The period between 1748 and 1813 witnessed dramatic changes in the institutional and social set-up of the Dutch political-administrative system. In short, there occurred a transition from an ancien regime of highly autonomous and particularistic provinces and cities with all-powerful regent and/or aristocratic elites around 1748 to a centralized unitary state with a ‘representative’ parliament, a constitution and highly standardised legal-bureaucratic procedures around 1813. Part and parcel of this fundamental transformation was the way in which public administrators were expected to perform their duties. Reinterpreted and/or new public values and ideas of political corruption and integrity were attributed to public office in the midst of the period’s large-scale developments of bureaucratisation, the rise of a political press and new political ideology and, finally, state formation together with the emergence of ‘modern’ politics. In short, many practices that had by and large been condoned around 1748 (such as nepotism or venality) had become mostly unacceptable by 1813. It is the purpose of this paper to provide suggestions (also in a wider European perspective) on how and why this happened by focusing on (changing) public values and ideas on corruption and integrity between 1748 and 1813 in the Netherlands. The paper is based on three scandals of corruption throughout the period which provide a brief look at explicit debates on corruption and integrity in the midst of the aforementioned three large-scale developments. In this way, it aims to shed light on some fundamental (changing) views on the role, function and purpose of Dutch early modern government in general and its administrators in particular.
