Flood risk management nowadays affects landowners behind dikes, broadening the group of stakeholders. Interactive governance provides an approach to negotiate and balance the diverging interests of stakeholders involved. One of the benefits of interactive governance is creating satisfaction through involvement, making stakeholders less prone to taking legal action against implementation. This paper tests this assumption through standardized quantitative longitudinal research, demonstrating a statistically positive correlation between interactive governance and stakeholder satisfaction.

The European Flood Directive (FD) shifted water management policy from flood protection to flood risk management. To facilitate the shift, a new instrument was introduced called the flood risk management plan. According to the FD, a flood risk management plan shall first take into account relevant aspects from water management, nature conservation, land use, spatial planning, navigation, and port infrastructure. Second, the flood risk management plan will be coordinated at the river basin level. This changes the spatial scope of water management compared to (old) flood protection approach and affects a broader group of stakeholder interests, namely landowners behind dikes. As a result, water management has to introduce a governance approach that facilitates stakeholder involvement in which different spatial interests are balanced, bargained and negotiated. Academic governance literature consists mostly of qualitative case studies, because of their complex nature. As a result, most governance literature operates on assumptions which make it difficult to formulate governance strategies that work based on general patterns. To contribute towards scientific methodologies for comparative research a quantitative method was developed to measure satisfaction in a stakeholder process. The method first provides new insights on the relation between interactive governance processes and the procedural satisfaction of stakeholders. Second, it provides insights that help to improve interactive governance in terms of managing a stakeholder process in such a way that greater procedural satisfaction can be achieved.

The underground provides many spatial planning opportunities as it offers space for structures, but also functions as a resource for energy. To guide developments and use the capabilities the underground provides, the Dutch national government started a policy process for the Structuurvisie Ondergrond (a master plan). Stakeholders are involved in the policy process because of the many interests linked to underground functions. However, past policy processes related to the underground dealt with lack of stakeholder satisfaction. This article explores a quantitative approach by focusing on (a) statistical testing of four criteria of interactive governance and (b) using said criteria to evaluate the satisfaction of stakeholders in a policy process. This article highlights the usefulness of a more quantitative approach and provides new insights into the relation between interactive governance and the procedural satisfaction of stakeholders. It also provides insights that help to improve interactive governance in terms of process management to achieve greater procedural satisfaction.