Everyone gets their say

Polders are soggy and swampy, and so is the Dutch policymaking approach called the polder model, Shi Nan (25) believes. For her Master’s thesis Nan investigated whether a policymaking instrument – a serious game, called ‘the World-Café’ - could pull the Dutch out of the administrative swamp.

Shi Nan: “The Dutch are very fond of their polder model, but it is problematic.” (Photo: Tomas van Dijk)

Infrastructural projects that are abruptly stopped, metro systems that take much longer to be build and turn out to be way more expensive than envisaged - Shi Nan has seen her fair share of projects that went wrong in her home country. “In China, many different governmental departments and investors are involved in projects, making them very complex,” she says.

Yet no country beats the Netherlands, Nan, who is originally from the Chinese city of Xi’an, concludes. “The Dutch are very fond of their polder model, a decision-making style where all parties and stakeholders get their say and where all ideas need to get in balance. Making policies that way however takes a long time. The ineffectiveness has caught international attention. And the Dutch government also recognizes the problem.”
For her Master’s thesis, which she defended last Monday at the faculty of Technology, Policy and Management, Nan worked for ‘Het Buitenhuis’, a think tank linked to the Ministry of Internal Affairs. Het Buitenhuis is experimenting with a serious game called the World-Café. Nan investigated whether this game could be useful in the Netherlands. She played it with officials from different ministries.

As a case study, Nan used the Betuweroute, a freight railway line running from Rotterdam to the German border. The Dutch and the Germans need to agree on the ins and outs of the European Rail Traffic Management System (a cross border safety system), which still needs to be installed. All parties on the Dutch side need to agree before negotiations with the Germans start. The ‘World-Café’ can help them find this consensus, Nan believes.

During the game people are subdivided into two groups. Each group brainstorms about the issues they think are important. The conclusions from the brainstorm sessions from one group are subsequently used as a starting point for further discussion for the other group, and vice versa.

“I liked this research a lot,” says the young engineer. “Most people at the university do simulations and work with numbers, whereas I also did qualitative research, and for that I spoke to many people from government and industry. It helped me develop more skills. And since I want to work in consultancy, for me, meeting all these people was very interesting.”