What do you do as a government if you are at a loss? You ask an expert for help. In the seventeenth-century Republic of the Seven United Netherlands, one expert after another popped up to advise one of the many regional authorities. In her Veni project, researcher Anna-Luna Post sets out to discover who these people were and why they were actually considered experts.
The Republic of the United Netherlands differed from other European countries in that power was divided among various bodies, from local authorities to the States General. This made it less clear who had power over what.
'The expansion of the state as an entity in the early modern period is often associated with the rise of the expert,' says Post. 'The state benefits from receiving good advice, while for the expert, advising a government body enhances their status. This creates a mutual dependency.'
Balance between experts and politicians
A similar dynamic was evident during the coronavirus pandemic between the government and the Outbreak Management Team. Post: 'If a decision was unpopular, such as the curfew, it was largely attributed to the experts. They believed it had to be done, so the government did it. Later, it was concluded that the government had relied too much on experts and had not made it sufficiently clear that the final measures were indeed political choices. That is dangerous, because it can undermine the balance between expertise and politics.'
This balance was also precarious in the Republic, especially because competing government authorities regularly tried to put forward their own experts to get their way. 'I find it interesting to use the past as a mirror of the present,' says Post. 'In this research, I'm going to focus on water management, epidemic control and agriculture. These are all three areas in which governments need to collaborate extensively, but also need expertise on which to base their decisions.'
Indicators of credibility
This raises the question of who was considered reliable enough to act as an expert. 'I will first look at the way in which a group of experts is presented and how the government presents them,' explains Post. 'If, for example, the emphasis is placed on their education, their experience or their place of origin, these are indicators of credibility. Next, I want to find out whether people with certain indicators are taken more seriously and what circumstances cause advice to be accepted. I am very curious to see whether people who we would no longer consider experts today were viewed as such at the time.'
Post is likely to see a shift between the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries. 'Initially, governments themselves wrote to experts, but gradually you see the experts uniting in societies such as the Dutch Society of Science or the Provincial Utrecht Society. They met regularly to discuss topics they considered important and so determined for themselves what they wanted to see on the political agenda.'
