A new role for municipal councils in Dutch local democracy?

Abstract

In 1914, now almost one hundred years ago, the founding father of the modern study of public administration in the Netherlands Gerrit van Poelje (18841976) predicted the end of the directly elected municipal councils as a core institution of democratic local government. His prediction was based on two expectations. Firstly, he argued that the need for more effective and efficient governance and the required professionalisation of local government would marginalize the role of the part-time amateur politicians serving on the councils. Local power would inevitably shift to the executive offices and the local civil service. Secondly, he argued that the individual emancipation of citizens, finding its expression in increasing levels of formal education, awareness, and assertiveness would be increasingly capable of exercising direct, effective democratic control and scrutiny over local public administration. According to Van Poelje the combination of these functional (effectiveness) and democratic requirements would make the role of the municipal councils largely redundant (Van Poelje 1914: 88). If Van Poelje is right, local representative democracy may be crushed between functional and democratic requirements.