Background The base assumption of crime fighting is that if crime does not pay, the incentive to conduct criminal activities goes away. This is the main underlying assumption of the act of...Show moreBackground The base assumption of crime fighting is that if crime does not pay, the incentive to conduct criminal activities goes away. This is the main underlying assumption of the act of confiscating criminal assets. The targets set by the policies surrounding confiscating criminal assets in the Netherlands however do not seem to correspond to the scale to the problem. This master thesis inquires if the lack of (scientific) clarity on the scale of the problem and/or the lack of a clear political stance on the size of the problem, prevent the confiscation targets to correspond to the scale of the problem. Policy with a clear problem definition backed by scientific insights makes for a more Evidence-Based Policy Making (EBPM). This case study might enrich EBPM surrounding salient cases. Method A systematic review of the literature surrounding evidence-based policymaking is made. Especially the barriers of evidence-use, and the existing literature surrounding confiscating criminal assets are described. A case description of the current policy of confiscating criminal assets has been made. And interviews have been conducted with mostly street-level professionals in the field of confiscating criminal assets. With data triangulation between multiple sources of literature, public policy papers, and in-depth interviews with professionals, the main research question; ‘Why do confiscation targets not correspond to the scale of the problem?’, has been answered and thus a picture has been painted if the policy of confiscating criminal assets is evidence-based. Results There seems to be no clear scientific consensus on the scale of the criminal economy and thus the size of the problem. Various studies have attributed the lack of research as a significant barrier to Evidence-Based Policymaking (EBPM). The lack of scientific consensus or clarity however, seems not to get cited as a very big issue or obstacle by interviewees or policy documents. Nonetheless in no official document there is an attempt to relate or connect the confiscation targets to the perceived yearly circulation of criminal assets. And what results achieving the targets would bring. This has been confirmed in the analysis. The consensus being: what chain partners confiscate on an annual basis is neglectable. All interviewees agree that the seizure potential is greater than what is achieved right now. In policy documents a large emphasis is put on strategy in a sense of what the government wants to do or make possible, but not what they are expecting from it. Conclusion The Dutch government itself does not state, or attempts to estimate, the size of the criminal economy and/or the confiscation potential. The lack of substantiated confiscation targets, be it scientific wise, but especially policy wise, leaves everyone in doubt. Some rationalization of what effects hitting the confiscation targets pursues, even with queries about not being very well substantiated, makes the confiscation targets correspond to the scale of the problem better than how the situation is right now. A clear political stance might also further the scientific debate. Formulating a position, might and most likely will evoke a (scientific) responds. This in turn might result in more scientific consensus which in turn can lead to more evidence-based policymaking.Show less
Academic literature indicates an increasing demand for independent evaluation within the government. At the same time, external consultants are progressively deployed to meet this demand. This...Show moreAcademic literature indicates an increasing demand for independent evaluation within the government. At the same time, external consultants are progressively deployed to meet this demand. This study focuses on the independent position of external consultants because truly independent research is merely possible if the preconditions for evaluation are reliable. That being said, the Dutch government has not implemented overarching guidelines for shaping the independent position of external consultants, leaving ministries free to give their own interpretation or direction. Consequently, differences across ministries possibly exist in shaping the independent position of external consultants. This study tries to uncover how the characteristics of ministries shape the independent position of external consultants, and how those differences can be explained across ministries by analysing policy reviews. Three pre-determined characteristics are used: experience, size and salience. Nine different policy reviews are analysed across six different ministries. In total, 22 interviews are conducted, with both civil servants (thirteen interviews) and external consultants (nine interviews). Additionally, document analysis is utilised to provide information that cannot be gathered through interviews. The results indicate that no definite conclusion could be made on the link between experience and the independent position and size and the independent position. However, experience and size are linked on some occasions. That is that staff changes and reorganizations within the ministry have caused losses in capacity, which consequently harms the institutional memory of the bureaucracy. Furthermore, a plausible link between salience and the shaping of the independent position of external evaluators is discovered. Salience seems to have changed the ministry’s work culture, thereby focussing more on scientifically, independent evaluations. In addition, salience seems to also have strengthened the evaluation organization within various ministries. Moreover, this study uncovered three additional characteristics that could shape the independent position: the work culture, evaluation function and the character of the policy domain in which the ministry operates.Show less
The year 2020 has not evolved as many had expected. The outbreak of Covid-19 pandemic has put almost all parts of the societies all over the globe on halt. Besides impacting human health, the...Show moreThe year 2020 has not evolved as many had expected. The outbreak of Covid-19 pandemic has put almost all parts of the societies all over the globe on halt. Besides impacting human health, the fastest and the most severe impact of the Covid-19 pandemic has been on the economic and financial sectors. The global health crisis has occurred at the time when the world is already in a major crisis, the climate crisis or green crisis. In spite of all the austere consequences of green crisis, the actions taken to lessen the green crisis are nowhere near the efforts required to meet the Paris agreement goal of keeping the global temperature well below 2°C and preferably 1.5 °C. Many started viewing the already existing green crisis and the newly emerged Covid-19 crisis as part of the same battle and they envisioned an opportunity in response to Covid-19 crisis to address the green crisis as well and they strived to attach green conditions to the Covid-19 recovery until they reached the green recovery agreement which not only helps in the recovery from the ramifications of the Covid-19 crisis but also addresses the green crisis. This research has sought to find out how a devastating crisis has opened up the window of opportunity for another destructive crisis. A small-N, Within-Case analysis approach is used to study the intervening variables on causal path from the Covid-19 crisis to the opening up of the window of opportunity for green crisis recovery. Moreover, theory-testing process tracing was applied on the case of EU to find out whether Advocacy Coalition Framework helps to comprehend the puzzle and answer the research question. The result of the research revealed that actors in coalitions made extensive use of frames and changed the policy image as well as used expertise to dominate the decisions, resulting in the Covid-19 recovery plan with green strings attached to it to also address the green crisis.Show less
The increased importance of data and its consequences have reached the social debate about the data-governance of the public sector. With recent data scandals in the Netherlands in municipalities,...Show moreThe increased importance of data and its consequences have reached the social debate about the data-governance of the public sector. With recent data scandals in the Netherlands in municipalities, the research sets out to discover why and how differences in data handling of municipalities are to be declared. This research focusses specifically on one government level in the Netherlands, its municipalities. An overall hierarchical data-readiness framework is made based on available data-readiness frameworks consisting of four characteristics; organisational alignment, organisational maturity, organisational capabilities and ethical considerations. The framework is applied by means of a survey and send to different Dutch municipalities. We find that the frameworks hierarchy works and that with the framework the differences between the municipalities become more apparentShow less
