Heinrich Winter

Heinrich (1962) is professor of Public Administration and as such he teaches in the bachelor and master ‘Juridische Bestuurskunde’. Since 2018/2019 he is also involved with the English taught master Governance and Law in Digital Society, at Campus Fryslân. The courses in which he teaches are Introduction to Public Administration, Empirical research Lab, Supervision and enforcement, Regulation of Digital Technology.

His empirical-legal research concentrates on three topics: evaluation of legislation, supervision and enforcement, and conflicts between goernments and citizens.

His early academic work (including his PhD) was on evaluation of legislation – in the eighties in the Netherlands still a relatively new phenomenon. Since his publication of a monograph and his PhD, evaluation of legislation became more and more ‘business as usual’. He now participates in specific evaluation projects, amongst others on the fields of health care, domestic administration, justice and safety. Recently he published on the evaluation of the reorganisation of the Dutch police organisation.

Later he worked on supervision and enforcement, giving attention to research on the effects of supervision. He co-edited the first edition of a Handbook on Supervision (2015) of which now a second edition is prepared. https://research.rug.nl/nl/publications/toezicht-in-perspectief

Different research projects, also with the use of empirical legal research methods, concerned conflicts between governments and citizens, especially on the functioning of the notice of objection procedure (‘bezwaarschriftprocedure’). A recent (2019) publication focuses on the improvement of quality after 25 years experience with the General Administrative Law Act.

The research methods Heinrich is working with are mainly qualitative: secondary analysis, case study’s, interviews and group discussions.

At this moment Heinrich is involved with several empirical legal research projects. Two of these are worth mentioning:

• A long term research project commissioned and funded by the Dutch Council of Legal Assistance concerning the way local governments try to resolve conflicts with their citizens on the social domain with the help of lawyers and advocates.
• A research project commissioned by the ministry of Justice concerning the functioning of the legislation on the withdrawal of Dutch citizenship as a consequence of adherence to a terrorist organisation.