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In policy research, the search for the correct balance between proximity and independence has never been easy. Policymakers need proximity to the research in order to ensure that it is relevant. Yet, there are also concerns about the rigour of research. To analyze this relationship in more detail, this paper focuses on the ‘extreme case’ of the WODC in the Netherlands, an internal but formally independent research unit of the Dutch Ministry of Justice and Security. Research methods include semi-structured interviews and a survey (N = 673). We conclude that government leans on WODC researchers in all phases of the policy research process. In most cases, WODC researchers successfully resist pressure from policymakers, yet continuing pressure may easily lead to research methods, conclusions and press releases being altered for policy reasons. Finally, there are general lessons drawn from the WODC case that will assist in achieving a good balance between proximity and independence in policy research.

The core animating feature of administrative justice scholarship is the desire to understand how justice is achieved through the delivery of public services and the actions, inactions, and decision-making of administrative bodies. The study of administrative justice also encompasses the redress systems by which people can challenge administrative bodies to seek the correction of injustices. For a long time now, scholars have been interested in administrative justice, but without necessarily framing their work as such. Rather than existing under the rubric of administrative justice, much of the research undertaken has existed within sub-categories of disciplines, such as law, sociology, public policy, politics, and public administration. Consequently, although aspects of the topic have attracted rich contributions across such disciplines, administrative justice has rarely been studied or taught in a manner that integrates these areas of research more systematically. This Handbook signals a major change of approach. Drawing together a group of world-leading scholars of administrative justice from a range of disciplines, The Oxford Handbook of Administrative Justice shows how administrative justice is a vibrant, complex, and contested field that is best understood as an area of inquiry in its own right, rather than through traditional disciplinary silos.

In this article, we discuss a ‘person-centred’ view on the enforcement of social security laws. This is a new vision on enforcement whereby welfare workers can ‘differentiate’ in order to create more room for ‘customization’ with an eye for ‘the human dimension’ and an ‘appropriate’ enforcement style. Despite the unanimity about the desirability of this approach, most of the practical details are still unclear. Our central question is therefore: How may a person-centred approach of the enforcement of social security laws be implemented in practice? Based on an action research study, in which we closely collaborated with welfare workers and benefit recipients at a Dutch welfare office, we attempt to answer this question. We first discuss a number of central concepts from the enforcement literature and consider the concept of ‘motivational postures’. For this study, we developed a prototype of a new electronic analytical tool (which can be used to support enforcement) and then applied this tool in a small pilot study. In the article we describe our findings and discuss the experiences of benefit recipients and welfare workers with the analytical tool. We conclude that this tool appears to offer a good basis for the further development of the person-centred enforcement of social security laws.

This paper examines the idea of a common European legal culture by exploring its foundational component, ‘collective legal consciousness’, in three EU states: the UK, Poland and Bulgaria. Using a comparative research design and a variety of methods of data collection, it suggests that, underneath the thin layer of EU consensus, there are some fundamental differences in perceptions of law. The evidence shows that legal ideas are infused with perceptions of the political system. This finding suggests that the creation of a shared European legal culture depends on the prior formation of a common transnational polity right across the EU, together with a sense of political identity and of trust in the legitimacy of the European political authorities. The paper also demonstrates the multilayered character of collective legal consciousness, allowing different images of law to co-exist, underpinned by the perception of the source with which each image is associated.

The first case study examines how a school director, the general public and legal professionals in the Netherlands move away from non-discrimination law. The chapter focuses on a ruling by the Equal Treatment Commission, which stated that a public school was wrong to suspend a female Muslim teacher who refused to shake hands with men. The chapter argues that the public controversy following this decision illustrates the way in which non-discrimination law matters in the Netherlands. The empirical research shows that the school director and many other ordinary people feel disconnected from non-discrimination law. Most people in this case study are ‘cynics’ and ‘outsiders’, with some signs of ‘legal meaninglessness’ and ‘legal powerlessness’ but with a strong sense of ‘legal cynicism’ and ‘legal value isolation’.

The third case study examines how front-line officials move away from public law. The chapter zooms in on a small group of officials who were all actively involved in the re-development of a run-down neighborhood in the Netherlands. More in particular, this case explores how they understand the concept of the Rechtsstaat (rule of law), which plays a central role in Dutch constitutional and administrative law. The chapter concludes that these local street-level bureaucrats perceive public law as distant, alien and illegitimate. Most officials are ‘cynics’ (with strong feelings of ‘legal powerlessness’ and ‘legal cynicism’ toward public law) while some of them also qualify as ‘outsiders’ (with clear signs of ‘legal value-isolation’).

This chapter lays out the empirical context of the book and reviews all major public opinion surveys from the past decade to analyze the public opinion climate in the Netherlands. There is a widely held belief—both among academics and policymakers—that strong popular support for the justice system is a prominent feature of Dutch legal culture. This image is usually based on surveys which focus exclusively on public trust. However, this chapter argues that when we consider all survey evidence (and not only those studies that focus on trust), the legitimacy of the Dutch justice system is no longer self-evident, but has become structurally contested. Contemporary Dutch legal culture is not characterized by ‘solid support’ but by ‘sullen toleration’ of the justice system.

This chapter discusses the methodological approach of this study. Starting in the 1980s, legal consciousness research focused on four components: more emphasis on the role of law in society; more emphasis on the role of ordinary people; the advancement of ‘critical empiricism’; and a shift in focus from measurable behaviour to meanings and interpretations. This (critical) framework is modified and replaced by an alternative approach, which is characterized by: the focus on law as both an independent and a dependent variable; the focus on both the haves and the have-nots; the emphasis on research participants’ views and voices; and the use of mixed methods. In Part II, this (secular) approach will be applied to examine the process of legal alienation in three case studies.

The aim of this chapter is to develop an analytical framework based on the concept of ‘legal alienation’. This is done in three steps. First, it examines the general alienation literature and it discusses those few studies in which the concept of alienation has been applied to the field of law. Next, the concept of legal alienation is broken down into several dimensions: ‘legal meaninglessness’, ‘legal powerlessness’, ‘legal cynicism’ and ‘legal value isolation’. Finally, the chapter focuses on two basic questions: ‘Are people aware of the law?’ and: ‘Do people identify with law?’ Based on these questions, the chapter introduces four normative profiles to describe people’s attitudes towards law: ‘legalists’, ‘loyalists’, ‘cynics’ and ‘outsiders’.

The second case study examines the way in which contractors in the Dutch construction industry move away from competition law and EU antitrust regulations. Most data from this case are drawn from public hearings with contractors in a parliamentary enquiry which showed a widespread use of cartels, aimed at price-fixing and market-allocation. The chapter shows that members of the Dutch construction industry feel disconnected from competition law, which leads to a process of legal alienation. Most contractors are ‘cynics’ (with some signs of ‘legal meaninglessness’ and ‘legal powerlessness’, but with a strong sense of ‘legal cynicism’), while some qualify as ‘outsiders’ (with strong feelings of ‘legal value isolation’).

In the concluding chapter, it is argued that this study challenges the central idea of the legal consciousness literature that—despite strong criticism—people still turn to law. Instead, the case studies and the survey evidence in this book suggest that—because of this criticism—people move away from law. Based on these findings, it is argued that we need to redirect future legal consciousness studies. Rather than limiting our focus to the ‘salience of law’ and ‘legal hegemony’, legal consciousness research should also look at the ‘absence of law’ and the effects of ‘legal alienation’. While previous studies focused on ‘law and society’ and ‘law in society’, the next generation of researchers should shift their attention to ‘law versus society’.

Most public sector ombudsmen claim that their work will strengthen or restore citizen's confidence in government. However, empirical research provides little support for this assumption. Based on studies from Belgium and the Netherlands, this article offers two explanations for this limited effect. First, it will be argued that (Dutch) administrative law is based on three ‘mythical images’ of the average complainant. Because these images do not correspond with reality, many people feel alienated from the ombudsman. Second, although the ombudsman aims to reach all types of citizens, most complainants are highly educated, white-collared, politically interested men. Yet the ombudsman is less successful in reaching people who are critical about politics and the justice system. Building on these findings from the Low Countries, the article ends with several suggestions which may help increase the potential of the ombudsman in all countries to promote public trust in government.

This article presents a selective survey of current law and society research in the Netherlands. After a brief historical sketch, it focuses on contemporary Dutch studies on legal effectiveness and several studies on courts and dispute resolution. Based on a review of both fields, I identify two important trends in Dutch law and society research. The first trend is that, since the 1970s, most researchers have been interested in ‘old gap studies’, which primarily focus on the efficacy of law. In recent years, however, public opinion in the Netherlands has become increasingly critical of the Dutch justice system. I argue that this has generated a second trend in Dutch law and society research, which I refer to as ‘new gap studies’. Unlike traditional gap studies, their primary focus is not the efficacy but the legitimacy of law. In the final section, I draw several general conclusions and I look forward to the future of law and society research in de Netherlands.

In 2001, the construction industry in the Netherlands was at the heart of many public and political debates. A television documentary suggested that all major construction companies were involved in an illegal clearing system that colluded in price offers for public works. After this TV program, the Dutch parliament decided to conduct a parliamentary enquiry which showed a widespread use of cartels and structural “bid rigging” within the Dutch construction industry. Despite the fact that the clearing system of the Dutch construction industry was prohibited by the European Commission in 1992 and by the 1998 Dutch Competition Act, Dutch builders continued their illegal activities as if nothing had changed. This case raises several important questions. Why were these practices so widespread in the Dutch construction industry? Why did Dutch contractors continue these practices even after they were made illegal? And–in more general terms–what does this case tell us about the interplay between state-reg...

Using survey data collected from a sample of 1182 traffic offenders in the Netherlands, and building on the ‘procedural justice model’ which was first developed in Tyler (1990) , this paper explores how perceptions of legitimacy shape regulatory compliance. The study makes three contributions to the literature. First, it is one of the few studies in which the procedural justice model is tested in Continental Europe. Second, following recent critiques in the literature, it introduces three modifications to the original model. Third, and unlike most previous studies, it is not only based on self-reporting by drivers, but includes actual evidence about their behaviour as well. With regard to the self-reported level of compliance, the present study largely confirms Tyler's (1990) original findings. Yet with regard to the observed level of compliance, there are also important differences between both studies. These findings will be explained by shifting our focus to ‘legitimacy-in-context’ ( Beetham, 1991 ).

This paper discusses the present ‘legal consciousness’ literature and seeks to identify two different conceptions of legal consciousness. Most of this literature originated in the United States, but there has also been a growing interest in issues of legal consciousness in Europe. The use of the term ‘legal consciousness ’ in these European discussions is, however, remarkably different from its use in the United States literature. It is argued that the most commonly used ‘American ’ conception of legal consciousness reflects important ideas of Roscoe Pound and asks: how do people experience (official) law? By contrast, a European conception of legal consciousness, which was first introduced by the Austrian legal theorist Eugen Ehrlich, focuses on: what do people experience as ‘law ’? After both perspectives are applied in a case-study of a run-down neighbourhood in the Netherlands, it is concluded that future studies of legal consciousness may benefit from an integration of the two conceptions.

The promotion of the ‘Rule of Law’ is a leading ambition of the EU’s foreign policy vis-a-vis emerging powers like Brazil, Russia, India and China (Article 21 TEU). At present, the dominant approach in most policy documents is to define the rule of law in terms of legal and institutional checklists. However, more recently several authors have criticized this ‘anatomical’ approach and have argued for a ‘sociological’ approach to the rule of law (Krygier 2012). However, the details of this new perspective remain unclear. The aim of this paper, therefore, is to develop an empirical approach to the rule of law, which may inform future legal and political debates on EU rule of law promotion.In this paper, I will discuss two empirical models of the rule of law. I will argue that most current studies follow the model of the ‘Rule of Law in Action’. This approach is based on Roscoe Pound’s distinction between the ‘law in the books’ and the ‘law in action’. The ‘Rule of Law in the Books’ refers to a fixed (legal or philosophical) definition of the rule of law. Empirical research on the ‘Rule of Law in Action’ then looks at the degree to which these principles are implemented in a given justice system. This type of research focuses on the gap between the ‘Rule of Law in the Books’ and the ‘Rule of Law in Action’ and on possible ways to bridge this gap.I will argue that this conventional approach has several important shortcomings. I will therefore introduce an alternative model, based on Eugen Ehrlich’s concept of the ‘living law’. This model of the ‘Living Rule of Law’ asks: What do people themselves consider important values with regard to the most desirable relation between the law and the state? The principal concern of this model is not the level of social support but rather the social definition of the rule of law. To assess the strengths and weaknesses of both approaches, I will apply both models in a case study about the rule of law in a refugee camp on the Thailand-Burma border (see McConnachie 2014).It will be concluded that empirical research is essential to analyze the strengths and weaknesses of the EU’s external action. Moreover, empirical studies based on the model of the ‘Living Rule of Law’ support a legal pluralist approach to EU rule of law reform, which focuses on the user perspective of citizens and which recognizes the contested notion of the rule of law across cultural borders.

This article examines the way in which administrative courts and the National Ombudsman in the Netherlands seek to control administrative action, and is aimed at developing a heuristic model that can also be useful in a wider context. Two styles of control will be introduced: “coercive” and “cooperative.” An exploratory empirical study was conducted of two administrative agencies, investigating the implementation process of court and ombudsman decisions. This article argues that it is likely that the policy impact of the courts and the ombudsman is directly related to their style of control. More empirical research is needed to evaluate this hypothesis.

Recent surveys in the UK and the Netherlands indicate that there is widespread dissatisfaction with the justice system. But who are these ‘critics’ of the justice system? Most previous studies only produced general statistics, while the persons behind the figures remained invisible. By contrast, this article aims to put a face to these numbers and discusses two ways of analysing the profile of the critics. Based on a review of existing survey data, the article first looks at their ‘demographic profile’. Next, the article also considers a second, alternative, approach. Based on their level of legal awareness and legal identification, it distinguishes four different ‘normative profiles’: legalists, loyalists, cynics and outsiders. Moreover, the article shows how these normative profiles may be applied in future comparative studies on legal mobilisation and legal protest. It is concluded that combining both approaches will help us to look beyond common stereotypes and consider the critics of the justice system as real persons with genuine concerns about the administration of justice in their country.

In this article, I examine how ordinary citizens and legal professionals in The Netherlands understand non-discrimination law, using the theoretical framework of legal consciousness. In 2006, the Dutch Equal Treatment Commission ruled that a school was wrong to suspend a female Muslim teacher who, for religious reasons, refused to shake hands with men. This ruling provoked a wave of controversy. This article examines to what extent these critical reactions were indicative of the overall level of public support for the Dutch Equal Treatment Act. I first provide a brief summary of Dutch non-discrimination law. Next, following recent critiques in the literature, I introduce three modifications to the original legal consciousness framework. People's understandings of legal equality are then examined using data from a large-scale multi-method study, which included an online survey, case-studies and in-depth interviews. Moreover, I provide a brief reconstruction of the handshake case. I argue that the controversy in this case was not an isolated incident, but an important illustration of how non-discrimination law matters — or fails to matter — in The Netherlands.

In recent years, the number of references to "non-state law" has increased dramatically. Most of these publications, however, on subjects ranging from customary law and indigenous rights to the rules of the world-wide-web, struggle with the same fundamental question: What is non-state law? Because most of this literature has a strong normative focus, important conceptual and empirical questions are left unanswered. This paper is an attempt to fill this gap. It is not a critique of the previous work by lawyers, social scientists and legal theorists. Neither does this paper set out its own theory of non-state law. Instead, its goal is more modest: to review the socio-legal literature on non-state law and to draw a tentative conceptual map of this "other hemisphere of the legal world". The first half of this paper discusses three waves of attention for non-state law in the socio-legal literature: "colonialism", "legal pluralism at home" and "globalization". In the second half, this literature is used to draw a conceptual map of non-state law. One dimension of this map differentiates between non-state law within and without the national state. The other dimension differentiates between non-state law as rules of conduct and as norms for decision. In this way, our map locates four different types of non-state law. Writing in the early twentieth century, Eugen Ehrlich argued that the legal scholars of his day seriously impoverished the science of law because they confined their attention to the national state. Today, in the rapidly changing "Global Bukowina" of the twenty-first century, Ehrlich's plea for a decoupling of law from the state has still lost little of its relevance and a "liberation from these shackles" seems more appropriate than ever.

This collection of essays concerns the relationship between judicial and bureaucratic decision-making.

For the first time, this book brings together the insights of two intellectual disciplines which have hitherto explored these questions separately: political science and law/socio-legal studies. This volume constitutes a landmark text offering an international, interdisciplinary and empirical perspective on judicial review's impact on bureaucracies. It will significantly advance the research agenda concerning judicial review and its relationship to social change. This chapter focuses on judicial review and bureaucratic impact in future research.