Ambtshalve. De bureaucratisering van Nederland en de disciplinering van de ambtenaar

Samenvatting

Ex-officio: Bureaucratization and the regulation of the civil servant. This review article discusses four historical studies on bureaucratization in the early-modern Dutch Republic that took their cue from the social sciences, in particular Weberian sociology and transactionalist ethnology. The article focuses on the emergence of the modern notion of ex-officio among civil servants. It appears that the bureaucratic system from the fifteenth-century onwards was organised by way of informal and fluid personalised networks. From within this particularised bureaucracy the modern bureaucracy developed. The paradoxical conclusion that bureaucratization was strengthened by the reliance on familial and amical bonds can be explained by the centralized demand for loyalty and trust. In second instance this personalised code of honour was transformed into an ethos of professional duty. It is the merit of this ethos to interprete subservience and insignificance as praiseful attitudes.