The Dutch Decentralized Unitary State and Its Effects on Civil Service Systems in the Period of the Night Watch, Welfare and Enabling States 1814–2016
Publicado en línea: 08 ago 2018
Páginas: 138 - 154
DOI: https://doi.org/10.2478/ADHI-2018-0008
© 2016 Frits van der Meer, Gerrit Dijkstra, Toon Kerkhoff, Published by Sciendo
This work is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 Public License.
From a geographical point of view, the Netherlands belongs to the smaller European states. Though small in size, it contains a considerable degree of cultural, historical, political and religious variation. Over the years, this variety has been an essential attribute of Dutch society and has to a large extent determined its political-administrative institutional design. Finding an acceptable equilibrium between unity and decentralization has influenced political administrative history from the Burgundian times till the present day. With the founding of the Kingdom of the Netherlands in the aftermath of the Congress of Vienna, a decentralized unitary state structure was introduced with the Constitution of 1815. This structure encompassed a considerable degree of autonomy and self-government for the various government levels within the framework of the unitary state. The importance attached to self-government is related to the view that decentralized government should be a vehicle for societal self-expression at all levels of the state. For our purposes it is important to note that autonomy and self-government also pertained to personnel management decisions and regulations regarding civil servants. In accordance with practice in the field of comparative civil service systems, civil servants and public servants are considered to be synonymous.
Over time the nature, content and power relations within the decentralized unitary state did evolve, though the basic structure remained the same, as will be explained in section 2. Those changes also applied to the interconnection to society. In the period 1814–2016, the Dutch state went from being a Night Watch State, to a Welfare and Enabling State. Government initially had very little involvement in »public service delivery«. It dealt only with the most basic provisions such as safety, public order and finances. From the final quarter of the nineteenth century and especially after the Second World War, this changed, as government assumed a much more active role. The most recent decades have seen the emergence of an Enabling State where government is once again taking a step back. It creates necessary parameters but also tries to let ›civil society‹ manage itself.
The central idea behind bureaucratic reform has been that changes within government and society have to be accompanied by parallel changes in civil service systems. The changing nature of the decentralized unitary state and the consequence for civil service systems can be analyzed by looking at the transition of dominant state models. In each of these models we can find an answer to what is expected of (senior) civil servants in terms of expertise, experience, attitude etc. – in short, the content of merit. How to shape and organize personnel tasks have thus been core issues in Dutch public administration and administrative thought. This involves a modification of personnel management policies and practices but also of requirements that are considered necessary for civil servants to operate in an appropriate way in these new conditions. Frits M. van der Meer, »Public Sector Reform in Western Europe and the Rise of the Enabling State: an Approach to Analysis«, in: Rohit Raj Mathur (Ed.), Glimpses of Civil Service Reform, Hyderabad 2009, p. 171–195; Frits M. van der Meer, Voorwaarden, waarborgen en ambtenaren. De gevolgen van de opkomst van de voorwaardenscheppende staat voor de publieke dienst, Leiden 2012.
Our central question thus is: to what extent were the nature and content of merit principles for Dutch civil service systems influenced by the (changing) decentralized unitary state, during the periods of the Night Watch, Welfare and Enabling State between 1814 and 2016?
Before dealing with this question in the following sections, it is good to briefly elaborate on the use of history for the study of public administration and the need for historical comparison when evaluating current questions. The use of history for the study of public administration has been widely discussed in recent decades. See, amongst many others, Lynton K. Caldwell, »The Relevance of Administrative History«, in: International Review of Administrative Sciences 21 (1955), p. 453–466; Jos C. N. Raadschelders, »Administrative History: Contents, Meaning and Usefulness«, in: International Review of Administrative Sciences 60 (1994), p. 117–129; Jos C. N. Raadschelders, et al., »Against A Study of the History of Public Administration: A Manifesto«, in: Administrative Theory and Practice 22 (2000), p. 772–791; Jos C. N. Raadschelders, »IS American Public Administration Detached From Historical Context? On the Nature of Time and the Need to Understand It in Government and Its Study«, in: American Review of Public Administration 40 (2010), p. 235–260; Charles Tilly, »Why and HOW History Matters«, in: Robert E. Goodin, Charles Tilly (Eds.), The Oxford Handbook of Contextual Political Analysis, Oxford, etc. 2006, p. 417–437; Stephen Vaughn (Ed.), The Vital Past. Writings on the Uses of History, Athens [GA] 1985. Raadschelders, et al., »Against a Study«, p. 782. Jos C. N. Raadschelders, Handbook of Administrative History, New Brunswick, etc. 1998, p. 9. Laurence E. Lynn Jr., Public Management: Old and New, New York 2006, p. 22. Frits M. van der Meer, Jos C. N. Raadschelders, Theo A. J. Toonen, »Modelos administrativos, tradiciones y reformas. ¿Último recurso explicativo?«, in: Estado, Gobierno, Gestión Pública. Revista Chilena de Administración Pública 12 (2008), p. 85–103.
This article is structured as follows. In the next section we will look into the theoretical concepts of the decentralized unitary state, civil service systems, merit and the transition of state models. Next we present our empirical findings using a chronological order based on crucial periods and junctures in the development of the Dutch state from 1815 onwards. Finally we provide an answer in our conclusion.
The decentralized unitary state, changing models of state, and civil service systems are key concepts in our analysis. These concepts are in need of explanation given their sometimes ambiguous meaning. But first we should discuss the importance of an historical administrative discussion of Dutch civil service system change in relation to the decentralized unitary state. With some reservation and care we will envisage a Dutch administrative tradition and model. The Thorbeckian model of the decentralized unitary state, the importance of the involvement of society in the public domain and the formulation these have taken in the periods of the Night Watch, Welfare and Enabling State can be seen as part of that Dutch administrative tradition and even – written perhaps with some more caution – administrative model.
To begin with the decentralized unitary state, after the overthrow – or more accurately, the collapse – of the Dutch Republic (1795) a unitary state was formed as result of the constitution of 1798. How to strike an acceptable balance between centralism and decentralism was a lasting point of endless debates up until the annexation to Napoleonic France in 1810. With the creation of the Kingdom of the Netherlands in 1815, a more stable decentralized unitary state structure came into existence encompassing the central state, provinces, municipalities and some functional governments. Although formally decentralized and constitutionally bound, in practice the first monarch after independence, King William I, concentrated power in his own hands. His personal rule also had significant effects on the functioning of the civil service systems. This monarchic rule ended with the liberal Constitution of 1848 introduced by Johan Rudolf Thorbecke, whose name still is associated with the constitutional design of the modern Dutch state. With him the modern-day decentralized unitary state began in earnest. The decentralized unitary state was meant to remedy both the institutional weakness of the Dutch Republic and some of the oppressive aspects of a strong central state which became manifest during the years of the French annexation and to a lesser degree the autocratic rule of King William I. Frits M. van der Meer, Jos C. N. Raadschelders, »Between Restauration and Consolidation: The Napoleonic Model of Administration in the Netherlands 1795–1990«, in: Bernd Wunder (Ed.), The Napoleonic Model of Government, Brussels 1995, p. 199–221, here p. 220.
The concept of the Dutch decentralized unitary state states that within the public domain the unitary state is composed of primarily general-purpose governments such as the central government, provincial governments, and municipalities, and (to a lesser extent) of functional bodies such as water boards. The preference for general-purpose governments stems from the emphasis on integral public service delivery and citizen involvement. The sovereignty of the state is invested in each government according to the responsibilities assigned in the Constitution and institutional laws. For instance municipalities are not considered to be solely derived from central government but seen as a unique embodiment of the state and, according to Thorbecke’s organic state theory, contributing to the growth of society and state. This idea is central to the Thorbeckian system as it still (at least formally) exists. In this Thorbeckian conception, the decentralized state is seen as instrument and vessel for citizens’ involvement and societal development in the public domain. Public domain can be seen as a vague term and is often barely defined. In addition to government (the public-public domain), a private-public domain can be distinguished. Frits M.van der Meer, »Minder overheid, maar wie denkt er na over de lange termijn?«, in: Mejudice
Over time, the decentralized unitary state system developed and provided the institutional context for the expansion and modernization of government and changing government relationships with society. This has had profound effects on civil service systems, as we will show below. Toonen (1987) Theo A. J. Toonen, Denken over binnenlands bestuur: theorieën van de gedecentraliseerde eenheidsstaat bestuurskundig beschouwd, ’s Gravenhage 1987. Van der Meer, Voorwaarden, waarborgen en ambtenaren; Frits van der Meer, Caspar F. van den Berg, »Government and society in the active and the enabling state: A framework for analyzing transitions across time and place«, paper presented at the IRSPM conference 2016 in Hong Kong 2016.
To this point, the concepts of civil service and the civil service system have been used indiscriminately. Within English-language research in public administration, administrative science and administrative history by authors from various countries, the terms ›civil servants‹ and ›the civil service‹ are used quite freely. The English-language term ›civil service‹ can be confusing as, in the British context, the words ›civil service‹ often are reserved for those public officials working for central government. Confusion can arise in an international context. The British ›civil service‹ concept is not exactly comparable to the ›fonction publique‹ in France, ›Beamten‹ in Germany or ›ambtelijk apparaat‹ in the Netherlands. In order to make comparative studies possible, the civil service concept has been de-anglicized and stretched to other (central) government bureaucracies. Nowadays in international civil service studies the term refers to public (permanent) officials working at all levels of government. Thus it pertains to the (permanent) government workforce excluding political officials. The concept of the civil service system has been a further addition for enhancing comparisons by focusing on the historical institutional dimension of civil services. A civil service system (CSS) is defined by Bekke, Perry and Toonen as institutions (i.e. rule complexes) that mobilize human resources in the service of the state in a given territory Hans A. G. M. Bekke, James L. Perry, Theo A. J. Toonen (Eds.), Civil Service Systems in Comparative Perspective, Bloomington/Indiana 1996, p. 2.
In administrative sciences and administrative history, the concept of merit (systems) is often used in and central to discussions on the modernization and bureaucratization of civil service systems. The answer to the question of what is meant by merit (and the subsequent merit system) might look easy at first glance, but in reality it is fraught with difficulties. Merit is a complex, ambiguous and changing notion. Often, to name but some examples of merit criteria that are considered appropriate to a particular job or career, knowledge, capabilities, experience, skills, and attitude are mentioned. These are relevant to recruitment and promotion and other personnel decisions in employment systems. In short, merit criteria relate to the fit between an applicant for a position or career and the organizational needs. In the public sector, these merit criteria have become equated with the requirements of government bureaucracies as formulated by Max Weber. They still form the tenets of what is perceived as proper personnel policies. In order to guarantee these merit principles of the best and most fitting, employment decisions have been governed by uniform and impersonal policies and procedures. From this definition it becomes clear that what is fitting and what is best can differ substantially. Here we arrive at the complexities mentioned earlier. The content of merit can vary according to the requirements of (government) organizations in view of their specific tasks, intervention approach and instruments (see figure 1). Even more significantly for our purpose, what is considered merit can differ according to place and over time – specifically, what was viewed as merit could differ from government to government within the decentralized unitary state. We examine this issue in detail in the next sections. As described above, organizational and social requirements have changed over time, as becomes manifest in the change from a Night Watch to a Welfare State and more recently an Enabling State. This influences what is expected of the role and position of civil servants at the different levels of government in the decentralized unitary state. At the same time it has an effect on what is required of civil servants in terms of knowledge, capabilities, attitude, skills and experience.
Dutch models of state: an analytical approach (amended from Van der Meer 2012)Figure 1
In this section we will first look at the changing civil service employment over time and examine the division of powers and responsibilities regarding civil service employment within the decentralized unitary state. Also, the changing nature of that employment over time with respect to methods of recruitment, ways of remuneration, the perceived necessary qualifications and the deployment deficits through a lack of mobility will be addressed. We look into changes in the civil service system during the transition from the Night Watch to the Welfare State and in particular the Enabling State. Finally we will examine the effects of these substantive changes on discussion about the preferred legal position of these civil servants.
The principle of decentralization implied that from the outset hiring staff and formulating the entry and promotion requirements were considered the primary responsibility of each level of government. Municipal, provincial and central government were in charge of their own personnel policies and labor conditions. This decentralized setup explains why there has never been any truly centralized recruitment, promotion or remuneration system. Until fairly recently, the key tenet of decentralization also applied within central government itself. In departments or ministries, emphasis was put on individual ministerial responsibility for internal departmental policies and management, rather than this being a shared cabinet responsibility. As such, managerial departmental autonomy led to internal fault lines within central government, called compartmentalization. This meant that each department had a fairly high level of autonomy, including personnel policy and the institutionalization of principles of merit. A general lack of single-party dominance of the political system, even at the local level, meant that a single-party hold on the civil service seldom occurred. Gerrit S. A. Dijkstra, Frits M. van der Meer, »The civil service system of the Netherlands«, in: Frits M. van der Meer (Ed.), Civil service systems in Western Europe, Cheltenham, Aldershot 2011, p. 157–191.
Thus, departmental and local compartmentalization has been a continuing feature in central and local government until quite recently, with respect to personnel management issues among others. We will return to this issue, as after the Second World War this compartmentalization was considered to have a profound negative effect on government performance and the civil service.
A particularity of Dutch civil service systems in the decentralized unitary state was the emphasis on a job system of recruitment and promotion. To a lesser extent career systems can also be found, although they are exceptions to the rule. Ibidem. Van der Meer/Raadschelders, »Between Restauration and Consolidation«.
From 1815 to the early 20th century, recruitment to civil service positions had a very closed nature and was confined to those well acquainted with administrative life. Family, compatible political and religious circles, and friends and acquaintances were the most important sources for recruitment to (senior) bureaucratic positions Aris van Braam, Ambtenaren en bureaukratie in Nederland, Zeist 1957; Nico Randeraad, »Civil Servants in Nederland (1815–1915)«, in: Bijdragen en Mededelingen over de Geschiedenis van Nederland 2/109 (1994), p. 209–236. Pieter G. van IJsselmuiden, Binnenlandse Zaken en het Ontstaan van de Moderne Overheidsbureaucratie in Nederland 1813–1950, Kampen 1988. Ibidem. Ibidem. Randeraad, »Civil Servants in Nederland«.
Before the fundamental overhaul of the party-political divisions within governments after the introduction of universal male suffrage in 1917 and of active voting for women in 1919, senior civil servants were part of the dominant liberal elite. Likewise they were of a Dutch (non-orthodox) reformed background. This can be explained by the fact that most academic civil servants were recruited from the then-premier Dutch university in Leiden, which trained the national elite that had predominantly this political and religious disposition. Candidates from underprivileged religious groups such as Catholics and orthodox Protestants were only marginally recruited to senior positions due to their limited access to the university system, closed elite recruitment and religious discrimination.
When pointing to political aspects of recruitment and nomination procedures of civil servants, we have to keep in mind that organized political parties in the Netherlands only slowly acquired a hold on the political system. Political parties first came into existence during the last quarter of the 19th century. This process started with the founding of Protestant (ARP: 1879 and CHU: 1908) and later Roman Catholic (RKSP: 1926) confessional parties as part of the religious emancipation process of underprivileged religious groups. The social democratic party (SDAP: 1894) came into existence as a consequence of the so-called social question that was caused by the negative social side-effects of the industrialization of the Netherlands. An exception to the formally politically neutral method of recruitment is to be found in the appointments Thorbecke made to crucial provincial positions after 1848. As stated, Thorbecke was the driving force behind the new constitutional order of 1848. He appointed, for instance, new King’s Commissioners in the provinces on the basis of shared political ideas. Ronald Kroeze, Een kwestie van politieke moraliteit. Politieke corruptieschandalen en goed bestuur in Nederland. 1848–1940, Hilversum 2013.
It is important for understanding the changes in government personnel policies and management after 1880 that with the growth and diversification of government tasks a need for a more professional and formalized bureaucracy did arise. The transition from the Night Watch to the Welfare State (as described in figure 1) involved the emergence of an extensive and complex range of tasks such as education, housing, health care, infrastructure, social affairs, welfare provisions and public enterprises. These tasks arose in addition to the law and order and safety tasks of the Night Watch State. In particular in the areas of social and health care, education and social housing, public service provision was shared with the societal pillars mentioned in our introduction. This implied the existence of, for instance, Catholic and Protestant schools, hospitals, and housing corporations next to (mainly) government institutions. For these institutions governments had an enabling function, though the actual term was not used. After the First World War they were increasingly financed from government budgets. The explanation for this can be found in the dominance of Catholic and Protestant parties in parliament from 1918 till the 1970s.
Given the complexity and nature of the new tasks, the setting of ambitious targets, the utilization of new kinds of work expertise stemming from a wide range of relevant disciplines, more direct and penetrating intervention methods and the need for a more proactive attitude of civil servants, all governments became more dependent on substantive civil service expertise in various task areas. Gerrit A. van Poelje, »De gemeente-ambtenaar«, in: H. Th. Klein, et al. (Ed.), Gedenkboek uitgegeven ter gelegenheid van het 40-jarig bestaan van den Nederlandschen Bond van Gemeenteambtenaren, Alphen aan den Rijn 1933, p. 106–114.
After World War II the need for an able and professional civil service received an additional powerful boost by having to confront the immediate necessities of the post-war reconstruction, given the large-scale destruction which had occurred during the German occupation. This need was strengthened by the rapid social and economic development of the Dutch economy and society from the late 1950s and 1960s. The war had profound effects on the composition of the ruling political and administrative elites of power. While the changes to Dutch society and government were not as comprehensive and far-reaching as some might have wanted, significant reforms were introduced. Not only did the range of government tasks expand, while the tasks were intensified, but also the more proactive and interventionist government approach emerged in earnest as (central) government took the lead in a planned and systematic approach to confronting a wide range of social and economic issues. Because of the experience in World War II with (military) planning and strategy and still remembering the ineffective social and economic policies of the successive governments during the period between 1918 and 1940, a demand for a new civil service appeared: a civil service able to operate in these new demanding conditions. The War and its aftermath thus gave rise to, or at least stimulated the development of, a professional bureaucracy with an increased emphasis on technical experts rather than on the old classical administrative functions. Frits M. van der Meer, Jos C. N. Raadschelders, Toon D. N. Kerkhoff, »Van nachtwakersstaat naar waarborgstaat. Proliferatie en vervlechting van het Nederlandse openbaarbestuur in de lange twintigste eeuw (1880–2005)«, in: Pieter Wagenaar, Toon D. N. Kerkhoff, Mark R. Rutgers (Eds.), Duizend jaar openbaar bestuur in Nederland: Van patrimoniaal bestuur naar waarborgstaat, Bussum 2011, p. 221–290.
The need for a more professional civil service led to a bureaucratization and professionalization of personnel management from the 1950s. At the central level of government, structural reform was introduced with the short-lived Central Personnel Bureau, the RPD (psychological tests), the RGD (medical services) and the ROI (central government training institute). These organizations were part of the Home Office. This development was mirrored in the larger municipalities. In essence, recruitment (policies) and human resources management practices in central government remained the domain of each department. The same is true for the larger municipal units and enterprises. The policy initiatives and programs mentioned above were rather technocratic (and rationalized), which befitted the dominant mood of the time. Not only was this attitude to be found within government itself, but it was also prevailing in the (growing) public administration professional and academic community. This rationalized and planned approach was short-lived, as it could not withstand resistance by other departments. The compartmentalized structure of central (but also of local) government, as described in section 2, proved to be detrimental to this centralized approach.
With the growth in tasks and personnel, the intensification of societal intervention and organizational proliferation of government in the post-World War II period, the negative effects of this organizational compartmentalization on public service delivery and civil service performance increased. With the diminishing importance of pillarized public service delivery after the 1970s – due in part to rapid secularization of Dutch society – there was an increase in responsibilities of and pressure on government organization in terms of growth of staff and finances. We point here to increased responsibilities but not actual service delivery. The greater part of the former health care and housing corporations on a religious basis continued as independent (managerially run) organizations on a non-religious basis. They merged with (municipal) facilities to become part of these new management-based organizations. The exception to this rule was primary, secondary and university education.
Since the 1970s, external advisory committees Commissie van Veen, Rapport van de Commissie Interdepartementale Taakverdeling en Coördinatie, ’s-Gravenhage 1971; Commissie Hoofdstructuur Rijksdienst (Vonhoff), Voordat de lade klikt, ’s-Gravenhage 1981; Commissie Hoofdstructuur Rijksdienst (Vonhoff), Eindadvies, ’s-Gravenhage 1981; Commissie Hoofdstructuur Rijksdienst (Vonhoff), Elk kent de laan die derwaarts gaat, rapport 3, ’s-Gravenhage 1980. Dijkstra / Van der Meer, »The civil service system of the Netherlands«. Ibidem. Ibidem.
Above we have looked into reform to combat compartmentalization and thereby increase centralization in the civil service system. Centralization also occurred in the particular and important form of collective wage and pension agreements for civil servants. After initial centralization immediately after World War II, there was a clear move towards decentralization. Prior to 1987 there existed a centralized negotiations system in the Netherlands. Though the Civil Service Act of those days specified that the different governments were in charge of their own labor relations, central government could take the lead by using the provisions in the law and force other governments to follow. This befitted the planned and guided wage policy of the time that existed until 1959 Mikis Stekelenburg, 200 jaar werken bij de overheid, 2 volumes, Den Haag 1999.
Since the middle of the 1980s, a slow but certain change from a Welfare State towards an Enabling State has become manifest in the Netherlands. The financial crises of the 1980s combined with what was considered to be an overloaded (primarily central) government that was not able to address the social and economic problems of the day. This led to a fundamental overhaul of the Welfare State. The shift mentioned earlier from a pillarized public service delivery to a governmental and a non- profit one in the 1970s also increased the pressure on the civil service (size) and stretched government finances. In order to solve these crises, cutbacks in the social policy domain, decentralization to local government, privatization and agentification of public tasks, downsizing civil services and increasing citizen participation in service delivery became the main policies. As a result the Welfare State was transformed and made way to an Enabling State. This Enabling State operates within the (administrative) traditional bounds of the decentralized unitary state and the prerequisite of citizen involvement in public service delivery. The Enabling State involves creating and supplying the necessary ›good‹ conditions for (civil) society and the economy to take care of their own and the communal interest. Those societal interests are considered paramount. These conditions are often conveyed through the concepts of ›good governance‹ and institutional capacity. Van der Meer, »Public Sector reform in Western Europe«. Van der Meer, Voorwaarden, waarborgen en ambtenaren; Van der Meer/Berg, »Government and society in the active and the enabling state«; Van der Meer, »Public Sector Reform in Western Europe and the Rise of the Enabling State«.
The role and position of the civil service towards the public (customers) and towards political officeholders (principals), as well as its preferred mode of functioning, have been and still are in a process of adapting to this new enabling role of the state (see figure 1). This implies that civil servants are recruited and trained for executing the classical law-and-order tasks and the Enabling State tasks mentioned above. Frits van der Meer, Jos C. N. Raadschelders, Theo A. J. Toonen, The Civil Service in the 21st Century, Completely Revised 2nd edition: Comparative Perspectives, Houndsmill 2015. Gerrit Dijkstra, Frits van der Meer, Caspar F. van den Berg, »Is er nu wel of niet sprake van een terugtredende overheid?«, in: Jaap J. M. Uijlenbroek (Ed.), Staat van de ambtelijke Dienst, Den Haag 2015 (b), p. 23–37.
Another implication is the idea that a ›new‹ civil servant is needed to be suitable in a ›new‹ kind of public administration. Van der Meer, Voorwaarden, waarborgen en ambtenaren; Frits van der Meer, Caspar F. van den Berg, Gerrit S. A. Dijkstra, Het eigene van de overheid en haar personeel in een systeem van multilevel governance: naar een nieuwe ambtelijke status, Leiden 2012; Caspar F. van der Berg, Frits M. van der Meer, Gerrit S. A. Dijkstra, »Traditions, Bargains and the Emergence of the Protected Public Servant in Western Europe«, in: Fritz Sager, Patrick Overeem (Eds.), The European Public Servant. A Shared Administrative Identity?, London 2015 (a), p. 117–135.
The expanding public service and the increasing demand for specialist and professional personnel had as a side effect a legislative push for a legally better protected service. Jos C. N. Raadschelders, Mark R. Rutgers, »The Evolution of Civil Service Systems«, in: Hans A. G. M. Bekke, James L. Perry, Theo A. J. Toonen (Eds.), Civil Service Systems in Comparative Perspective, Bloomington 1996, p. 67–99. Van IJsselmuiden, Binnenlandse Zaken en het Ontstaan van de Moderne Overheidsbureaucratie in Nederland. Frits M. van der Meer, Jos C. N. Raadschelders, »The unification of the civil service pension system in the Netherlands 1798–1922«, in: Bernd Wunder (Ed.), Pension systems for public servants in Western Europe 19th/20th century, Baden-Baden 2001, p 113–127. Hugo Krabbe, De burgerlijke staatsdienst, Dissertation, Leiden 1883. Hendrik Coenraad Dresselhuys, Verslag van de Staatscommissie ter voorbereiding van algemeene wettelijke regelen betreffende den rechtstoestand van ambtenaren (ingesteld bij Kon. Besluit van 21 mei 1917 No. 27), ’s Gravenhage 1919. Dijkstra/Van der Meer, »The civil service system of the Netherlands«. Ibidem. Stekelenburg, 200 jaar werken bij de overheid. Ibidem.
The legal position of civil servants has remained a point of contention since the 1950s. Changes in the role and functions of government combined with the better legal protection of private labor protection raised the question whether a public law status for civil servants was still necessary. This issue lingered for many years while some material points (such as labor negotiation and the right to strike) were harmonized. In the 2010s the debate has intensified and a member initiative has been sent to the Second Chamber to abolish the public law appointment of the larger part of the civil service. Van der Berg/Van der Meer/Dijkstra, »Traditions, Bargains and the Emergence of the Protected Public Servant in Western Europe«. Ibidem.
The central question we addressed was to what extent the nature and content of merit principles for Dutch civil service systems were influenced by the changing decentralized unitary state, during the periods of the Night Watch, Welfare and Enabling State between 1814 and 2016.
We have argued that the Dutch case of the effects of the decentralized unitary state on civil service systems is interesting to study as it was meant as a compromise and solution to the failing particularistic and decentralized confederative structure of the Republic and the oppressive centralized arrangements during the annexation to France. The current formulation of the decentralized unitary state is the inheritance of the legislative work of the leading Dutch 19th-century statesman Johan Rudolph Thorbecke. The basic tenets were that the decentralized unitary state is made up primarily of general-purpose governments (central government, provincial governments and municipalities) and secondarily of functional bodies such as water boards. In each of these governments, the sovereignty of the state is embodied. The Thorbeckian model of the decentralized unitary state with its emphasis on the autonomy and self-government of its constituent components also stressed the central place and involvement of society in the public domain. That role of the citizens took shape as voluntary citizens’ action during the Night Watch State. In the larger part of the Welfare State years, from the 1880s to the 1970s, it manifested itself in the pillarized society. After the 1970s and the partial collapse of pillarized society, there was a movement towards a more individualized form of a participatory and coproducing society coinciding with the emergence of the Enabling State. Together these features can be seen as crucial components of the Dutch administrative tradition and administrative model. That tradition has remained a lasting feature during the periods of the Night Watch, Welfare and Enabling State with its influence on the place, role and functioning of the civil service systems adapting to the needs of time.
In accordance with the decentralized unitary structure, personnel management and regulations were considered the prime responsibility of each government. For instance, with the exception of mentioning the existence of a town clerk and receiver, no provisions were inserted in the Municipal Law concerning local government civil services. The same is true with respect to other institutional laws. In addition, the Constitution stipulates that the position of civil servants should be regulated by law but the exact way is left open. The Civil Service Act 1929 only provides a general outline that was to be made concrete in local regulations. With the exception of the years of centralization immediately after World War II, wage agreements, labor negations and settlements have in general been very much decentralized since 1994, although mutual consultation between government employers did and does exist. As such rivalry between central and local levels of government regarding competencies and recruitment rarely has rarely occurred or been acted upon, except perhaps in the interlude mentioned above regarding wage negotiations.
We have argued that civil service requirements have changed due to changes in the public sector and society, as is visible in the consequences of the transition from a Night Watch to a Welfare State and more recently the Enabling State. That transition influences what is expected of the role and position of civil servants at the different levels of government in the decentralized unitary state. At the same time it had an effect on what is required of civil servants in terms of knowledge, capabilities, attitude, skills and experience. The early 19th century system of recruitment, promotion and deployment was at first primarily based on personal relationships. That already changed during the later Night Watch State era with the ongoing bureaucratization of administrative procedures. Though patronage still played an important role during this particular era, the effects on civil service quality were limited given the high level of pre-entry education. During this period senior civil servants predominantly had a legal background, working in such areas as law and order and general administration. While they were able to use the power of the state, the scope and depth of intervention in societal affairs was limited and reactive.
That changed with the rise of the Welfare State, starting towards the end of the 19th century and coming to full bloom after 1945. The expansion and diversification of public tasks, particularly at the municipal level, necessitated a more professional and formalized bureaucracy. This range of tasks comprised education, housing, health care, infrastructure, social affairs, welfare provisions and public enterprises. The management of political, public policy and organization processes increased the demand for well-trained generalist civil servants. Technical experts were needed in these areas next to expertise needed for law and order and general administration. The complex character of these extensive Welfare State tasks, the accompanying ambitious objectives, the application of new work methods derived from a wide range of relevant disciplines, the direct and penetrating intervention methods and the need for a more proactive attitude of civil servants necessitated a new civil servant. The necessity led to specialized training and education programs as well as the professionalization of personnel management.
Given this urgency, local government made the earliest steps in the process of adapting to the new civil service. During the early days of the Welfare State, the proliferation of government tasks originated at the municipal level, given the pressing social and economic needs of the day. Likewise, training for (specialist and generalist) civil service jobs started at the municipal level. As an example, the initiative for extensive public administration training and education started at the local level and gradually also came to central and provincial governments. Public administration, economics and social sciences eroded the monopoly of legal training within the Dutch civil services. Programs were developed at administrative academies and in the final quarter of the 20th century also at universities, a feature the Netherlands shared with the USA. Central government became involved in earnest after the Second World War when it took central stage in public service delivery.
From the early 1980s, the Welfare State gradually gave way to an Enabling State. Primary causes were the financial crisis of the 1980s, the overburdening especially of central government, and its problems with handling current social and economic problems. In addition, a more ideological dimension was at play relating to the processes of individualization, the popularity of political and economic neoliberalism and the ongoing depillarization of Dutch society. Cutbacks in social expenditure, decentralization to local government, privatization and agentification of public tasks, downsizing civil services and increasing citizen participation in service delivery were seen as the best way to tackle these issues. This led to an erosion of a state-led welfare system. The Enabling State emerged. We have defined an Enabling State as involved in generating and supplying the necessary good conditions for (civil) society and the economy to take care of its own and the communal interest. Those societal interests are considered paramount. These conditions are often conveyed through the concepts of good governance and institutional capacity. Van der Meer, »Public Sector reform in Western Europe«. Van der Meer, Voorwaarden, waarborgen en ambtenaren; Van der Meer/van den Berg, »Government and society in the active and the enabling state«.
The role and position of the civil service towards the public (customers), political officeholders (principals) and its preferred mode of functioning have been and are still being adapted to this new enabling role of the state. This implies that civil servants are recruited and trained for executing the classical law-and-order tasks and the Enabling State tasks mentioned above. The role of citizens and society is thus increasingly being emphasized with a supportive or facilitating role for civil servants. Fewer and fewer civil servants are involved in welfare and production tasks and more in facilitating or coordinating public service delivery. The exception is the implementation of law-and-order tasks that are still predominantly the domain of government and the civil service. Again a ›new‹ civil servant is needed to fit the new job requirements. Personnel cutbacks over the last decades and a limited new intake of staff have caused a mismatch between the actual and the required qualities within the civil service. A retraining is necessary but cutbacks in the training budget have made things quite difficult. Civil servants in the Enabling State are predominantly active in areas where the unique and binding nature of the government is visible. We pointed to a system responsibility in the exercise of public authority in areas where the regulatory and supervising role of government is essential and where the function of a societal facilitator is needed. That special nature has been and still is an argument to create and keep a special public law status for civil servants.