The irrevocable urge to innovate. Hegemonic governance of the countryside in the Netherlands

The study aims to enhance our understanding of how public policy innovation processes of the Ministry of LNV work by investigating plans from three consecutive minsters of LNV in the period 1994-2006, and their bumpy road of implementation, when many forces are pulling in various directions, forces influenced by ambiguity, various forms of struggle and reciprocity. The narrative is structured by using the concepts public and hidden transcripts. The interplay of these transcripts shows that the implementation has been hampered by ambiguous steering signals, struggles of influence in policy and a lack of collaboration. More focus on the implementation and in particular the crafting a workable governance could improve the quality of the policy.