You are hereby cordially invited to the MSc thesis presentation by Naomi Melis on ‘Citizen initiative the Dreumelse Waard: a vehicle of action in changing the practice of shallowing?’
Supervisors:
Dr Nicolas Jager, Public Administration and Policy Group
Prof. Dr. Ir. Rutgerd Boelens, Water Resources Management Group
Examinor:
Prof. Dr. Dave Huitema
Date: 13.11.2023
Time: 10.30-11.30 hours CET
Location: room 0101, Leeuwenborch building; or online via MS Teams link: Click here to join the meeting
Abstract
In 2019, four friends living in Dreumel discovered a vast amount of plastic and other waste along the shores of the “Over de Maas’’ project. The waste that was discovered resulted from the practice of shallowing, which involves the disposal of dredged material to reduce the depth of a deep lake. The four friends formed the citizen initiative called the “Dreumelse Waard”, intending to investigate and halt the practice of shallowing in their Municipality. This research aims to understand the role of a citizen initiative in changing policies regarding the issue of shallowing, taking the Dreumelse Waard as an example. This has been researched by focusing on analysing if the Dreumelse Waard has managed to contribute to changing the image of shallowing and to examine whether their efforts and strategy resulted in changing the practice of shallowing. This research contributes to the theoretical debate on how citizen initiatives can accomplish institutional change in the Netherlands. The context of the study of shallowing is heavily institutionalised and for citizens to contribute to change in an institutionalised context is still relatively under-researched in the Netherlands. The theory of Punctuated Equilibrium developed by Baumgartner and Jones (1991) was applied to study how the Dreumelse Waard aimed to reshape and change the practice of shallowing. This MSc thesis has adopted a case study using qualitative methods. Discourse analysis has been done to identify how the Dreumelse Waard has changed the image of shallowing. The results have shown how, using venue shopping, the members of the Dreumelse Waard were able to change the perception of shallowing. This led to policy changes, including stricter regulations and the formulation of a new policy addressing the issue of shallowing.