Transitie of optimaliseren van het bestaande? : Beleidsanalyse NPLG en WBS vanuit transitieperspectieven

Samenvatting

Transition or optimisation? Policy analysis of the National Rural Areas Programme and the ‘water and soil as guiding principles’ policy from transition perspectives The Dutch government produced the National Rural Areas Programme and the policy letter to Parliament on ‘water and soil as guiding principles’ to tackle the complex challenges facing rural areas. In 2023 the provincial governments presented the first versions of their Provincial Rural Areas Programmes based on the National Programme. All these policy documents refer to the need for one or more transitions. This present study is an explorative policy analysis of how the transition concept has been interpreted in the policy documents and how this relates to the insights of different theories of transition. The analysis revealed that none of the policy documents contain a clear definition of what a transition is and that the concept has been interpreted in very different ways in terms of the type, scale and duration of the process. This implies a risk that use of the term transition will become an ‘empty signifier’ that says little about the real changes that are needed. This report offers some initial leads to give more cogency to the transition concept.