Jacob Christensen

A manifest for the joyous science (in Swedish) by Anders Hellström and Johan Karlsson.

In the Danish system of government, permanent secretaries prefer to stay out of the headlines. Like any butler worth his money, a good permanent secretary knows that discretion is the first and most important virtue, even more important than being able to guess the minister’s needs. If the permanent secretary is exposed, one of the foundations of modern democratic government – that politicians decide the direction of policies – is put into question.

On the other hand, the role of the permanent secretary is ambiguous. The permanent secretary is, as the title says, permanent – ie. he or she is not elected for a fixed period of time and is not (at least not in theory) hired and fired at the whims of the minister. So, to use the language of political science theory, if the permanent secretary is the agent, who is the principal? Susanne Hegelund and Peter Mose doesn’t use much PolSci lingo in their new and fascinating book about the top echelons of the Danish civil service, “Javel, hr. minister”, but effectively this is the question behind the stories and analyses.

First, some notes about the book: Like its predecessor “HÃ¥ndbog for statsministre” it is a journalistic study of a part of the political arena which has rarely or never been the object of a systematic academic inquiry. It has all of the virtues of journalistic writing (be vivid, be specific), it attempts to track changes in the role and norms of the civil service and permanent secretaries (from a civil service dominated by legal norms to one dominated by economic and management thinking) and it is surprisingly comprehensive in its coverage (public administration researchers will appreciate that a general coordination ministry is covered as well as a professional (Education, Foreign Office) and a clitentelistic (Transport)) but it also has some draw-backs. In particular, I suspect that the authors may have been seduced a bit by their objects and the principled discussion about the role of the leading civil service merit some more attention. But if you have a personal or professional interest in Danish politics, it should be on your reading list.

As I read the book, it tends to implicitly convey the picture which the top level in the Danish civil service itself wants to paint of the minister-civil servant relationship. Basically, the civil service is seen as the backbone of the Danish political system with politicians in general and ministers in particular as interfering guests whose whims the permanent secretaries attend to while getting the real business done. I am exaggerating here, but in my eyes the larger question about the role of the colour of the government tends to disappear in the discussion, and I suspect that the impact of government change on policy and the civil service is larger than one might assume after reading the book.

There is one obvious reason for this: The book was written almost nine years into the present Liberal-Conservative government’s term in office and even if the authors also cover the governments of the 1990s (and in some cases even further back in time) are covered and Anders Fogh Rasmussen’s famous check-list is duly noted, the immediate effects of the changes of government in 1993 and 2001 tend to be obscured over time. In the real world, no government has 100% control over policy and policy outcomes and there are considerable variations between ministers (the high turn-over in some portfolios obviously puts some serious limits on the minister’s power) and departments, but just as the civil service of the 1990s wasn’t “social democratic” and that of the 2000s wasn’t “liberal”, there have been important changes in policy in a number of policy areas.

But to return to my question about the principal-agent relationship: As I said earlier, the role of the permanent secretary is inherently ambiguous because the permanent secretary on the one hand has to be loyal to the minister’s political priorities (in the Danish political system this means that the parliamentary majority is the principal), but on the other hand also has to take the possibility of a change in government into account. Here, the “people” is the principal – but unlike the parliamentary majority, the “people” never exists as an operative entity. Finally, we could ask if the permanent secretaries see themselves as agents of the civil service – whose interests and values change over time. I suspect that the text could have elaborated this in greater detail (obviously using a different vocabulary)

In the Danish media much attention has been directed at the possible existence of a death list (leading bureaucrats whom a coming Social Democratic-led government want to relegate to less influential positions) and the possibility of introducing deputy ministers in the Danish system of government – both Danish and non-Danish readers should note that Denmark does not have a system of deputy ministers or state secretaries. The later question is indeed important but the brouhaha about the death list unfortunately meant that some of the more fundamental issues about the roles of ministers and top civil servants did not attention they merited. But there are still plenty of opportunities for such discussions.

Susanne Hegelund and Peter Mose 2011: Javel, hr. minister. Copenhagen: Gyldendal.

Just a short reply to my colleague Peter Kurrild-Klitgaard who with reference to an article in The Economist argues that the public sector is a leviathan whose growth cannot be limited or stopped.

First, we should note that the tendency to rapid growth in public sector expenditure measured as a share of the economy stopped sometime during the mid- to late-1970s. From then on, we have seen stagnation even if economic growth obviously means that expenditure has increased since the early 1980s.

Second, the growth in relative expenditure in the last years must be seen in the context of the global financial crisis which a) saw GDP fall in many countries and b) saw increases in unemployment which again meant that a share of the workforce had to rely on some kind of public support. This is what the Keynesians call automatic stabilisers.

Third, the economic policies of Republican administrations and congressional majorities in the US are a cause for concern. The idea that tax cuts are the solution to any problem is by now intellectually – but not politically – discredited and the massive deficits created by Republican policies are a major problem for the US and world economy. In fact, US economic policy is a major theoretical and practical headache.

Kurrild-Klitgaard is right that special interest groups (farmers, anyone?) create a lot of blocking points in the policy process and that it is easy to find cases where resources are being spent in a way which is inefficient in the short or long run due to government programmes (my own example would be the Danish Early Retirement Benefit but in the US defence spending could be used as a warning case). It is also correct that the demand for services and transfers is in principle inexhaustible.

But this does not necessarily mean that the public sector is dysfunctional or uncontrollable as a whole.

Institut for Statskundskab (Department of Political Science) is the oldest PolSci department in Denmark but its days appear to be numbered. As part of the Great Restructuring, the rector’s office announced the new departmental structure which holds two nasty surprises.

But let us first note that the basis of the Grand Restructuring is that “Big Is Always Good”, the same principle which was behind the Great Danish University Merger some years ago. Okay – academia is prone to trench warfare, fiefdoms and to some degree there are administrative savings to be made. I’m not completely convinced, however – my experience is that as departments grow in size, it becomes necessary to add one or two additional layers below the departmental level to make things work.

But here are the two things which offend me:

1. None of the social science departments have Danish names, only English. Obviously a concession to Ã…Ã¥rhus School of Business but also a very clear indication of the massive domain loss suffered by the Danish language. I predict that in ten years time, Danish will no longer be used at university level – and conversely, people educated at Danish universities (like doctors, lawyers and public servants) will not be able to use Danish in their daily work. Or have to take post-graduation courses in order to communicate with people.

Do you see a problem here? I do.

2. “Department of Public Policy and Administration”.

Huh?

Excuse me?

EXCUSE ME???

Public policy and administration is a f*****g subdiscipline of political science, not the opposite. (And for the record: Most of my work has been in the field of public policy and administration). Believe me: “Political Science” is an internationally established discipline – and “brand” to use business-speak – which the university management is sabotaging.

The message sent by the university management is that comparative politics, international relations and political theory have no place in the department. Alternatively, the university management has absolutely no clue about what it is dealing with. Not sure which alternative is the worst.

*Sigh*

My formal (as in economic) link with the Danish Welfare History project ended at the turn of the month. As it is, I am still waiting for final confirmation of another project which is due to begin on 1 April (and that is no joke).

After taking a long, hard look at my bank account – I am by no means a rich man, but I have no debts in any form either – I decided to take the next couple of months from my savings, finishing manuscripts (sigh) and perhaps even try to start on something I’ve promised to deliver in August.

On the other hand, as any good political scientist ought to know “final confirmation” should be considered a potential veto point, so if there is a rejection (less likely) or a delay (possible), things do look a bit different. As in the question “What is plan B for a (by then: former) university researcher and lecturer?”

There are some bears out there that I wish had been shot (by myself and others) by now, but that’s life.

And don’t worry: I’ll be keeping an eye on the Danish political scene. Not quite as surprising as the Egyptian one but still worth a glance for those concerned.

PS: What? No unemployment insurance? Well, I am a member of an unemployment fund and as such qualified for unemployment benefit but a) I’m really doing some work the next couple of months and b) there are enough stories about dysfunctional activation that my time and money are better spent elsewhere for the moment.

What is the best way to fund social policy programmes? As it is, there are considerable variations both within and among states. The Scandinavian model is said to rest on general taxes (this is not true, but take this as a point of departure) while the Continental model is said to rest on earmarked contributions. The assumed advantage of the Continental/German model is that citizens are supposed to see a link between their contributions and the benefits they will eventually be able to claim. On the other hand, the Scandinavian model allows for greater flexibility in the financing of social transfers and services.

But there is a catch. Just because you have social contributions (in the form of social insurance fees or payroll taxes), doesn’t mean that there are any links between what you have paid and what you will be eligible to receive. The German old age pension is a case in point – all fees and payroll taxes collected during a fiscal year are used to finance benefits paid during the same fiscal year. There is no collection of funds in the programme. If you are lucky – like most of those who retired since 1957 – you will receive much, much more than you paid, if you are unlucky – like most of my generation will be – you have no legal claims against the system for a specific level of payments. The Germans use the term Umlageverfahren, everybody else talk about pay-as-you-go.

Denmark is in many ways an extreme outlier as welfare states go: To put it simply, benefits and services are either paid out of current taxes or out of funds. Denmark never introduced the kind of pay-as-you-go superannuation schemes that are known from Sweden or other countries. The exceptions are unemployment benefits and the early retirement benefit where insurance fees are part of the financing. Especially with regard to the ERB, this has led many to think that the contribution would guarantee access to the programme at a later stage.

It does not: Post-1998 there is an agreement that the fees paid will somehow be returned (and again: Remember that fees only financed a minor part of the ERB), pre-1998 members of unemployment funds simply helped finance the benefits for those currently receiving ERB.

So if the ERB is abolished, have fund members then lost their fees?

Yes and no: Yes, because they will not receive the benefit they were led to believe they could receive. No, because there is not and never were any savings made in the system. When pay-as-you-go systems are expanded, those presently receiving benefits win. When pay-as-you-go systems are cut, those who have paid earlier lose.

Let me just note that this in itself is neither an argument for nor against cutting or abolishing the ERB but it points to some fundamental problems politicians and experts face in the design of social policy programmes. In this case, time does not really heal all wounds.

Via Chris Bertram we have the solution to a lot a problems troubling academics: The Journal of Universal Rejection! What a brilliant idea.

Volume 1 of “Dansk Velfærdshistorie” (which probably translates into “The History of Danish Welfare Policy”) hit the streets some weeks ago. In the coming four years it will be followed by five further volumes taking the story to around 2010. I contribute with chapters about unemployment insurance and employment policy in vols. 2-6.

Syddansk Universitetsforlag’s webshop with a presentation in Danish of the book.

The term “creative class” was fashionable some time ago and occasionally surfaces in the public debate here in Denmark. These days, though, the “creative class” is mostly used pejoratively as a synonym for what the British call the “chattering classes” – for examples look here and here. And yes, picking the cases from Politiken is slightly ironic.

Something which has always surprised me is that some of Richard Florida’s core examples of what constitutes creative work and consequently defines the creative class have gone completely missing from the Danish debate: Computer programmers and bio-tech engineers. Instead, according to Danish media and debaters the typical creative is somebody you will find on the pages of K-Forum and Copenhipster.

One possible reason for this may be that people in the advertising and communications businesses are very good at making themselves heard, another that IT and the sciences have a massive public relations problem in Denmark. Geeks cannot be creative, or so many would like to think. (Just to make the point clear: According to Florida, geeks are almost by definition creative)

Whatever the reason, a consequence is that “creativity” isn’t linked with (physical) production in the debate but rather seen as the opposite as can be seen in this article. I do think that the author is right in pointing out that a) the level of education in Denmark is lower than we would like to think and that b) vocational schools and colleges have generally been overlooked in education policy, though.

I have a number of issues with Florida’s definition of creativity and, especially, the concept of a creative class but I will leave these for a possible later post.

This is an act of shameless self-promotion: Along with Flemming Juul Christiansen I contributed with a chapter on the elections in Denmark. Given the price tag, you will probably find it in specialist libraries.

Juliet Lodge (ed): The 2009 Elections to the European Parliament. Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan. (Amazon.co.uk)