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Collaborative Regional Governance in the Netherlands: Credible Innovations or Persistent Routines?

Dutch city-regions more than ever face the question how to legitimize their existence and be credible to participants and the public. The formal answer to this question is that the city-regions are an “extension” of local government. Their policies, programs and decisions are democratically legitimate as city councils of the municipalities formally approve their plans (Cie. Toekomst Stadsregionale Samenwerking 2009; Ministerie van BZK 2008, 2010). However, the Dutch national government no longer grants legal tasks to these voluntary forms of network-collaboration. Moreover, the economic crisis intensifies competition and conflicts among participants. The credibility of these innovative forms of cooperation is on the line as routines of municipal, provincial and state decision making allure. In this paper we will argue that inter-municipal collaboration, to be legitimate, first and foremost needs to be credible to participants, citizens and other layers of government. These actors need to constantly reproduce a belief in the necessity of collaboration for more innovative and better solutions for the region to make it legitimate. Next to a media-analysis to assess the image of the regional collaboration, we studied how in deliberations the members of the collaboration and other actors, reason about, give motives for and interpret the results of collaborative regional governance. We argue that it is in deliberation that routines of governing and the routine solutions are reflected upon and set aside if necessary for innovative regional collaboration. Hence, democratic legitimacy of regional cooperation and city-region governance is gained in action. In this paper we explore, at what moments, why, and how participants but also others question the credibility – and through that the legitimacy – of regional cooperation. The paper is based on the experiences of four Dutch city-regions that voluntary collaborate: stadsregio Amsterdam, stadsregio Arnhem/Nijmegen, Stedendriehoek Apeldoorn, Zutphen, Deventer and the Drechtsteden. We focus on one of their policy domains: housing.