In the Netherlands, the rise of new parties such as the Lijst Pim Fortuyn, the Partij voor de Vrijheid, lead by Geert Wilders and the movement Trots op Nederland, lead by Rita Verdonk, have attracted much attention. In an attempt to interpret and explain the (temporary) advance of these parties, both commentators and political scientists have often used the notion of populism. In most commentaries however, it remains unclear what the term exactly means and whether it has any explanatory value. The aim of this article is to investigate whether Rita Verdonk and Geert Wilders and their movements may actually be labelled as populist. By discerning the presence of the features of an ideal-typical populism in discourse and performance of both politicians their ‘degree of populism’ is measured. The differences in degree of populism also helps to explain why Geert Wilders and his party proved (thus far) more successful and durable.

Although subnational entities play an important role in governance for sustainable development, they are often not recognized as decision-making actors in multilateral bodies, where an important part of the policy debate takes place. Adopting a Multi-Level Governance perspective, this article presents four alternative routes they can use to be involved in multilateral decision-making. It further zooms in on inter-subnational networks, an application of one particular route, called the direct route. Inter-subnational networks are associations between subnational entities based upon common interests. They have both external and internal objectives. On the one hand, they want to represent their members at multilateral organizations and influence decisionmaking. On the other hand, they are aimed at fostering cooperation between their members and at stimulating policy learning. This article focuses on the participation of Flanders in two networks in the area of sustainable development: nrg4SD and ENCORE. Flanders is an interesting case because of its exceptional degree of autonomy. The analysis concludes that Flanders is mainly (but not exclusively) interested in the internal dimension of the networks. It further reveals a low political involvement, which seems due to the subject of sustainable development itself.

This article addresses the controversial impact of the Economic Partnership Agreements (EPAs) between the European Union (EU) and its former colonies in Africa. The policy turn of the EU goes along with a sharp debate in which the EU portrays itself as a friend of the development countries while NGOs depict the Union as a wolf in sheepskin. Both sides defend strong arguments in favour and against EPAs. But how do the ACPs themselves look at the EPAs? By scrutinizing the images of ACP representatives we go beyond the polarised EPA debate. More specifically, the article deals with the question whether EPAs will stimulate or hinder regional integration in Eastern Africa. First, we summarize the diverging positions in the academic debate on this issue, structured around three dimensions: the impact of the EPA negotiation process, the consequences of implementation of these agreements, and the EU’s putative normative objectives in this area. Second, we explore each of these dimensions by analyzing the perception from Eastern African policy-makers on the basis of semi-structured interviews and a survey questionnaire. Researching the external perception of the EU’s policies provides an alternative way to gauge the possible consequences of EPAs on regional integration in Eastern Africa. The final section contains some tentative conclusions, which suggest that the view of East African diplomats is largely in line with the more ‘positive’ EU discourse, while parliamentarians make a more ‘negative’ assessment of the impact of EPAs for regional integration. In addition, members of the East African Community are more convinced of beneficial effects of EPAs on regional integration. The article ends with some explanations for these findings and some orientations for further research.