Monitoring in beeld: een studie naar de doorwerking van monitors in interbestuurlijke relaties

Monitoring in the Dutch public sector An increasing stream of monitoring activities has entered the public sector. A lot of different monitors have been implemented in the Netherlands, like the police monitor, drugs monitor, integration monitor and the emancipation monitor. Although monitoring of policy processes is quite prevalent in the public sector, monitoring still remains an unexplored scientific theme, while most of the scientific attention is restricted to performance systems. In the current mode of monitoring is often approached in a rational way. Within the rational approach monitoring is seen as an objective search for facts in order to improve policy. The aim of this study however, is to widen this narrow focus and include two other perspectives as well, namely a political and cultural approach of monitoring. These three perspectives are not mutually exclusive. One of the assumptions of this study is that monitoring activities have impacts on intergovernmental relationships, this because monitors are used on different governmental levels. The impacts of monitors on intergovernmental relationships have not been studied as of yet. This is surprising, because in policy documents monitoring is connected with intergovernmental relationships. Research questions The main research question is formulated as followed: what are the impacts of monitors on intergovernmental relationships? This main question is divided into seven research questions