Artikel

Het openbaar bestuur in de sociale rechtsstaat

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Abstract

Public administration in the constitutional welfare state — Sociology of public administration, being a branch of sociology, studies the phenomenon „public administration” as a form of organized social action. Parliamentary democracy gives shape to social action in a juridical way. The liberal constitutional state has evolved towards a social one and has produced more intensive state interference in social matters. In today’s welfare state the fundamental social rights have become the constitutional variant of the liberal constitutional state in a social way. Instrumentalization being characteristic of the modern idea of law has been caused by the necessity of efficient state interference and has tended to large discretionary normative competencies of the executive powers. That is why terms of law are often formulated in a general way (the so-called „Generalklauseln”) and why law becomes more and more experimental. Max Weber refers to the importance that the bureaucratic system represents. Its technical and specialized way of acting causes a real dependence on it for the citizen and even leads one to speak of a „bureaucratic paradox”. Despite the increasing level of political secularization as described by Almond and Bingham Powell men can hardly understand all of modern public affairs. In this respect all kinds of interest groups have come to play an important, if not a foremost part in the political game. The significance of parliament, which at one time was a „controlling apparatus” and a legislative body, shows a downward tendency. Ministerial responsibility has become a constitutional fiction while for the future individual action of members of parliament has to be seen as one of the most fertile aspects of political control. On the other hand there has been a shift of power to governmental authorities, who have now acquired the predominant initiative in legislative matters. Holding a doctrine such as the „trias politica”, which is still one of the most important terms in constitutionalism today, has become progressively more difficult to reconcile with modern administrative processes.

How to Cite:

Van Damme, M., (1980) “Het openbaar bestuur in de sociale rechtsstaat”, Tijdschrift voor Sociale Wetenschappen 25(2), 141–159. doi: https://doi.org/10.21825/tvsw.94759