ABSTRACT
This chapter examines the effects of the 2010 reforms on the attitudes and opinions of citizens, politicians, and bureaucrats in the three Dutch Caribbean municipalities. It highlights the main causes and manifestations of the currently prevailing frustration, misgivings and resentment in the Bonaire, Sint Eustatius and Saba islands (BES). The chapter offers a description of the political-institutional changes that were implemented in the public entities. Subsequently, the contemporary public sentiment on the three islands is analysed on the basis of two sorts of data. First, interviews with political elites that were conducted as part of qualitative field research on the three islands are used to investigate how politicians and bureaucrats look back at the 2010 reforms. Second, the results of a large opinion survey that was conducted in the BES islands in late 2015 are used to examine the attitudes of the island populations regarding the reforms, and the contemporary relationship with the metropolitan Netherlands.
