Bernd Wunder, Erk Volkmar Heyen:
Editorial, VII-XII
(Volltext: http://www.uni-greifswald.de/~lo1/ed12.htm)

I. Themenschwerpunkt

Bernd Wunder:
Die Entwicklung der Alters- und Hinterbliebenenversorgung im öffentlichen Dienst in Deutschland (18.-19. Jahrhundert), 1-53

The article summarises the author's historical investigations into the German civil service pension system. This system took shape, when the state took full responsibility for paying the allowances of widows and orphans of officials in 1888. Since then old age pensions for civil servants have been covered entirely from state funds without any deduction from salary.
The foundations for the German pension system were laid in Austria 1781 and in Bavaria in 1805, when the ad hominem discretionary award of a pension by the ruler was replaced by a system giving officials a legal right to a pension at the end of their service. The amount of the pension depended from the length of service. The pension was a reward for long and loyal service. Later on, it was less the personal loyalty the official had shown to the sovereign that affected the level of pension as the official's performance of his legal duties increased in importance. The civil service and its superannuation system are part of the creation of the modern Rechtsstaat (constitutional state).
Historically, there were two early precursors to the modern system in Germany. First, since the 16th century allowances for widows had been granted by private societies of clergymen (Pfarrwitwenkassen). These were financed by annual deductions from clerical salaries. This system was copied for widows of civil servants since the middle of the 18th century. However, all these societies started to fail and owed their survival only to growing government subsidies. The attempt to finance pensions by raising a capital fund from salary deductions alone proved unsuccessful.
The second precursor was the provision made for invalid soldiers financed through deductions from pay and, after the beginning of the 18th century, through state contributions. This mixed financing of pensions was, until 1867, only adopted in Prussia as far as civil service pensions were concerned. After Bismarck created a social insurance system for workers, financed by salary deductions, employer contributions and state subsidy the costs of the civil service pension system were completely taken over by the state. This was intended to improve the material situation of the civil service in relation to the working class.

Sigrid Amedick:
Altersversorgung in einer Leistungsverwaltung: das Beispiel der bayerischen Staatseisenbahnen 1844-1914, 55-75

In 1805, with the Dienstpragmatik legislation, the bureaucratic elite of the Bavarian kingdom was provided with a pension system, which gave them legal guarantees of support in old age. When in 1844 a new branch of state administration was created to manage the state railway, the same regulations were applied to the new administration's senior civil servants. For lower grade civil servants and workers, however, no old age benefits were provided at all. In reaction to the revolution of 1848 a pension scheme was set up which covered at least a portion of the lower ranks of civil servants in the state railway. Because of the obvious shortcomings of this system a Pensionsregulativ (old age benefits regulation) was introduced in 1887, which created a closer connection between the level of payment and the period of service. It introduced a Karenzzeit (a minimal period, an officer had to be employed before becoming entitled to any benefits at all) and started payments at a rather low level. This regulation, introduced for grade lower civil servants in the state railway system became the model for all civil servants as set out in the Bavarian Civil Servants Act of 1909.
Railway labourers had no formally guaranteed old age benefits until much later. Only in the late 1880s a pension system was set up for them. However, the old age benefits it provided remained far behind the level of pensions for civil servants. In 1889 the German Empire institutionalized by law a general system of financial support for disabled workers. After that, the pension system for the state railway provided its labourers with additional old age benefits. Various changes in the charter of the railway pension system slowly improved the old age provisions of railway labourers. Eventually their benefits were scarcely below those of employees with civil servant status.

Christian Fieberg:
Die Altersversorgung im öffentlichen Dienst der Bundesrepublik Deutschland, 77-94

After an outline of the various types of public sector employment and public servants (Beamte, Angestellte), the article analyses in detail the structure and the development of their respective pension schemes. Special attention is paid to financial problems of pension schemes which are mainly due to high public budget deficits and demographic ageing. The article also discusses reforms currently under way.

Roland Drago, Jean-Michel L. de Forges:
La naissance du régime de retraite des fonctionnaires français au 19e siècle, 95-111

Until the law of 9 June 1853, which still forms the basis of the French public servants' pension system, three questions have provoked lively controversies. First, whether French civil servants were vested with a true right to a pension, second, whether pension schemes should be financed through the budget and third, the question of whether all officials should benefit from the same pension scheme. To these questions the 1853 law gave a positive response, a response that marks the victory of the bureaucracy over the political class, who, curiously enough, eventually adopted principles to which the majority of them were hostile.
Although being the only text of general coverage, applicable to all civil servants for a whole century, the 1853 law failed to solve the difficult problem of the financial balance of pension schemes, the morally sensitive problem of the rights of widows and orphans, and the problem, pivotal to the management of the pension schemes, of whether an age limit for public servants should be fixed. It has been left to later legislation, in particular a 1924 law, to try to solve most of these problems.

Frits van der Meer, Jos C.N. Raadschelders:
The Unification of the Civil Service Pension System in the Netherlands, 1798-1922, 113-126

The contemporary civil service pension system in place in the Netherlands has its roots in the 1814-1922 period. In 1814 the newly independent Dutch government decided to stick with the principle of civil service pensions as they had been designed during the years of the Batavian Republic and the French presence. What started then was an evolution that, after much legislative trial and error, culminated in the Pension Act of 1922. This act provided a unified pension system for all public employees.
From a technical point of view the development toward a unified system is testimony to bureaucratization. After all, adequate compensation in salary and pension is one of the elements of Weber's ideal type. From a sociological point of view the course of this development testifies to the professionalization of the public service. In the face of growing public tasks, Dutch government officials recognized increasingly the need for a loyal and competent workforce. And individual public servants increasingly acknowledged the need for a secure livelihood after retirement. Whatever the motive, the idea of a civil servant's pension developed from being an act of kindness to becoming a right, or: in more straightforward terms, a perk of office.

Franz Rothenbacher:
Die Altersversorgung im öffentlichen Dienst in Großbritannien, Frankreich und Deutschland seit dem Zweiten Weltkrieg, 127-152

Civil service systems in Europe have experienced profound changes since the 1980s. Two major developments are responsible for these changes: first, the high and growing budget deficits of governments, and second, demographic ageing which has increased the portion of the population entitled to pensions. These challenges have caused reactions on the part of governments which are rather similar in most European countries.
Reducing public sector employment is the most important strategy, and this is accompanied by developments such as the feminisation of public employment, growing importance of female part-time work in the public sector. Another strategy is to reduce the salaries of public servants. However, this strategy is not easy to follow because there is a danger of state employment becoming less attractive. But salaries in the public sector have declined in some countries, and top pay is lower in the public than in the private sector. A third strategy to deal with these problems is to reduce pension entitlements, which are still more generous in the public than in the private sector. Attempts have been made to keep the basic structures unchanged, but there have been incremental changes in the social protection of civil servants in several countries. Such changes do not generally concern today's pensioners, but predominantly those who will draw benefits after 2020. Incremental reforms have included the extension of contributory periods, the reduction of contribution-free periods and the payment of contributions to occupational supplementary pension.
Thus this article investigates the relationship between the institutional level of pension regulations, the social structure of the public sector and the life chances of people working in the public sector. At the same time it aims to evaluate institutional regulations and their outcomes.

Giuliano Bonoli, Bruno Palier:
Pension Reforms and the Expansion of Private Pensions in Western Europe, 153-174

Throughout Europe the 1990s have witnessed the salience of pension reform as a political issue. Virtually every country has taken measures geared toward reducing current expenditure and/or future liabilities of public pension schemes. The result of these reforms is, invariably, a reduction in the level of the benefits that will be paid to future retirees. In addition, in spite of the measures taken, pension policy debates continue to emphasise the non-sustainability of current arrangements. At the same time, private insurance companies look at the life insurance and pension business as their most promising sector of activity. Taken together, these conditions create a fertile ground for the expansion of private forms of income provision for retirement. Within this context, this article argues that such expansion is already taking place and that the private pension sector needs to be strictly and cleverly regulated if it is to deliver the same levels of inclusiveness and economic security that are typical of the existing, predominantly public, pension systems.

Guy Thuillier:
Pour une histoire européenne des retraites des fonctionnaires, 175-182

The article presents some methodological premises as well as organizational hints for cross-national research. Further conditions of successful research are explained, including a complete inventory of source material as well as attention to cross-national transfer of particular elements of pension schemes among European countries. Special seminars for training researchers in administrative history with its technical peculiarities are advocated.

II. Varia

Paul Nieuwenburg, Mark R. Rutgers:
Politics and Administration: Some Remarks on the Conceptual Roots of the Dichotomy, 185-202

The article begins by setting out how even "merely" executive action is informed by, or rather replete with, judgement. The notion of judgement in contemporary Western thought draws upon Kant. He states that judgement (Urteilskraft) implies making a link between the general and the particular. The article goes on to trace the meaning of "administration" back to its origins in the idea of the separation of powers (Locke, Montesquieu). Clearly administration cannot amount to merely instrumental execution, as the separation of powers will only work when the executive can countervail the other powers. Bonnin exemplifies the importance and nature of executive judgements. Administration is action with judgement as one of its core characteristics: in particular judgement concerning which kind of law or justice is being attributed by an administrative act. Even Bodin, in his most absolutist of theories, leaves ample room for judgement of the executive as characterising administration. Tocqueville brings the Kantian notion of judgement into the picture. He again relies on the distinction between written laws and their everyday execution. Finally, the article uses three subsequent British reports on the organisation of public administration to illustrate how these ideas can also be found in administrative practice.
This brief survey of theorists and practitioners shows they were highly aware that the distinction between "willing" and "acting", or "politics" and "administration", never could have the straightforward empirical force which has so frequently been, and still is, imputed to it. In line with Kant's concept of judgement, general rules necessarily underdetermine action and leave ample room for interpretation. Moreover, there is a fusion of the general and the particular in the notion of judgement. Schematically, in the politics-administration dichotomy, the principal and underlying distinction appears to be the analytical distinction between the general and the particular, not that between willing and acting.

Pieter Wagenaar:
Early Fragments of Dutch Administrative Theory: Berkhout (1609-1672) on Politics ("souvereine hooch overicheijt") and Administration ("subalterne ampten"), 203-221

In this article the emergence of public administration theory is linked to the emergence of the dichotomy between politics and administration. Only when that opposition was clearly stated were theorists able to focus their attention on the question of how public services should be organized and run. The first to do so were the German cameralists. Seckendorffs' "Teutscher Fürsten Stat" (1656), the work of a practicing public official, is taken as the turning point, because he explicitly established the dichotomy and consequently asked for a theoretical underpinning of public administration.
Remarkably enough, we do not find innovations like Seckendorff's in the work of the famous political theorists in the neighbouring Dutch Republic. Were we to research Dutch public administration theory in Seckendorff's time, we would therefore be better off looking at the practitioners than at the theorists. After researching the existing literature, the public functionary Paulus Teding van Berkhout, who held a position in the small central bureaucracy that existed in the province of Holland at the time, has turned out to be the most likely candidate. Research into Berkhout's treatises makes clear that a functionary during the Dutch Republic was just as able as Seckendorff to see the dichotomy between politics and administration. The fact that the Netherlands lacked a monarch made no difference as far as this is concerned, for undivided, absolute, sovereignty can also be attributed to a governing council. Prescribing rules for the organization of the public service was also within Berkhout's reach. However, saliently enough, he drew the line between politics and administration in a way altogether different from how we would do so today. Berkhout's ideas stemmed from his political views, from the political theory of order he adhered to, and especially from the position he held in Holland's officialdom. Since the central bureaucracy of Holland's fragmented body politic remained small, these ideas probably remained of little influence.

Peter Becker:
"Kaiser Josephs Schreibmaschine": Ansätze zur Rationalisierung der Verwaltung im aufgeklärten Absolutismus, 223-254

Using the ironic remarks of the German romantic poet Jean Paul on "Kaiser Josephs Schreibmaschine" as starting point, the article traces the conceptualization of a new bureaucratic apparatus in discourses and normative texts published in the Habsburg monarchy during the reign of Maria Theresia and Joseph II. In these reflections we find a concept of public administration based on the notion that the prince could be both creator and driving force of the new apparatus. This notion enabled commentators and reformers to conceive of a bureaucracy in which a formal-rational system could strive towards the common good as its material rational orientation. The definition of the common good was certainly no matter of dispute; it was left to the superior reason of the prince.
It is argued that this conceptualization of public administration had a lasting impact on the organization of bureaucratic routines, on the reform of bureaucratic language and prose as well as on the character of bureaucrats. The official, with his impartiality, disinterestedness, commitment to the common good and expertise, was placed within a clear defined chain of command and a hierarchically structured office. Within this framework, he was expected to employ an austere style and a widely standardized mode of observation as well as communication for the disinterested and dehumanized pursuit of the common good. Looking at the qualities ascribed to the ideal typical official, he appeared to be a Doppelgänger, a duplicate, of the Emperor. The official had therefore to live up to his role defined by Emperor Joseph's Schreibmaschine. Just like the writing machine of the late 18th century, which mechanically duplicated the movements of a writing hand, the official was to duplicate the Emperors' ideas of the common good.

III. Forum

Mark R. Rutgers:
"Die Renaissance des Verwaltungsdenkens": ein Leidener Forschungsprojekt, 257-264

It is common to characterise the debates on public administration as fragmented and incoherent. In order to understand the present meaning and scope of the concept of public administration for theory and practice, we need to understand why and how this concept was forged in the late 19th century and to disentangle the debates on its meaning. Although the focus of the project currently under way at Leiden University in the Netherlands is on the past 150 years, older ideas developed in the so-called state sciences, (political) philosophy, and in administrative practice must also be included in the research.
The development and discussion of different interpretative frameworks for conceptualising public administration are referred to as the discourse on public administration. The discourse provides the context in which concepts acquire their meaning and have a constitutive social function. The starting point for the project are three dichotomies underlying the concept of public administration, which are constantly rejected and reaffirmed in the discourse of the 20th century: politics and administration; public and private; state and society. These founding dichotomies do not result from some theoretical or logical necessity, but are considered contingent historical products. They constitute the ideal typical starting points for researching the developments in administrative thought.

Erk Volkmar Heyen:
Zum Amtsbegriff als Kernelement des Begriffs der öffentlichen Verwaltung. Überlegungen aus Anlaß eines Leidener Forschungsprojekts, 265-279

The article starts with some comment on a research project at the University of Leiden studying the concept of public administration and its three founding dichotomies: state and society; public and private; politics and administration. From the perspective of an historical-comparative administrative science some disadvantages of using the three dichotomies for determining the concept of public administration are outlined. The article then develops, as an alternative, the concept of office (officium), seen as a position of authority defined by special tasks and rights or powers attached to a commonwealth (political community, not necessarily a state). The advantages of using this concept as a basic conceptual reference for an administrative science interested in historical-comparative research are illustrated.

Günther H. Tontsch:
Juristische Literatur zur rumänischen Verwaltungsgeschichte im 19. und 20. Jahrhundert, 281-295

During the first period of the modern Romanian state, founded in 1862, debates in the field of administrative sciences and law were conducted primarily in monographs. Professional journals, however, especially influenced the period between the First and the Second World Wars. Considering the centralised structure of Romanian administration, the need for greater decentralisation was one of the key issues. But the debate was also concerned with the question of legal harmonisation in those provinces which had fallen to Romania after the First World War. In communist Romania, administrative sciences declined due to the ideological conformity of all academic research. Proper legal publications became rare, and even more rare were those with a critical approach. There were, however, some worthwhile topics covered in the literature of the time: the Soviet-inspired organisation forms of the 1950s, the influence of traditional patterns on administrative structures in the national-communist period, and the role of the Communist Party in the state's administrative structure. The article concludes by presenting the outlook for administrative sciences after the political changes of 1989. The study of administration and administrative law experienced a revival, but without having produced any substantial changes in personnel in the universities.

François Burdeau:
L'administration française et son juge d'après des travaux récents, 297-305

The article presents a review of several thèses concerning French administrative history in the field of jurisdictional control of administration. Such control can be traced back to the Middle Ages. Although at the dawn of modern times neither a closed canon of rules nor a developed institutional structure of administrative jurisdiction can be found, in particular the activity of the Parlement and several specialized courts depending on it may be qualified as proto-administrative jurisdiction. Later, a sort of justice parallèle developed alongside it, sometimes clashing with the jurisdictional competences of the Parlement and other courts: the administrative jurisdiction of the intendants. Several contributions to this subject are discussed before the article focuses on the Revolution of 1789 that removed the confusion between juridiction judiciaire and juridiction administrative. The review finishes with a discussion of studies that concentrate on the Conseil d'Etat in the 19th and 20th centuries and on Edouard Laferrière, a key figure in French administrative jurisprudence.

Nico Randeraad:
"Le Carte e la Storia": a New Italian Journal of Administrative History, 307-317

"Le Carte e la Storia" is a half-yearly journal dealing with the history of institutions, especially public administration. It started in 1995 as bulletin of the "Società per gli studi di storia delle istituzioni", and is edited by Guido Melis and a team of administrative historians, archivists and librarians. The primary purpose of this journal is to be a research tool. Its main emphasis is on bibliography, historiography, reviews, historical news, and conferences, as long as they are related to the history of institutions. It also lends space to short articles presenting original research. The journal covers the period from the Middle Ages to the present. The article focuses on two major aspects of the journal: the desired synergy between historiography and the archival world, and the discussion about the scope of the history of institutions. The review touches upon the challenges posed by the information revolution, both to the history of institutions as a discipline and to "Le Carte e la Storia" as a specialized journal.

Ditlev Tamm:
Neues zur dänischen Verwaltungsgeschichte, 319-324

The article presents the "Dansk Forvaltningshistorie", the result of a broad and deep research into the history of Danish public administration. The main account, in two volumes, divides the material into the development from the Middle Ages until 1901 and the years from 1901 to 1953. The contributions have been written by historians and historians of law. A smaller third volume, written by political scientists, deals with some fundamentals of administrative evolution in the second half of the 20th century. Whereas the first volume treats the subject chronologically, the second follows a systematic approach in separate fields of administrative practice such as economy, health care and education. The third volume follows more or less the same structure, though some specific approaches of administrative science are also being dealt with.

Anschriftenverzeichnis, 337-338