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On entering Gouda, one noticed it as soon as one left the train. This was a town that had prepared for serious disturbances. In the hope of preventing hostilities between opposing groups, billboards had been put up just outside the railway station, directing different passengers to different locations. And the police also stopped and questioned visitors. As Gouda used to be a fortified town in the past, a moat still separates its historic center from more recent parts. The police used the bridges across it as checkpoints, trying to prevent unwanted visitors from entering. Downtown Gouda itself was swarming with riot police and with private security firm employees. Yet it wasn't a major soccer match the town was holding itself ready for. Gouda was awaiting the entry of Sinterklaas. 'Sinterklaas', 'Saint Nicholas' in English, is the Dutch version of Santa Claus, of which he is a predecessor. His feast is celebrated on the evening of December 5, but preparations start much earlier. Each year

Heritage Practices, cultural contestation and tHe sHaPing of tHe cultural landscaPe In this volume, a variety of cases of cultural contestation has been discussed, ranging from the construction of a new national museum to all-out war, and from an attempt at changing a nation's favorite festivity to ethnic cleansing. What all these cases show is that heritage is part and parcel of a society's symbolic landscape. Heritage practices not only give meaning to it, but also construct and reconstruct it at the same time. Identity is deeply intertwined with the symbolic landscape, as are the feelings of belonging and exclusion that are expressed by it. Therefore, the effects of the shaping and re-shapingv the symbolic landscape can be severe: When communities do not feel represented by it, emotions run high and cultural contestation can occur. As the contributors to this volume show, governments play various roles in heritage practices. They articulate and reproduce existing historical

Public values research is a major topic in public administration science, but little attention has been given to the origin of public values. This article traces the origin of public values to the development of the public sphere and public offices in the late Middle Ages, a period often dismissed as an age of particularism to which notions of the public sphere and public values are not applicable. There has been little inquiry into the Middle Ages in the field of administrative history. As this article shows, however, a public sphere began to develop in late medieval Holland, both in the minds of the learned and in practice. Christian virtues were pulled into this burgeoning public sphere and given specific meanings related to the administrative behavior of public officeholders. The virtues were, by this means, transformed into public values that are still held in high esteem in present-day public administration.