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good citizens

December 6th, 2008

In Binnenlands Bestuur (Domestic Governance), a Dutch magazine primarily aimed at civil servants, an interesting article discusses “Goede burgers” (Good Citizens). It refers to work by Herman van Gunsteren, who was a professor of mine in Leiden and whose work on citizenship I always much appreciated. The article is about the Dutch minister Ter Horst who recently proposed to write a “waardencatalogus” (values catalogue), which is intended to tell citizens how they should be behaving. Things like “taking responsibility, participating actively, no anonymous critique on internet websites, etc.”. So now the government is going to tell us that we should not be making anonymous comments on the internet?? And I thought the government was there to represent us, but now it sounds like we as citizens just have to start participate in what the politicians think we should be interested in - it sounds like the world upside down. Anyway, I think the article is a good read, and I very much like the ideas of Van Gunsteren, so here’s the automatic English translation.

Entry Filed under: politics, immigration and integration, democracy