Plurality in the Netherlands and Flanders

In the Netherlands, Audrey Tang, who visited in 2019, and Polis, the opinion-gathering tool used in Taiwan, arrived before the book *Plurality* did. Municipal trials grew into the government's Polis NL, while the Dutch translation of the book has so far gone no further than an individual's partial translation.

The Netherlands and Flanders, the Dutch-speaking northern part of Belgium, are sometimes together called the "Low Countries". This region has many examples of "citizens' assemblies", in which selected citizens gather and talk things through [1][2][3]. Here, it was not the book Plurality itself that arrived first, but its author Audrey Tang and a tool used in Taiwan. This article follows that order of events.

In short

In the Netherlands, after Tang visited Amsterdam in 2019, municipalities tried out the online opinion-gathering tool Polis, and this grew into "Polis NL", a joint project among government bodies [4][5].

The Dutch translation of the book, meanwhile, is at the stage where an individual began translating the preface and a few other parts in the summer of 2026, and no printed book has been confirmed [6]. For Flanders, no sources dealing with the book or with Tang had been found at the stage when this site collected its material.

For example

Tang's visit to Amsterdam (November 20, 2019). The foundation Netwerk Democratie held a public conversation with Tang [7]. The report that followed, "Vier lessen uit de Taiwanese Digitale Democratie" (Four lessons from Taiwanese digital democracy), summed up four points: why digital democracy, trusting citizens, building consensus with pol.is, and spreading voluntary cooperation inside government [8].

Municipal trials (2020–2021). In December 2020, an event at Pakhuis de Zwijger, a cultural venue in Amsterdam, announced that Amsterdam and Groningen would be the first Dutch cities to use Pol.is. Anne de Zeeuw of Netwerk Democratie was introduced as the person who, after Tang's visit, began introducing Polis with these cities and others, and the program included a video message from Tang [4]. In 2021, Amsterdam's West district began using Polis to choose the themes for a scheme in which residents decide how a budget is spent [9].

Becoming a government tool (2023–2025). Since 2023, two ministries, the government IT organization ICTU, Tilburg University and three provinces have been developing a Dutch version of Pol.is [10]. In 2025, PublicSpaces, a coalition of civil-society organizations, used PolisNL to gather from citizens the issues to be taken up in election debates. This project was funded by the Ministry of the Interior [11].

In more detail

The carriers were a network of practitioners

Those who spread Taiwan's approach in the Netherlands were less the book's readers than practitioners of digital participation. The first trial was coordinated by the City of Amsterdam, working with Netwerk Democratie, the City of Groningen and Democratie in Actie, a program supporting municipalities linked to the Ministry of the Interior [12]. In December 2019, a guide for municipalities, commissioned by that program, included a section titled "Vergezicht: Audrey Tang" (A distant view: Audrey Tang) [13].

In 2021, Polis was also used for an online conversation about COVID-19 test certificates, and 377 people took part over two weeks. Netwerk Democratie and Code for NL submitted the results to the online public consultation on the bill [14].

Polis NL as it later developed was initiated by the provinces of South Holland and Groningen, and is funded by the Ministry of the Interior's innovation budget [5]. According to 2025 reporting, the government website Praatmeemetdeoverheid.nl (Talk with the government) also uses Polis. "Wij zijn Drenthe" (We are Drenthe), in the province of Drenthe, uses Polis too: in prioritizing cycle paths, residents added 37 statements and cast nearly 20,000 votes [15].

The Netherlands in Tang's words

In a 2025 column, Tang gave the Dutch childcare benefits scandal (toeslagenaffaire) as an example of "a tragedy of AI governance". In this case, the tax authority used algorithms to look for benefit fraud and treated foreign-sounding names and dual nationality as markers of fraud. On that basis, she argued that the yardstick for AI should not be efficiency alone but "trust-under-loss", that is, whether people who receive an unfavorable outcome can still accept the process as fair [16].

The Dutch translation of the book

On GitHub, the holder of an account named Martijn Ceelen created two repositories in July 2026. Three files were translated: the preface, "Vind Jouw Dao" (Find your Dao) and a glossary. The commit messages say they were translated from English and German using Claude AI [6]. A proposed change sent to the original book's repository was withdrawn by the account holder after Akinori Oyama explained the procedure of keeping translations in one's own translation repository [6]. No document describing the translator's background or motives, no printed edition and no launch event have been found [6]. → Editions and translations of the book

Points of contact with citizens' assemblies, and gaps

The Netherlands had a national climate citizens' assembly in 2025, in which 175 people met seven times; in response to its recommendations, the government replied that it wants to implement at least half of them [1]. In Belgium, the civic group G1000 is calling for a permanent citizens' council, including citizens chosen by lot, to be placed in the Senate [2]. Belgium's German-speaking Community has a citizens' dialogue (the Ostbelgien model) that combines assemblies of citizens chosen by lot with a permanent council [3].

In chapter 5-0, the book gives the comparison between deliberation (talking things through carefully) and voting as an example of a trade-off. High-quality deliberation has traditionally been thought possible only in small groups, so small groups have to be chosen by election or by lot (sortition). Voting can involve far larger numbers cheaply, but at a different cost. That is the contrast [17]. Chapter 5-4 writes that a procedure selecting the most diverse committee in place of sortition could also be considered [18].

On the Dutch side, too, there is thinking that links the two. Polis NL explains that combining Polis with in-person citizens' assemblies can bring a wider range of residents into the discussion [5]. However, the sources from Polis NL, G1000 and Ostbelgien mention neither the book nor Tang or Weyl [5][2][3].

What is debated

Polis is not yet a tool government can use as it is (2022). A guide by Netwerk Democratie and others wrote that, as of June 2022, those involved in the trials did not see Polis as a tool ready for government use. The reasons given included that EU personal-data rules prevent storing data on US servers, and that setting it up in-house is difficult [19].
Identity checks and anonymity (2024). An ethics workshop held at the request of the Ministry of the Interior discussed Praatmeemetdeoverheid.nl. Participants named a good side of logging in with "DigiD", the national digital ID: it leads to polite posts. At the same time, they named the exclusion of people without an ID, and the way a sense that votes can be traced to individuals drives people away. Proposed responses included making participation anonymous after logging in with DigiD, and using other ID methods such as Yivi [20]. → Proof of personhood
Does the government hold too much of people's opinions? (2018). Karel Smouter of the online magazine De Correspondent introduced vTaiwan as a possible replacement for the Netherlands' abolished advisory referendum. Smouter then asked whether it is a good thing for the government to hold so much of citizens' thinking, and wrote that questions about privacy protection sent to Polis's developer and to the vTaiwan side went unanswered [21].
It means nothing unless the results are used (2025). A 2025 article in the same magazine cited research finding that online participation is received positively when its results are actually visible. The point is that after listening, the results also have to be used [15].

Common misunderstandings

That there is a Dutch edition of the book. All that could be confirmed is an individual's partial translation of three files [6].

Where it fits in Plurality

In the English edition of the book, the Netherlands appears roughly only as a colonizer in Taiwan's history (chapter 2-1) [22], and in a passage that gives the destruction of squirrels lacking paperwork at Schiphol Airport in the late 1990s as an example of bureaucratic rigidity (chapter 5-5) [23]. The Netherlands is not one of the book's case studies.

On the other hand, among the tools the book discusses, Polis (chapter 5-4, "Augmented Deliberation") is something the Netherlands is actually using and rebuilding [10][5]. → Augmented Deliberation

For comparison with other regions, see the articles on Japan, the German-speaking world and Denmark.

Sources

Nationaal Burgerberaad Klimaat, "Over ons" (About us) (in Dutch) — https://www.burgerberaadklimaat.nl/over+ons/default.aspx
G1000 (in Dutch) — https://www.g1000.org/nl/home
Bürgerdialog in Ostbelgien, "Grundsätze und Prinzipien" (Principles) (in German) — https://www.buergerdialog.be/hintergrund/grundsaetze-und-prinzipien/
Pakhuis de Zwijger, "New Democracy #47: Op zoek naar consensus" (In search of consensus) (2020-12-09, in Dutch) — https://dezwijger.nl/programma/op-zoek-naar-consensus
Polis NL, "Over Polis NL" (About Polis NL) and front page (in Dutch) — https://polisnl.org/over-polis-nl / https://polisnl.org/
iconsultancy/plurality-dutch, iconsultancy/pluraliteit, and PR #1139 in the original book's repository — https://github.com/iconsultancy/plurality-dutch / https://github.com/pluralitybook/plurality/pull/1139
Netwerk Democratie, "Interview with Audrey Tang" (2019-11-20) — https://netdem.nl/nl/events/event/interview-with-audrey-tang/
Netwerk Democratie, "Vier lessen uit de Taiwanese Digitale Democratie" (2019-12-12, in Dutch) — https://netdem.nl/nl/articles/vier-lessen-uit-de-taiwanese-digitale-democratie/
Binnenlands Bestuur, "Stemmen peilen met nieuw online platform" (Gauging opinion with a new online platform) (2021-04-19, in Dutch) — https://www.binnenlandsbestuur.nl/digitaal/ambtelijk-vakmanschap/stemmen-peilen-met-nieuw-online-platform
Province of South Holland, "Pilot Pol.is platform" (in Dutch) — https://www.zuid-holland.nl/onderwerpen/zuid-holland-digitaal/toekomst-van-publieke-platformen/pilot-pol-platform/
PublicSpaces, "Stemmen uit de samenleving" (Voices from society) (2025-09-23, CC BY 4.0, in Dutch) — https://publicspaces.net/project/stemmen-uit-de-samenleving/
Netwerk Democratie, "Pol.is in Nederland" (Pol.is in the Netherlands) — https://netdem.nl/projects/pol-is-in-nederland/
Anne de Zeeuw, Digitale Democratie in de praktijk (Digital democracy in practice) (2019-12, in Dutch) — https://lokale-democratie.nl/file/download/7d9f0ef0-a365-4cfe-b1b3-0d0e4f59f657/digitale_-democratie_in_de_praktijk.pdf
Netwerk Democratie, "Een online gesprek over corona-testbewijzen met de tool Polis" (An online conversation about COVID-19 test certificates with the tool Polis) (2021-04-26, in Dutch) — https://netdem.nl/nl/articles/een-online-gesprek-over-corona-testbewijzen-met-de-tool-polis/
Kevin Schoenmakers, "Meningen zonder scheldkanonnades" (De Correspondent, 2025-09-23, in Dutch) — https://decorrespondent.nl/16391/meningen-zonder-scheldkanonnades-in-tijden-van-polarisatie-zoekt-de-overheid-online-naar-consensus/6b206258-5917-0550-0833-27dce63da90c
Audrey Tang, "AI in Public Service: Should We Pursue Efficiency—or Restore Trust?" (2025-09-11, CC BY 4.0) — https://github.com/audreyt/transcript/blob/main/2025-09-11-AI-in-Public-Service-Should-We-Pursue-Efficiency—or-Restore-Trust.md ［CC0］
Plurality, 5-0 "Collaborative Technology and Democracy" — https://www.plurality.net/v/chapters/5-0/eng/ ［CC0］
Plurality, 5-4 "Augmented Deliberation" — https://www.plurality.net/v/chapters/5-4/eng/ ［CC0］
Netwerk Democratie, "Polis in Nederland" (guide, 2022, in Dutch) — https://netwerkdemocratie.notion.site/Polis-in-Nederland-5a457baccb3c4a169876699187ee208a
ECP, "Verslag workshop begeleidingsethiek Polis" (Report of the guidance-ethics workshop on Polis) (2024, CC BY-SA 4.0, in Dutch) — https://begeleidingsethiek.nl/wp-content/uploads/2024/03/Verslag-workshop-begeleidingsethiek-POLIS.pdf
Karel Smouter, "Het raadgevend referendum is dood. Taiwan experimenteert met het alternatief" (The advisory referendum is dead. Taiwan is experimenting with the alternative) (De Correspondent, 2018-07-18, in Dutch) — https://decorrespondent.nl/8506/het-raadgevend-referendum-is-dood-taiwan-experimenteert-met-het-alternatief/632225462-fbb2f72d
Plurality, 2-1 "A View from Yushan" — https://www.plurality.net/v/chapters/2-1/eng/ ［CC0］
Plurality, 5-5 "Adaptive Administration" — https://www.plurality.net/v/chapters/5-5/eng/ ［CC0］

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