The Politics of Contentious Governance
Research Question
How does the politics of contentious governance work?
Project Description
Conflicts over policies are often perceived as citizens versus government oppositions or as social movements challenging the state. But what if local or regional governments start to collaborate with action groups, NGOs, or businesses to prevent unwanted policies proposed by higher tiers of government? This process, which I call ‘contentious governance’ is widespread, for example in cases on fracking, sanctuary cities or resistance to the Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership between the EU and the US. Contentious governance is at the same time neglected and undertheorized in social scientific literature. At NIAS I will work on my book The politics of contentious governance, to fill this gap.
Selected Publications
1) Verhoeven, I. & Duyvendak, J.W. (2017). Understanding governmental activism. Social Movement Studies, 16(5): 564-577.
2) Verhoeven, I. & Bröer C. (2015). Contentious governance. Local governmental players as social movement actors. In J.W. Duyvendak & J. Jasper (eds.), Breaking down the state. Protestors engaged (pp.95-110). Amsterdam: Amsterdam University Press.