Wederzijds begrip, onderlinge gelijkwaardigheid: de carrières van Nederlandse bewindspersonen, het ontstaan van een publiek-private habitus, en de neoliberalisering van de publieke sfeer, 1977-2017

Abstract

In this thesis, I add to the research on neoliberalism and elite networks. Taking the work of Antoine Vauchez and Pierre France on the changing career paths of French politicians and public servants, and the concomitant fusion of the public and the private sphere, as a starting point, I traced the career paths of Dutch ministers and junior ministers between 1977 and 2017. I distinguished between professional positions in the public sphere and in the private sphere, and developed a typology of four types of career paths: ministers who worked in the private sphere before their tenure (‘instromers’); ministers who worked in the private sphere after their tenure (‘uitstromers’); ministers who worked in the private sphere both before and after their tenure (‘doorstromers’); and ministers who did not work in the private sphere at all (‘publieken’). In the successive governments between 1977 and 2002, the publieken were most dominant, and the uitstromers second most. Between 2002 and 2017, the uitstromers were most dominant, and the doorstromers second most. Secondly, I compared the habitus of one minister of each type before 2002 with the habitus of one minister of each type after 2002. I found that the identified quantitative shift went hand in hand with changing beliefs about the limits and functions of the public and the private sphere. Before 2002, ministers understood the private sphere as subordinate to the public sphere, whereas after 2002, ministers increasingly understood the private sphere as equal to the public sphere. The rising dominance of the uitstromers and doorstromers at the expense of the publieken, together with the changing ministerial habitus, suggests the emergence of a public-private habitus. These developments reflect the rise of neoliberalism in the Netherlands, the neoliberalization of the Dutch state, and the growing political power of corporations in comparison with public institutions worldwide.