ABSTRACT
This chapter describes sense of ruling political elite ideas and that culture in which viscosity is the main culprit. It contrasts important traditions in Dutch public-administration. The chapter explains that the ideas and the culture of the ruling political elite display both discontinuity and anomaly in respect to those traditions. Under the verbal surface of the words, ideas and culture, traditions prove to be rather persistent. They are, moreover, surprisingly up-to-date, because they are so well suited to public administration in post-modern times. The chapter focuses on that Dutch public-administration is geographically determined: a hilltop in the southern province of Zuid-Limburg and a man-made polder landscape in the north will make the eye select and see different things. It sees abandoned the stubborn misconception that democracy conveys legitimacy to views and opinions. Accommodation and compromise, consensus building and the execution of public tasks by private organisations remain important features of practice on the ground.
