The social pillar

Original title: De sociale pijler.

Despite the extensive welfare state and intensive social policy, the Netherlands has for decades been faced with a number of stubborn social problems, with disadvantage that can apparently not be made good and with wrongs that are difficult to right. There is wide political and social consensus about the defective functioning of policy in the social pillar. This consensus is accompanied in the public debate by criticism of government interventions which are regarded as ineffective and inefficient.

In this book, Jeroen Hoenderkamp analyses the social pillar from within. He begins his analysis not from the question of what the socially desirable outcomes should be, but rather by looking at the practice of actors who operate in the social pillar at local level and what their significance is in that context. He links this analysis to academic insights into the social and administrative sciences. This book shows that the implicit perspective adopted by almost all who take part in the debate on the social pillar is far too optimistic about the ability to pursue an effective social policy. As a result, the effects of the efforts of local governments are contrasted in the debate with unrealistic ideas about what could and should be done. If left unchecked, the result of this approach is that policy practices which function perfectly well are time and again confronted with politically inspired but practically improbable and therefore unproductive reform agendas.