Program and courses Public Governance: Public Administration, Economics and Law

You will take 6 core courses (36 ECTS)

• Good Governance: Conceptualizations and Manifestations 
  Learn to reflect on and analyze key issues of good governance, such as accountability, equality and non-discrimination, and effectiveness.
• Governance and Politics: Democratic Governance & Innovation Through a Comparative Lens 
  Learn to compare and evaluate the mechanisms and results of democratic governance and politics, and innovations therein. 
• Governance Clinic: From Challenge to Strategy  
  Learn to tackle, as part of a team, a real-world governance challenge commissioned by a real-life client.
• Governance and Economics: New Approaches to Economic Performance and Social Well-Being 
  Learn to frame key socio-economic ideas in a new perspective, focused on social well-being, and apply these ideas to real-world policymaking. 
• Governance and Law: Understanding Regulatory Regimes and Risk Regulation 
  Learn to compare and assess the role of regulation in the context of the promotion of security and justice, and the prevention of risks.  
• Public Entrepreneurship and Strategy 
  Learn to detect and assess key issues of strategic public management.

The role of government in addressing climate change and energy transition has been rapidly expanding. More than ever, sustainability has become a critical topic in the realm of public governance. This theme will help you specialize in how coalitions and networks are built among a diverse set of actors, beyond government, and across boundaries, why it is often still difficult to leverage the necessary capacity and support, and what kind of governance models and practices ‘work’ in organizing climate action, accelerating the energy transition, and achieving sustainable development and growth.

Leading expert: Professor Martijn Groenleer

This theme offers electives such as:

• Climate Change Law
• Seminar Environmental and Resource Economics
• Sustainable Entrepreneurship 

In this short video, Professor Martijn Groenleer will tell you more about the challenges of the transition to a sustainable society: 'Governing the Energy Transition' (video - 3.34 min). 

In an increasingly uncertain and unpredictable world, the governance of risks, security and the justice system is more important than ever to ensure the effectiveness and legitimacy of governance systems worldwide. This theme will help you specialize in current issues of safety and risk, both from a regulatory and an organizational perspective, the management and governance of the justice system in relation to safeguarding the rule of law, as well as governance challenges prompted by systems failure and crises.

Leading expert: Professor Stavros Zouridis

This theme offers electives such as:

• Migration and the Rule of Law
• Competition and Market Risks
• The EU and Global Environmental Risks

Professor Stavros Zouridis brings a current topic under discussion in this short video: 'Why the Rule of Law has failed in Europe' (video - 5:23 min). 

The foundation for a prosperous, fair, and equal society requires good quality provision of health, education, and welfare, which is increasingly challenging because of developments such as changing expectations and needs of citizens, growing internationalization and interconnectedness, and increasing mobility and flexibility. This theme will help you specialize in the governance responses from public as well as private and non-profit parties to face and adapt to 21st century challenges, and build robust and resilient health, education and welfare systems.

Leading expert: Professor Ton Wilthagen

This theme offers electives such as:

• Hybrid Organizations
• Social Policy and Social Risks
• Health & Policy

In the second semester you write your Master's thesis:

• Master's thesis Seminar (6 ECTS)

The Master’s thesis seminar will help you develop a sound and solid research proposal.  You are supervised through so-called thesis circles with other students writing their thesis as part of the same track. If you start in February, you have the unique choice to write your thesis in your first semester following successful completion of the Master thesis seminar, but may also choose to write your thesis in the fall semester (note that the Master’s thesis seminar is only offered in the spring semester).

• Master's Thesis (12 ECTS)

Examples of thesis subjects are:

• Populist communication: a comparative analysis of how political parties in the Netherlands use twitter to spread their message
• The failure of the European Migration Policy: explaining the policy’s lack of effectiveness by applying criteria for good regulation
• Institutional inertia in sustainability transitions: analyzing the ‘greening’ of the Dutch agricultural sector as part of the Common Agricultural Policy framework
• Governing youth unemployment: a qualitative study of the network effectiveness of the youth unemployment approach