The democratic character of new institutional governance arrangements: comparing Dutch and Belgian experiences

Governance networks create a problem of disconnection to clear principles of democratic legitimacy. This raises two questions:
- to what extent is this involvement a threat to the classical politicial legitimacy by representative institutions?
- how is the involvement of these actors democratically legitimized?

This chapter examines two institutional arrangements that have been designed and emerged in two governance networks around economic developments: he Ghent Kanaalzone in Belgium and the development of the expansion of the port of Rotterdam in the Netherlands. We are especially interested in the question how these institutional arrangements reconnect actors and decision-making processes to democratic criteria of decision-making and the classical representation institutions. An analytical framework for examining institutional arrangements of governance networks is presented. This is followed by an examination of the way that problems of democratic governance have been managed empirically. Both cases illustrate how democratic decision making institutions developed over a period of more than 10 years. The chapter concludes with a discussion of the implications of the analysis for both policy makers and researchers.