Experts and civil servants at work, together

Every year, on the third Tuesday of September, the Dutch cabinet presents its plans to Parliament for the coming year. There is much pomp and circumstance, which is unusual for a political culture that is otherwise proud of its modesty and restraint. The Queen is transported to the Parliament buildings in a golden carriage, cheered on by the masses and accompanied by an extensive corps of mounted guards. The horses are brought in from all over the country for the event, because the state no longer owns enough horses. The Queen's state of the nation speech then kicks off weeks of Parliamentary bickering over the budget, which assesses the work of the government in great detail. MPs of the various parties in Dutch politics bicker over each and every detail in the budget, but one feature of the budget is beyond debate: the assessment of future economic growth by the nation's official econometricians is considered not only the very best estimate but the only one that really matters. In spite of obvious and acknowledged uncertainties that could make or break the nation's wealth – such as wars, bank crises, or simply bad weather – the assessments made by these experts keeps the level of disagreement to a minimum: everyone ends up agreeing on the state of the economy, both currently and in the near future.

This situation is pervasive in Dutch politics and is all the more remarkable because the relationship between specialized experts and policymakers is generally a difficult one. Civil servants and politicians typically complain that experts do not provide ‘useful’ knowledge or do not appreciate the context in which knowledge will be put to work. Conversely, experts complain that policymakers abuse their findings or fail to understand the qualifications and uncertainties of the advice. In order to maintain cooperation, both parties need to adjust mutual expectations and negotiate their roles.

This chapter analyzes how this ‘boundary work,’ as we call it, occurs at one particular body that provides economic expert knowledge to the Dutch government, the Netherlands Bureau for Economic Policy Analysis.