ABSTRACT
This chapter proposes a new perspective on urban governance by means of reassessing the history of Dutch municipal policies in the second half of the nineteenth century through the conceptual lens of ‘norm entrepreneurship’. Key to this approach is the agency of historical actors with regard to how the underlying norms of regulation, government and administration of urban society were articulated, negotiated and, ultimately, established. These historical actors might or might not be part of local elite groups. The combined lenses of urban governance and ‘norm entrepreneurship’ allow for an articulated picture of the historical actors who negotiated the nature and scope of urban regulation, government and administration from the mid-nineteenth century onwards.
