Past, Present and Future 157particular government organizations function as gatekeepers. A constantly expand-
ing set of rules and procedures is developed to this end. The realization of different
future projects (surfacing in civil society) is only possible in so far as they corre-
spond with these procedures, in so far as they provide support for the gatekeeper,
or, more generally, in so far as they are in line with prevailing macroprojects.
From this point of view, the state is, above all, a complex machine that seeks to
prevent its parts from entering (for whatever reason) into hasty arrangements: the
meetings, the endless consultations, the mechanism of initialling (all divisions and
departments involved have to agree), the mechanism of co-funding, the proce-
dures and calendars all function to eliminate every possible deviation from the
prevailing macroproject (and, at the same time, to orient all possible resources and
networks towards the macroproject in question).
The effects are threefold. First, the so-called transaction costs (the costs that have
to be made to make something happen, to get something done) increase often to
extreme levels. Second, the rules, procedures and gatekeeper functions often gain an
independence that reaches far beyond the initial macroproject. It is possible for a
macroproject to have long lost its meaning and importance, while the rules and pro-
cedures retain their own power. This can lead to grotesque events: important innova-
tions remain unnoticed or are hindered. During the past ten years, I have witnessed
extreme examples of this. Innovations that emerge outside of this expert system are
regarded as suspect – as undesired competition, even if only in a symbolic sense.
Hence, numerous potentially valuable innovations remain marginalized, restricted to
the proverbial proportions of ‘hidden novelties’ (see Van Lente and Rip, 1998).
I came across a different expression of the same tension through the so-called
‘commissions of wise men’ of which I was part several times (probably by mistake).
Such commissions are generally launched in The Netherlands when implementa-
tion of the prevailing regulations leads to almost insoluble problems and conflicts
between those involved. To a researcher, these commissions constitute an excep-
tional research method as well as an extraordinary learning experience. One of the
things that I have learned from them is that the solution, the way out of thorny
problems (irrespective of whether they are concerned with the ammonia question
in south-east Friesland, the national ecological network and the Gaasterland
uprising,* or unemployment in the north of the country),^28 is often very simple in
theory (because it assumes at the most a flexible interpretation of rules and above
all a clear focus on objectives). The complication lies in sidestepping the prevailing
procedures, arrangements and (bureaucratic) identities in ways that do not set a
precedent or mean that the civil servants involved lose face.
This takes me to a third complication. This is the ‘democratic deficit’ brought
about by, and effectuated in, this procedure. The trias politica – the separation of
- Translator’s note: The realization of the national ecological network was initially imagined as a mas-
sive expropriation of farm land in order for it to be converted into a nature reserve. In Gaasterland, the
entire population (including the non-agricultural population) protested against and effectively blocked
this approach.