Listen to us: How Dutch subnational governments together use public affairs to create a favorable position in the national and European political arenas

• DOI: http://doi.org/10.1002/pa.1971
• Author: Edward L. Figee,Jordy F. Gosselt,Menno D.T. De Jong
• Published date: 01 February 2020
• Date: 01 February 2020

ACADEMIC PAPER

Listen to us: How Dutch subnational governments together use

public affairs to create a favorable position in the national and

European political arenas

Edward L. Figee |Jordy F. Gosselt |Menno D.T. De Jong

Department of Communication Science,

University of Twente, Enschede, The

Netherlands

Correspondence

Jordy F. Gosselt, Department of

Communication Science, University of Twente,

Drienerlolaan 5, 7500 AE Enschede, The

Netherlands.

Email: j.f.gosselt@utwente.nl

Because of the devolution of tasks and powers from the national political level to

subnational levels, subnational governments such as municipalities and provinces

are increasingly compelled to express their interests in the national and European

arenas. However, to achieve substantial weight, authority, receptiveness, and success

in both arenas, active cooperation with other subnational authorities is needed. The

question is to what extent subnational authorities acknowledge this need for cooper-

ation and how this cooperation is being organized and structured. More specifically,

in this study, the function and role of collective public affairs (PA) activities are

investigated. Qualitative interviews with 17 PA professionals and 24 PA practitioners,

experienced in working for subnational authorities, were held to find out how

subnational governments in the Netherlands together organize PA in both arenas.

The results show that subnational cooperation is of ultimate importance for creating

a favorable position in these arenas. Such cooperation is favorable if subnational

authorities together constitute a clear profile and render thematic collaboration in

which the citizen is seen as the most important stakeholder. Further, the level of

knowledge concerning the national and European arenas should be optimal among

all parties involved in which the PA professional serves as a liaison officer who

connects the various stakeholders.

1|INTRODUCTION

Despite their initial dominance, national governments no longer have

a monopoly in European politics (De Rooij, 2002). Multilevel gover-

nance has paved the way for subnational governments to become

more and more visible in the European policy making process. Ini-

tially, with the founding of the European Regional Development

Fund in 1975, the European arena was fore mostly directed to sub-

national themes as a way of promoting poor regions in the EU (Bar-

low, 1995; Werts, 2008, pp. 117–119). In subsequent years, the

regional component within European policy grew, which led to a

doubling of the budget at the end of the 1980s (Werts, 2008, p.

311) and to the founding of the Committee of the Regions after

the Maastricht Treaty in 1992. This, together with the devolution

of tasks and powers from national level to subnational governmental

levels, drew subnational governments into the European and national

political arena (Dekker & Van Kempen, 2004; Salet, Vermeulen,

Savini, & Dembski, 2015; Thierstein, 2015) and led to the appoint-

ment of subnational public affairs (PA) professionals who operate

in these political arenas to guard subnational interests (Figee,

Gosselt, Linders, & De Jong, 2017). At the municipal level, coopera-

tion with other municipalities was needed to improve the execution

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This is an open access article under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits use, distribution and reproduction in any medium, provided

the original work is properly cited.

© 2019 The Authors Journal of Public Affairs Published by John Wiley & Sons Ltd

Received: 2 April 2019 Accepted: 24 April 2019

DOI: 10.1002/pa.1971

J Public Affairs. 2020;20:e1971.

https://doi.org/10.1002/pa.1971

wileyonlinelibrary.com/journal/pa 1of9