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It remains the responsibility of the national government to formulate
policies and implement their accompanying legal, economic and
social instruments. The national government can help remove
fundamental barriers by implementing measures encouraging
a circular economy. Such incentives can clearly accelerate the
transition process, particularly when they enforce fundamental
change. For example, the introduction of targeted legislation
and impactful economic incentives can redirect our economy.
Implementing radically new national policies, however, remains
difficult due to diverging political and economic interests. Policies
in democratic societies can only be implemented if supported by
a parliamentary majority. That is why policy changes tend to occur
via incremental, step-by-step improvements. Only in times of
severe crisis or when the government can develop broad societal
support for stricter policies might a window open for faster radical
changes. The government can create societal support for decisions
to be taken by using online and offline communication. It can also
be valuable to instate citizen councils which reflect the views of a
random yet representative sample of society. Such councils may
surmount the day-to-day differences of political opinion, though
decisions still lie with parliament.
These political constraints make it even more relevant to increase
support for bottom-up circular initiatives and the accompanying
role of network governance. This book contributes to this
objective by sharing experiences from implementing a circular
economy in the Netherlands. Among the countries that have had
such experience, the Netherlands stands out. The country builds
on a 40-year history of dealing with issues related to the circular
economy. In the 1980s, we were an early adopter of shifting from
landfills to incineration and recycling. In the 1990s, ecodesign
became popular. Consequently, a large body of knowledge and
experience has laid the foundation for circular economy policies.
Moreover, network governance to strengthen bottom-up change
could rather easily be adopted in the Netherlands because it