The dissertation at hand is embedded in the context of the 2014 European elections that have brought to light a strong Eurosceptic sentiment throughout Europe. It picks up on the intention to create a new Eurosceptic group in the European Parliament as brought forward by right-wing populists Geert Wilders …

Het belang van innovatie voor economische groei en het scheppen van werkgelegenheid in het MKB wordt erkend door zowel academici als politici. Er worden daarom programma’s ontwikkeld om innovatie te stimuleren. Met deze maatregelen ontstaat de vraag te bepalen of deze initiatieven succesvol zijn en zo …

As an essential basic principle of the European Union, the free movement of workers has been on everyone’s lips with the European Enlargement of Romania and Bulgaria in 2007. With the complete abolishment of the restrictions on the free movement of workers for Romanian and Bulgarian citizens in Germany …

The ambition to host mega sports events is (or can be) perfectly justifiable with various arguments. The most persistently used argument is the supposed financial or direct economic gain for the host economy, of which the compelling body of evidence is discouraging. This implies that the justification …

On 26 January 1998, during a press conference in the White House, President Bill Clinton famously told the nation, "I did not have sexual relations with that woman, Miss Lewinsky" (Clinton, 1998). Now, 15 years later, almost everyone can still recall those famous words. In this dissertation, the interaction …

At the end of the nineties, many unaccompanied minor asylum seekers (UMAs) came to the Netherlands due to wars and continuing violence in the world. Many UMAs try to find a new home and ask for asylum in order to get protection. Therefore, the asylum issue has become an urgent item on the political agendas …

Spatial planning has become contested ground in Dutch politics. After decades of a broadly shared belief in strategic spatial planning by central government and comprehensive planning by local and regional authorities, the balance of political thought has changed in recent years. The ministry of housing …

Burgers en politici hebben behoefte aan verantwoording over ingezette middelen voor ontwikkelingshulp en de bereikte doelen. De resultatenrapportage van het Ministerie van Buitenlandse Zaken biedt in theorie een mooi overzicht dat ten dele inzicht verschaft. Het rapport schetst echter een te mooi beeld. …

Assessing the effectiveness and progress of efforts to ‘build states in order to build peace’ (Call and Wyeth, 2008) is inevitable for several reasons. Politicians want to know what is being achieved with the resources that they have allocated to the state building endeavours abroad. They want to judge …

This paper presents the results of a literature review in regard to Social Media and participation. Besides that, to understand the meaning and impact of Social Media on elections, we show field results from the 2010 and 2011 elections in the Netherlands. There are several challenges when it comes to …