slow then I'm my then this is probably outdated because in the Netherlands it goes quite quickly in some countries again like Belgium or for instance Denmark there is in the history of those countries you know one moment in history where they chose to change the structure and for instance instead of having two thousand municipalities let's go to 500 and you can see that in several countries in Europe but also abroad further away but in the Netherlands it's pretty much every year a few municipalities decide to amalgamate to merge sometimes because they want to do that themselves sometimes they're stimulated by and I will put this mildly stimulated by provincial or national government so the number is decreasing so if you hang around long enough you will see that 345 will also be outdated again also the local governments have two tasks they have to do what they have to do from law based on law for instance because the national government make laws forcing municipalities to do some some certain things and they can also take on challenges that they find or see as necessary for instance building neighborhood houses giving shelter to refugees etc etc insofar as it's not being regulated local government can also do those kinds of things you could see that in the Netherlands municipalities do all kinds of things from housing to safety to in the environment to public streets to playing grounds etc and from a European perspective again they're quite substantial so in France for instance you have a lot of municipalities they're quite small but they don't local government there doesn't really have a lot of tasks it's well ceremonial is maybe a little bit exaggerated but it comes close in the Netherlands they have a really a large amount of money relatively speaking and many important jobs that they have been decentralized from the national level and also what is different from some European countries is that we get a lot of money from national government and with we I mean the municipalities so much of the money that is spent on the local level is coming from national taxes and also that is different than other countries in America for instance the United States local governments have to earn the money mostly themselves in the Netherlands that is not the case so let's talk a little about local elections because well that's what's happening right now in the Netherlands once every four years and interestingly you don't have to be Dutch to vote however you do have to live in the Netherlands for five years so I don't know anyone here meets the criteria I've been living here for at least five years but not everyone well a few of you have orders not well don't worry there's another election I will talk about in the end that you will be able to vote for Dutch voters have a little interest and knowledge of local democracy and now maybe with even you know big issues like COVID and the war in Ukraine maybe people are even less inclined to think about local democracy but also in other years we see that people in the Netherlands again if I apply a European perspective we see that in the Netherlands people are less attached to the municipality in some other countries people really you know their identity is really connected with the place they live the locality the municipality they live in the Netherlands it's less so maybe also because in the Netherlands municipalities are quite large 40,000 50,000 well I think 40,000 on average which is in the top five of European countries the largest is UK where the municipalities are on average they have more than 100,000 inhabitants but I already mentioned France and there are other countries in which the municipalities on average are small with a small number of inhabitants and that maybe has something to do the large municipalities with the identity or the feeling of the Dutch a little bit less connected to the municipality than people in other countries well you can see that in the elections or the turnout we have a turnout of about well I will come back to that in a minute but about 55% and something we also see in local elections is that people vote not only for local reasons but sometimes also take national motives to the local elections so they don't vote locally for party A or party B because that party has the best plans in their eyes in their view for that municipality but sometimes I think well you know I don't know really don't really know what all those parties stand for locally but I do know that this particular party which is often also a national party represents my interest on the national level well because they have a good point of view regarding taxes or defense or refugees so I don't know what they stand for locally but I will vote for them in the local elections anyway we can see those kinds of things in the Netherlands when we look at and we ask people for why do you vote for this particular party on the local level and last we have a steady decline in turnout after the abolishment of compulsory voting or compulsory turnout we we see that for instance in Belgium there are still they have to come to the voting booth you don't have to vote but you have to show up in the Netherlands we have had this in the past but last 50 years we don't in Flanders by the way it's also is going to change for the local level so well some scientists have been asked you know what will be the future of voting in Flanders on the local level and pretty much well what you could say is well turnout probably will decrease when people don't have to show up anymore so how does it look like in the Netherlands well this is a local turnout in local elections last 50 years or so so you can see a decline so it's about 70 percent in the 70s and about you know around 54 55 percent now but you can always play with figures I always tell my students so if you would stretch it a little look it becomes much more steady you just I just make the decline disappear if you look at the last 30 years and this is actually to show you the comparison to the other to some other forms of government in the Netherlands you can see it's not the most popular election that is for the second chamber or the national parliament any idea what to turn out what reflects what is reflected by the bottom two lines so the one with triangles anyone who wants to guess so the green one are the municipalities and then you see the top one is national parliament which is the triangles the water elections could be but it's I haven't included that one on this so it is not the waterboard excuse me no that's the bottom one so the one that the triangles are the provinces no European I don't know how it's in in in the places where you are come from but in the Netherlands European Parliament elections are not that popular only the water board is even more in popular but funny thing maybe is what we talk about the waterboard elections so they scored about 10 20 percent and what they've done now recently is they have coupled them connected them to the provincial elections and what did we see the turnout increased immediately so a lot of people are happy with that I would also ask the question okay turnout is larger now for the waterboards but do you think that people all those extra 10 20 percent of people that now do vote for the waterboards will think about you know how to make a smart choice maybe you're not I mean you're allowed to vote without thinking but I would also encourage also people when you know we're talking about turnout and making people come to the voting booth also try to to make them think about what they do what they choose and why and on the last slide in which I want to show well mainly that you can play with statistics is if you like a positive image about turnout in the Netherlands then I own would I would say only look at the last couple of local elections you can see an increase in turnout from 2014 to 2018 well it's 1% still but if you you know stretch your graph wrong enough then it really sounds like a big deal nevertheless I think if you you cannot ignore the decline so at the moment we made it we abolished compulsory voting we could see the decline if you would look at the television tomorrow today or tomorrow to see what the results were of the local elections this year then you will probably see something like this so national TV will talk to you and will tell you what the national trends was they won't tell you what the I mean they cannot go into the detail of all 345 or actually 333 because there are elections in 333 municipalities in what all the results were there but they will discuss trends and what they always will do is they will say what does this mean for national politics so what does the result for local elections for local municipalities what does that has to do with national politics party leaders are asked to give an explanation why their party lost the local level because many parties that are in the second chamber in the national parliament have local departments in many of those municipalities so in the media you will see a lot of national attention and national explanation about something which is in essence a local activity good and then what after the election so let's talk about this municipality Tilburg so we have well these are the parties now well in a few days we will know what the scores of the parties are in this election and I've already mentioned we're a coalition country so that means that normally parties look for other parties to together have a majority in the representative body so in Tilburg which is the seventh largest city in the Netherlands we have 45 councilmen which is the largest amount a municipal council can have in the Netherlands so the biggest municipalities like Tilburg have 45 councilmen councilwomen and they will look for a coalition that is probably has 23 or more councilmen and then they will form a day-to-day government and the day-to-day government of Tilburg looks like this now you can see the municipal council on the left and then the day-to-day government the municipal board of mayor and alderman on the right and you can see it's a recent picture because they all stand at least one and a half meter away from each other and there are two things I want to point out and then we'll go to the end of this presentation about the board first is this this guy that's the mayor and the mayor is the one person within the board of mayor and alderman that is not being nominated by political parties after the election so after the elections you have the coalition a few parties that together want to form the government of the city the municipal board and they will nominate alderman which is pretty much for most political parties the biggest prize you can get in the election I mean it's nice to be in the municipal council but if you're part of the day-to-day government then you can nominate one of your party members as alderman which is an important function as well the mayor who heads the government is formerly appointed by national government we are unique Belgium has it and I think maybe Bulgaria has it as well but not a lot of European countries have this system but I explicitly say formally because informally the national government only approves of what local government chooses so the municipal council chooses every six years they will by holding interviews by having a job well they actually just say well we have a job opening for mayor you can if you want well let us know and write a good motivation letter and we might even will nominate you as mayor but this has nothing to do with the elections but still he heads the local government so formally appointed by national government practically the municipal council decides who becomes mayor and in Tilburg there's also another thing I would like to point out and this is this woman this lady which is actually a former colleague former employee of the university and she was not affiliated to any of the political parties but so what the other parties did they said well we want another alderman and we want a neutral alderman so they also actually held job interviews and one of our former employees of this university actually was then added as the last alderman she's not neutral anymore so if you cycle through Tilburg or you or you look at the campaign posters you will see her now as leading list for who links green left a left party in the Netherlands because in the four years that she was alderman well she still is of course she actually said well I actually green left is the party that suits me best and now she says well I want to lead that list in the elections and she as a former employee of Tilburg University is a good bridge to the last slide because democracy can become can come even closer than the municipality it's also here in this university and in April we have university we have elections I think once again for the university council and the faculty councils and on the website of Tilburg University you can find students and employees contribute to thinking discussing and deciding on Tilburg University's policies and we can vote for the university council and the faculty council and I can vote as an employee I will vote for one of the employee parties but you as a student can vote for one of the student parties and in the university council we have two at the moment front and sun so they will probably well you will see them if you are here in a few months time you will see them trying to get your vote well you probably now see the councilman but in a few months time you will see much younger people on average asking for your vote for the university and faculty councils and what are these councils well we have the government of the university and for the faculty the dean director with some government members but you also have these councils and these councils are well elected by us and they have advisory tasks so they can give advice on for instance if they want to hire a new professor then you can give advice on the profile how does this person should look like what quality should he or she have but for instance also when it's when we're talking about education new courses but also changing examination and the faculty council also will have to give advice or even a decisive vote and I have I was a councilman for a few years in the faculty council the tilburg law school and my impression was for what it's worth that there are a lot of advisory tasks so you don't get a decisive vote in everything that goes on in the faculty of the university but my impression was that it was always taken very seriously so if you gave advice on things that you wouldn't even you know have a final vote in then I my impression was that you know the people in charge always took that very seriously and in that way as an employee or as a student you really could influence also policy from the faculty and from the university so I would advise you if you can of course also vote in April for the university elections and perhaps if you're entitled to also for the other elections in the Netherlands or in your own country please do I think now more than ever is a good time to express how important that is so I will just end my brief introduction here thank you for your attention and of course there's room for questions and comments thank you very much thank you Julianne are there any questions from you yeah I see a hand here hi hi um so in regards to your comments regarding the like the university elections and whatnot um how would you try and explain to people who don't know or care about them why they are actually relevant throughout the years because we all know that for example whenever initiatives or whatnot are submitted by font and some it takes like two or three years to actually happen and because of that people are kind of like oh there's no point in voting because by that time it actually gets pushed through I've already graduated but how would you kind of try and make that more relevant to those people well I would say two things that it's not always that it has to take two or three years sometimes for instance a change in the examination rules that can be quite quickly I've I've experienced it a couple of times that you know in one year there were substantial changes in the rules or regulations of you know what counts as a sufficient grade how many resets were possible so those are things that if you decide upon them unless you are on the verge of graduating yourself but otherwise you can have effect on things that also affect you and the other one is well okay some things might even be um be in effect when you already left university but does that exclude does that mean that you are excluded from the obligation or at least the possibility to also make make the university and the faculty better for people that you know come uh that that follow you you that that that they have to take the course the year after I always do that in my teaching evaluation as well I mean please give me feedback so I can make the course even better for the people that will enter university and the faculty next year and that's actually also what you should do in the faculty and the university I mean I think it's quite good now but it can always be improved improved for yourself but also improved for the people that are somewhat younger and will enter university a bit later so my question is more about the voting process because I want to make some kind of a comparison with my own country uh where do citizens usually go to vote because for example in my country the elections are organized in schools what is your country Romania and I wanted to make some kind of a comparison okay and you explicitly mentioned schools so you want to know what kind of buildings yeah if they go to the municipality for example or if they are organizing some other buildings well organizing the elections is a local competence so for the local elections but also for provincial elections or national elections but other municipalities that organize them so the municipalities decide more or less in general where the voting booths are located how many there are and where they are so in the Netherlands you see well we have one you know next door so we have one in the university tomorrow next door you see them a lot in more or less public buildings neighborhood associations schools as well but there's also a trend last well let's say the last couple of years to have attractive um locations so for instance in the theater or in nul derting which is you know the pop uh the the where the music is being performed in the inner city or a museum um some locations are of course questionable so churches once sometimes you see it's in the church but there's a lot of discussion about it so that generally isn't isn't what the municipalities choose for because of what you want to have more less neutral locations so um uh yeah so it's a municipal competence and most of the time it's in public places or places that are somewhat easy accessible if you want to know more we can discuss that later as well if you want to do our research about it uh i also have a follow-up question for example can you vote through mail like uh i personally i have received a few weeks ago a letter uh with the candidates i believe i didn't really read it because i knew i couldn't vote so but can you vote through mail to oh no yeah you can uh well no i'm i'm doubting now because it was yeah i think it can be now because because if i remember correctly i i also receive like um um space in the letter where i can write my own choice i think so and send it back after i don't know that's why i think now since covid we also allow voting by mail i think it's also in this election but what you also find in in in that instruction form is also a form in which you can make someone else vote for you so if you are for instance you can't vote because well you're sick or there are some something that hinders you from voting you can also give someone else there are quite some restrictions to it but you can give someone else um the possibility to vote in your behalf okay thank you maybe uh jillian you told us that um for the local elections here in the Netherlands people tend to uh look at the national issues and and make that choice i was wondering is that something really typical for the Netherlands or is that somewhere i said in other places the same it's difficult to say because well what is maybe typical for the Netherlands is that we do a lot of research into uh to voting but you see you see similar trends for as far as we know in the Netherlands the local elections are what is called in the literature second order election so it's not the most important election well and in most countries local elections are second order elections because national parliament are often the first order elections and a typical characteristic of second order elections is that sometimes you know motors from other forms of government are taken into account so i think this is also what is happening in several other countries but i don't know to what extent exactly if for the presentation my question is whether there is like a geographical distinction like there are some regions that consistently vote for some parties and other regions for others uh yes there is for instance in the southern part of the Netherlands local parties are quite popular and local parties are parties that are not affiliated to a national party so parties that are not part of a party that is in parliament as well but are only active in one municipality but for instance in the Netherlands we have also called something like the bible belt so we have a pretty much a belt around the Netherlands in the middle more or less in which the vote for religious parties is quite large in the northern part socialist parties are a little bit stronger so you can see all kinds of those regional differences even in a country as small as the Netherlands we have regional differences in preference of voters okay no more questions i guess okay thanks very much again jillian van der Stijen and uh great to you here thanks you're welcome nice to uh to have to have you here