25 years of Public Admistration: a marriage between research and practice

This year the department of Public Administration will have been existence for 25 years. Dr Frits van der Meer was there almost from the start. It would be impossible for a department to find a better advocate. A historian on the importance of public administration.

Public Administration look not primarily at the legal hierarchy, but at its organisation, structure and feasibility.


Research as the basis

In any discussion, Van der Meer will several times stress that science and practice are both indispensable in public administration, but that the academic level is an important starting point. 'Research, often international comparative research, is our foundation, and it is this specific Leiden signature to which we attach great importance.' Public Administration was also the first Leiden programme for which the Executive Board made a covenant with a university of professonal education, in this case the Haagse Hogeschool. It was for a transition programme for the Master's in Public Administration at Campus The Hague as a track for excellent students within this HBO (Higher Professional Education) programme.  'The students who start this master's need to have the same basic knowledge.' 

The Science Faculty restaurant: Public Administration attracts approx. 150 first-year students a year. 


Together with Rotterdam

Van der Meer studied history in Leiden, but even at that time was fascinated by public administration: he took a number of minors at the Law Faculty, where there was an interfaculty group specialising in Legal-Public Administration Sciences. The then professor was Van Braam, a Leiden man, the force behind Public Administration becoming a separate department in Leiden in 1984; the programme was originally started in co-operation with Erasmus University in Rotterdam.' It was a time of stringent cost savings and one of the themes was task-sharing. A year later Van der Meer joined the department. He was to become a convinced - and convincing - public administrator. 

A different guise

The collaboration was later dissolved. Following the split, Leiden had a number of hybrid studies made up of public administration and law, and political studies and law, but these were discontinued in the nineties because of the need for economies. These programmes were to appear in the new century in a new guise: first as fixed major-minor combinations, now within the minors system. 

It is mainly the visible tasks of government that are made independent or contracted out, such as rubbish collection.


Complex issues

The Netherlands now has seven independent university departments of public administration. Time for a new division of tasks? Van der Meer is not in favour of this. 'Here in Leiden we have an influx of more than 150 first-year students, and they all find jobs pretty quickly after graduating, even in the present difficult economic climate. This is because public administration issues are becoming ever more complex and there is a need for people who have the skills to handle these issues. The government is traditionally the biggest employer of Leiden graduates of public administration (46%) but according to Van der Meer there are also good reasons why a lot of graduates find employment in the consultancy field (28%) and in business (17%).

Public Administration graduates find a job rapidly, even in the present economic crisis.

Democratic content

‘What we as public administration experts do is to look at the organisation and the structure, from the principle of quality,' Van der Meer explains. 'Does it work, and how can it be made to work better? We generally approach  from an international perspective, by asking, for example, how people elsewhere in the world handle a given problem. And then we view it from all kinds of viewpoints: economic (efficiency, in other words), political science (what is feasible?), legal (the legality). We also test the democratic content: how can you integrate listening to citizens whilst ensureing that they do not come to distrust the government, as is currently the case.  How do you involve citizens? This is what differentiates us from the legal scholars with their predominantly legal approach.'

From traditional bureaucratic to professional

‘The biggest change in the public administration environment took place in the eighties, the time of the biggest cut-backs,' according to Van der Meer. ‘At that time we went from a traditionally bureaucratic system to a professional system. It was all about making economies. We had to have a small, decisive government organisation that worked professionally. As many activities as possible had to be removed from government authorities. But even before the crisis, it was clear that this was not a workable model. One disadvantage is that tasks that are highly visible for citizens, such as collecting rubbish, were corporatised or contracted out. This resulted in citizens believing that civil servants do very little; their work is no longer visible to the public, so: there are too many civil servants.' A further disadvantage is that through corporatisation the government loses its grip.  


Relatively small government organisation

The Netherlands has a relatively small government organisation; in such countries as France and the US, it is much bigger. Van der Meer. ‘Particularly in the US, this is because education is a prominent government responsibility. Partly in order to mould the American people, as an instrument to achieve unity and integration.' But in terms of costs, it makes little difference in the end, because tasks that are corportised or contracted out still have to be paid for.  Anyone who reads the newspaper knows that the permanent staff of the government and contracted experts, managers and companies constitute a communicating vessel: the fewer permanent staff, the more external workers in an organisation, and vice versa. 'The tasks don't disappear,' says Van der Meer. 'Quite the contrary; more and more tasks are being taken on by the government. We are now intensively involved with the question of how it is possible to govern cost-effectively without losing sight of other aspects. One of the most dififcult questions is: what do we as a government not do?'    

Leiden public administration in The Hague: a deeply held wish that has now been fulfilled.


Ideal location

Public Administration carries out a great deal of private contract work for government authorities. Leiden public administrators are also involved in the working groups set up by the cabinet to weather the crisis, but at the same time to achieve economies of 20%. 'Public administrators and practice need one another. The practical environment needs us in academia, and we in academia need to know what the current issues are.’ Van der Meer considers the geographic location of Leiden so close to The Hague as ideal. We can easily be found by government officers and politicians, and vice versa. It was always our ideal to have a programme in The Hague , and Campus The Hague was the perfect framework for such a programme. We believe that you not only have to train young people, but that professionals also have a continuing need for training.'  



(10 November 2009)

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Last Modified: 12-11-2009