‘Modern’, ‘rationally structured’, hierarchical state administrative bureaucracies coincided with the centralization of government authority and the expansion of European imperialist military systems in the 18th and 19th centuries. By the early 1700s the Prussian Empire boasted a highly complex and well-defined administrative apparatus that extended into both military and civil affairs. In Britain, modern elements of civil bureaucracy owe some credit to the officers and agents employed in the East India Company. Initially established in 1600 as a private holdings firm under a Royal Charter, the company later evolved into a political and economic power. In so doing, it established auxiliary civil administrative offices and an elaborate military command structure. Indeed, this system would later be assumed by the British Empire to govern vast parts of the subcontinent. The consolidation of regional territories under the political authority and military protection of ‘nation-states’ that emerged in the 19th century supported the expansion of hierarchically structured administrative systems. The consolidation of France under Napoleon, the solidification of the ‘American nation’ following the Civil War of 1865, the unification of ‘Italy’ under Giuseppe Garibaldi in 1860–70, and the rise of a new Germany in 1871 under Bismarck were important developments.
While the characteristics and dimensions of the ‘modern nation-state’ continue to be debated among political scientists and historians, as we shall see in the following pages, they helped lay the foundations not only of the modern field and practice of public administration but also of modern social welfare systems in America and Western Europe. Public administrators were compelled, consequently, to adopt new ‘bureaucratic’ methods and processes to carry out their new functions and mandates. As we shall see, these new administrative processes were rooted in principles and methods that were associated with the so-called ‘Gilded Age’ and the ‘Scientific Revolution’. Let us first discuss the American progressive era and then explore the progressive reforms that would ultimately shape European welfare states.
As we discussed in Chapter 2, the widespread practice of doling out administrative favours and public services in exchange for votes initially surfaced during the Jeffersonian era. As the geography and population of the country continued to increase into the next century, a vigorous public sector blossomed. The presidential election of 1824 and the ascension to power of Andrew Jackson were tethered to an emergent populist movement comprised of small farmers in the American South and industrial workers in the North. Claiming to represent the ‘plain people’, Jackson pursued a more inclusive form of democracy. This involved an extension of the voting franchise to growing numbers of people, representing a broadened spectrum of social and economic classes. Proclaiming that the country’s political processes and administrative system had long been captured by the country’s elite farmers (known as ‘plantocrats’), big businessmen, and wealthy bankers, Jackson embraced a populist agenda that was meant to appeal to a more diverse group of voters.
Under ‘Jacksonian Democracy’, as it would later be known, political party candidates were nominated through formal conventions that were held in the open rather than chosen in secret by party elites behind closed doors. As America’s electoral processes became more accessible to growing numbers of people, traditionally underrepresented social classes entered the political fray. Political candidates extended the practice of offering political favours and expanding the scope of public services in order to win the support of an ever-growing and diverse electorate. ‘Machine politics’ were embedded in every level of political life. New York City’s infamous Tammany Hall and its corrupt mayor, ‘Boss’ William M. Tweed, ran one of the most well-oiled political machines of that era. ‘Manufacturing’ votes in exchange for political patronage, Tammany Hall was praised by many for providing essential public services to otherwise underrepresented immigrants and working poor. At the same time, however, the nefarious mayor and his ‘political cronies’ in city hall were heavily criticized by others for their unscrupulous practices.
By the mid-1800s, increasing numbers of Americans, who were growing tired of the gross inequities produced under the spoils system, began demanding social protections and comprehensive civil service reform. Progressive leaders urged federal, state, and local governments to work together to implement new policies aimed at improving social justice and workplace conditions, especially in the country’s industrial sector. These new policies and regulations included establishing a legal working age to protect children, limiting the number of hours in a working day, and enacting a variety of health and safety measures. In an effort to limit the oligopolistic control and manipulation of the free market by a few large corporations, progressives pushed Congress to pass the Sherman Anti-Trust Act of 1890.
The assassination of President James A. Garfield in 1881 marked the rise of the new administrative period known as the ‘progressive era’. Progressives sought to replace inefficient governing practices associated with political patronage with professional standards that emphasized efficiency and equity. Related reforms were undertaken in the area of civil service employment. The adoption of the Pendleton Act in 1883, for example, led to the creation of a Civil Service Commission, which attempted to secure greater fairness and transparency in public sector hiring and promotion. The Pendleton Act created new processes and mandates that eventually helped put an end to many spoils practices. By the turn of the century, the vast majority of federal jobs in the civil service sector were appointed and overseen through a strict merit system. Consequently, the growing demand for ‘well-trained’ and ‘professionally qualified’ bureaucrats dramatically changed the practice of public administration.
Some progressive leaders sought to develop a new professional field that would explore innovative administrative methods and techniques for improving bureaucratic functions and operations. One of the leading pioneers in this movement was Woodrow Wilson. Often described as the ‘father of the field of public administration’, Wilson believed that the political and administrative spheres of governance should be separate and mutually exclusive. Wilson contended that politics was the domain of special interests while public administration existed to serve the public interest. Wilson argued that the functions of public services should be administered in a manner consistent with the highest professional standards and codes of ethics. He further believed that public servants should be insulated from the corrupting influence of partisan politics and political patronage. Wilson argued that politics should be limited to matters related to policy formulation and adoption and that public administration should be devoted exclusively to the ‘detailed and systematic execution of public law’.
Wilson became a prominent voice in the academic discipline of political science. Wilson’s new ‘science’ would be devoted to the study of ‘those deep and permanent principles of politics’ that were established over the past two millennia and had since become embedded within the cultural and normative fabric of democracy. Leading public administration scholars, such as Frank Goodnow, joined the discourse by raising important questions about where the politics of decision-making should end and where the neutral business of management and administration should begin. Scholars like Wilson and Goodnow sought to incorporate organizational management ideas and systems into the public sector practice. The new interdisciplinary field ultimately drew on many sources, including the methods of organizational efficiency emphasized by the school on scientific management led by American engineer Frederick Winslow Taylor and German sociologist Max Weber’s principles of rational bureaucracy.
Taylor stressed the importance of standardizing work methods and streamlining production processes to reduce waste and improve labour productivity. In his groundbreaking book, The Principles of Scientific Management, Taylor emphasized the use of systematic analysis and formal engineering methods to study worker performance and workflow processes, so as to improve their function and operation. Applying scientific tools of empirical observation and rigorous metrics, he believed managers could discover the optimal method for performing any task. Taylor believed that once these methods were discovered, common best practices could be established and then applied elsewhere.
Taylor believed that each human being was unique and, therefore, possessed a distinct set of skills. Taylor asserted that it was important for management to identify each worker’s personal strengths and assign the ‘right person’ to perform the ‘right task’. He further claimed that organizations that paid their employees fair wages, and allowed them to take regularly scheduled breaks, achieved higher levels of worker satisfaction. These practices, in turn, would contribute to increased productivity. To be sure, many organizations selectively applied certain aspects of Taylorism while ignoring others. Taylor’s principles were frequently applied incorrectly to compel employees to work harder. As a result, most of the responsibility for organizational performance was unduly placed on the workers.
As Taylor’s principles began being embraced throughout government bureaucracies, growing numbers of public servants were held to strict accountability standards. In addition, Taylor’s principles were introduced into municipal administration through the adoption of the commission and city manager systems. Municipal commissions were comprised of elected representatives who served as heads of city departments. Each department was responsible for overseeing specific areas under its jurisdiction such as public utilities, sanitation, and police. The city manager system was comprised of professional administrators who were recruited to manage and oversee the numerous functions and processes involved in municipal governance. Operating under formal business practices and organizational principles, city managers were responsible for overseeing the implementation of activities carried out by various municipal departments. These departments ranged from the city clerk’s office to the planning and development bureau. Many of the principles underpinning ‘classical organizational theory’ that developed from the 1920s to 1950s were based upon Taylor’s work. Indeed, Taylor’s ‘principles of scientific management’ have continued to influence both the academic field and practice of public administration over the last sixty years.
One of the defining issues that has shaped British class politics since the 19th century has been the development and maintenance of the welfare state. Not unlike America, Britain travelled on a long, arduous, and at times pernicious path. Introduced during the Elizabethan era in 1601, the Poor Laws were adopted to formalize relief practices that were established to protect the indigent poor in England and Wales. Industrialization brought a variety of new social problems that needed to be systematically addressed. Over time, the provisions associated with the original Elizabethan laws had become a large financial burden on Britain’s wealthier classes. By 1830, the costs associated with social assistance for the poor had risen to an estimated £7 million per year. As a result, specific reforms were adopted during the Victorian era that were intended to reduce some of these costs.
In the 19th century, harsh living and working conditions associated with mass industrial development took a heavy toll on the lives of large numbers of people. High levels of pollution and toxic compounds generated by London’s bustling industrial sector posed serious health hazards for workers and their families. Overcrowding and pollution in urban areas were the leading causes of disease and poor health during this period. In order to manage the growing costs associated with caring for the sick and assisting the country’s poor population, systematic reforms were adopted by parliament. Insisting that sound health practices contributed to ‘good business’, pro-business social reformers, such as Edwin Chadwick, pushed for major changes in this area. In response to growing public pressures, parliament passed the (new) Poor Law of 1834. This Act significantly reduced the costs of poor relief. Additional measures were adopted regulating dangerous industrial work practices and processes in mining and manufacturing. Most notably, the new Poor Law established shelters, known as workhouses, for the increasing numbers of unemployed workers and their families. In many instances families residing in these facilities were provided basic sustenance in the form of clothing, food, and rudimentary education. Although the facilities were originally intended to provide temporary relief, many tenants, faced with no other options, ended up staying for extended periods of time. Life was difficult for most residents. Countless able-bodied residents were required to perform ‘hard labour’ in exchange for receiving basic levels of assistance. Because of their harsh living conditions, some leading progressive activists of the day, such as Richard Oastler, regarded these workhouses as ‘prisons for the poor’.
The Poor Laws of the early 1800s created further disparities between the middle classes and the working poor. This was partly because, in the absence of any systemic central administration and oversight, many of the services provided under the Act were unevenly (and sometimes inhumanely) administered at the discretion of local parishes. Public outrage over workhouse conditions and other provisional abuses led to the abolition of the Poor Law Commission which had been established to oversee the administration and operations associated with 1834 Poor-Law-related services. Further reform efforts attempted to address some of these issues.
In the spring of 1853, a comprehensive review of Britain’s civil administration system was initiated under the oversight of William Gladstone, then chancellor of the exchequer. In the following year, a document that would become known as the Trevelyan-Northcote Report (named for its authors Charles Trevelyan and Stafford Northcote) recommended revolutionary changes to this system. Besides proposing that examinations be administered to ensure that prospective civil servants were adequately qualified, the report suggested that promotions be administered through a competitive and transparent merit system. According to Professor Peter Hennessy, the proposed reforms would be ‘the greatest single governing gift of the nineteenth to the twentieth century: a politically disinterested and permanent Civil Service with core values of integrity, propriety, objectivity and appointment on merit, able to transfer its loyalty and expertise from one elected government to the next’.
From 1906 to 1914, a series of historic social welfare reforms were enacted under the leadership of the prime minister Herbert Asquith and chancellor of the exchequer David Lloyd George. In 1906, for example, the safety regulations outlined in the 1901 Factory Act were expanded to cover additional industries. In 1908, the Old Age Pensions Act was introduced which extended retirement benefits to those over 70 who had worked most of their adult life. Indeed, this Act helped establish the foundation for a broader set of progressive welfare reforms. One year later, the first labour exchanges were established to help unemployed workers find new jobs. That same year, the government enacted the Development Fund, which was designed to generate new employment through new infrastructure projects in areas ranging from agriculture to transport during recessionary periods. Perhaps the crowning achievement of this period, however, was the Asquith government’s enactment of national health and unemployment insurance. The Act provided for a range of benefits including medical treatment for both physical and mental illnesses. Financed jointly through the contributions made by both workers and the state, unemployment insurance was extended to workers whose employment was highly susceptible to structural changes in the economy. One of the political masterminds behind these historic social welfare schemes was Lloyd George, who successfully saw them through parliament. In crafting England’s National Insurance Act of 1911, as is widely documented, Lloyd George drew inspiration from his 1908 study of Bismarck’s revolutionary insurance benefit schemes.
While revolutionary for their day, many of the reforms discussed earlier offered only limited coverage and protections to certain groups of people. Many workers who participated in the labour exchange programme, for example, were only successful in assuming part-time casual employment. Moreover, workers were required to pay their National Insurance contributions out of their own earnings. It is important to note, however, that within less than five years of its adoption, an estimated two million workers had national unemployment insurance, and millions more were covered by national health insurance. Perhaps even more importantly, despite their shortcomings and limitations, these progressive developments were pivotal in the evolution of the modern welfare state.
National identities in Western Europe became more pronounced and salient in the second half of the 1880s. The emergence of so-called European ‘nation-states’ profoundly affected the structure and scope of public administration. As we shall see, the relationship between strong central governments and local authorities was characteristically more harmonious than in America and Britain. Let us examine some of the structural differences that distinguish these administrative systems. Political scientist B. Guy Peters outlines three Western European administrative state traditions which include: the French or Napoleonic Continental European tradition; the Germanic or Organicist Continental European tradition; and the Scandinavian State tradition.
In Europe as in America, the mass urbanization associated with industrialization placed enormous stress on society and the social provisions designed to assist the working and indigent poor. While both Western European and American reform movements evolved in tandem with an increasingly democratic state, European progressives envisioned a much more paternalistic role for government. Consequently, Europeans looked to government to provide basic economic security for their citizens and viewed the state as the guarantor of prosperity for civil society as a whole. Similar to the American and British experience, progressive reforms undertaken in this era proved transformative in laying the foundation of modern welfare states.
In 1804, Napoleon Bonaparte sought to revamp France’s entire political and administrative system in accordance with the ‘enlightenment’ ideals that inspired the French Revolution (1789–99). Napoleon attempted to consolidate the various provincial laws that had been developed discretely over the course of the country’s feudal history into a modern and uniform civil code. With a highly centralized state bureaucracy, the lines between the ‘state’ and ‘society’ were not as pronounced as in the American system. Unlike the American system, where the national and state governments were constitutionally separated, French administrative power was unified. The overarching principle behind the comprehensive reform of the country’s legal system was to ensure that every French citizen was guaranteed equal protection under law. Once adopted, the code was applied universally across France and ultimately extended to citizens residing in all French territories and jurisdictions. Indeed, the Napoleonic tradition ultimately influenced the legal and administrative systems of various countries throughout Western Europe as well as parts of North Africa and the American South.
The extensive scope of the Napoleonic Code covered areas such as Civil Procedure (1804), Commercial Law (1807), Criminal Procedure (1808), and the Penal system (1810). The redesign of the administrative code in 1808, in particular, transformed the entire French civil service system. Encompassing everything from tax policy to banking and finance, the code created new administrative offices and established definitive lines of jurisdiction and accountability. There emerged, among much else, the Courts of Accounts, the General Inspection of the Finances, and the Council of State. Moreover, the Napoleonic period became associated with one of the most ambitious administrative public works programmes the world had ever seen. France’s elaborate new administrative apparatus oversaw the construction and procurement of new canals, ports, and harbours, besides managing the expansion of a comprehensive road system that improved French access to other parts of Europe.
One of the leading architects of the Napoleonic administrative code was progressive theorist Charles-Jean Bonnin. In his book Principes d’administration publique (Principles of Public Administration), published in 1812, Bonnin outlined sixty-eight principles for administrative governance. The majority of these principles involved specific rules that administrative organizations ought to follow in order to operate more efficiently and responsibly. The principles applied to those serving in all levels of administration, from department ministers to street-level supervisors serving in France’s countless bureaucratic offices. Bonnin shared Wilson’s view that ‘administration’ should be studied as a distinct set of practices and activities that set them apart from the political methods exercised by ‘government’ and the ‘state’. Similarly, Bonnin’s interdisciplinary approach jointly embraced the use of formal methodologies drawn from the natural sciences as well as concepts gleaned from the social sciences and humanities to improve the functions and activities associated with administrative governance.
In 1916, French mining engineer Henri Fayol introduced a revolutionary approach to public management that became known as ‘administrative management theory’. In his book, General Industrial Management, Fayol outlined several important principles which reflected the actual complexities involved in managing large organizations. While ‘Taylorism’ emphasized the use of empirical science-based methods for improving worker efficiency and precision in the performance of specific tasks, Fayol’s approach stressed management’s role in shaping and defining organizational purposes. Fayol asserted that managers must assume responsibility for ensuring organizational success by setting objectives and cultivating unity among various divisions and departments through central coordination and control. Fayol believed that forecasting, planning, and training were essential elements in promoting organizational efficiency and workplace productivity. Fayol’s principles were designed to be flexible and universally applicable to any organizational context.
In 1883, Germany’s first chancellor, Otto von Bismarck, introduced a comprehensive progressive agenda. Building upon existing social programmes developed under Prussian and Saxon rule, Bismarck unveiled Europe’s first social insurance scheme. By 1900 German workers were guaranteed healthcare coverage, a retirement pension, a minimum wage, vacation time, unemployment insurance, safe working conditions, and free childhood education. Initially adopted to satisfy the growing needs and demands of Germany’s working class, these social schemes laid the foundation for the steady expansion of the social welfare system that remained in place until the Second World War.
As the role of government expanded with unification of the German states in the 1860s, a more professional administrative arm of government was required to manage and administer new social schemes and programmes. It was in this context that the German-Austrian school of public administration first emerged. One of the leading figures in this scholarly movement was Lorenz von Stein (1815–90). Stein adopted an interdisciplinary approach to the study of public administration that drew on diverse fields of human knowledge aimed at improving the practices of administrative governance. Through his extensive multi-volume exegesis entitled The Theory of Administration (Die Verwaltungslehre), Stein attempted to elevate public administration to a ‘systematic science’. In order to make the principles outlined in this ‘major work’ widely accessible to teachers and students, he later released his Handbook of the Theory of Administration (Handbuch der Verwaltungslehre). Stein argued that the administrative activities of the state should be studied and analysed by examining areas such as domestic and international security, diplomacy, budget, and finance. He proposed that these distinct areas of study should be brought together under a single discipline to improve the internal workings of state administrative agencies in ways that serve the interests of the community and protect the rights of individual citizens.
The writings of German sociologist Max Weber transformed organizational theory and administrative science. As noted earlier, the industrial revolution and expansion of the state inspired the development of radically new organizational models. The need to coordinate complex operations and functions associated with large-scale public and private enterprises led to radical changes in their organizational structure. Weber’s notion of bureaucracy was formulated from this context. Weber asserted that modern organizations needed to adopt rational bureaucratic processes and procedures based on formal rules, professional classification systems staffed with properly skilled, well-trained personnel, and well-structured divisions of labour. Under the Weberian model, professional bureaucrats were appointed and promoted within administrative positions based on their skill sets and levels of expertise. In order to perform highly specialized tasks and functions, bureaucrats were expected to receive professional training and education.
In his seminal works on bureaucracy, Weber mapped out key organizational principles that comprised his ‘ideal’ bureaucratic archetype. For Weber, bureaucracies were the instruments through which policy decisions were converted into concrete actions. The role of bureaucracies, therefore, was to ensure the effective implementation of government policies through impersonal, efficient, and standardized decision-making processes.
Weber did not view bureaucratic implementation as a democratic exercise. In fact, he believed that pluralistic forms of decision-making most often resulted in inconsistencies in the way policies were executed and implemented. Therefore, Weber argued that policy decisions should be implemented through authoritative decision processes using precise methods for execution. Under the Weberian model, policies and regulations, established under public law, were managed down though hierarchically organized offices and departments. Likewise, formal rules were enforced through a strict chain of command such that managers and workers reported to assigned supervisors.
Weber shrewdly observed that most policies developed by political officials rarely provided explicit language on the methods and means by which administrators should implement them. Rather, most statutes, he noted, were written in broad and often ambiguous language, giving administrative agencies, and public bureaucrats within them, wide latitude for interpreting when and how to carry them out. Weber asserted, therefore, that the actual power of bureaucracies rested in their ability to control the methods involved in the day-to-day implementation of public policies. Weber’s principles have served to define the structure and role of the modern bureaucratic organization. Weber’s ‘ideal’ bureaucratic model was characterized by a set of basic organizational principles which appear in Box 3.
Hierarchy of offices: Institutional offices are arranged in a clear hierarchy; this allows for power and authority to be based upon a clear chain of command, with each office being supervised by a higher ranking office—thus allowing for disciplined implementation and ensuring bureaucratic authority.
Fixed division of labour: Tasks in the bureaucratic organization are divided into functionally distinct areas each with requisite authority and sanction; essentially each office has a jurisdictional area that is clearly specified and governed by a set of duties and rights.
Rational-legal authority: Formal roles and procedures ensure uniformity of implementation and regulation of bureaucratic behaviour; their authority stems entirely from their role and not from some private status, and their authority exists only as far as it is needed to carry out that role.
Impersonality: Bureaucratic management is based on impersonally applied rules that are rational and allows for decisions made at the highest levels to be executed consistently by all lower levels; rules and controls are applied uniformly so as to prevent bureaucrats’ personal preferences from dictating behaviour.
Appointment by qualification: Appointments to bureaucratic positions are determined by tests of professional skill and competence, and not by considerations of status or patronage; employment and promotion are based upon merit, technical qualifications, competence, and performance.
Professionalism: Bureaucrats are professional officials employed for a fixed salary; thus they do not own the units they manage.
Independent non-partisanship: There is a distinct separation of the bureaucrats’ personal beliefs and lives from their professional lives; administration is carried out on a continuous basis and not simply at the leadership’s dictates based upon personal and ideological beliefs.
Sources: Ken Johnson, ‘According to Max Weber: historical principles’ in ‘Busting Bureaucracy’; Stella Z. Theodoulou and Christopher Kofinis, The Art of the Game, pp. 170–1.
The Scandinavian tradition of public administration developed as a mixture of the Anglo-Saxon and Germanic traditions. In the early part of the 19th century, Sweden was one of the least industrially developed countries in Europe. The gap between the country’s exclusive class of rich elites and large number of poor farmers was significant. However, as Sweden became industrialized and the country’s wealth increased, the income gap between the rich and the poor narrowed considerably. Sweden was industrialized later than many of its European counterparts. As a result, some scholars have argued persuasively, the fierce tensions and intense class conflicts that developed between the rich land owners, industrialists, and working class groups in countries like Britain were not as pronounced. In European countries that industrialized relatively late, peasant and working class groups tended to be stronger and hence were received by other powerful economic classes as more equal partners. The mutual inclusion of diverse interests in shaping the political development of the Swedish nation-state in the 1800s resulted in the formation of cross-class coalitions of employers and workers. These developments helped shape the political culture and institutions through which national social policies developed. A substantial number of social services in Sweden are both organized and administered at the local level. This arrangement has helped foster a closer relationship between Swedish citizens and the public administrators who provide these public services. Moreover, the political tension between private business and the public sector has historically been less pronounced in Sweden than in its American and British counterparts.
By the mid-1800s Sweden was experiencing many of the painful effects associated with growing industrialization. One of the earliest social services introduced in 1842 by the Swedish state was compulsory elementary education. As the Swedish nation-state become firmly established in the late 1800s, employers and workers jointly supported the expansion of social insurance provisions that were provided by the national government.
The formation of the Swedish Social Democratic Labour Party (SAP) in 1889 was based on a progressive agenda that chiefly emphasized universal suffrage and an eight-hour work day. Though disagreements among moderates and more extreme leftists within the party would persist over how best to achieve these goals, there was general agreement on the ends. Moreover, the party’s relatively modest progressive goals began gaining political traction among the country’s mainstream electorate.
Responding to growing populist sentiments for social reform, the Swedish parliament passed important social insurance legislation in the years between 1891 and 1894. The Swedish government later provided extensive public services and public employment through a variety of tax-based cash benefit schemes. In 1882, new reform measures were adopted by Sweden’s national government to eliminate the unfair tax burdens imposed on small-scale employers. The Act of 1913 extended flat-rate pension benefits to all Swedish citizens aged 67 and older. Established as part of a special First World War administration project in 1914, the National Unemployment Commission became the main administrative authority governing Swedish labour market policy for the next two decades. Its main purpose was to reduce unemployment by providing financial and administrative support for a variety of public works projects. In that same year, the Swedish national government began providing supplemental funds for poor relief programmes administered by local authorities.
The industrial revolution and the emergence of centralized nation-states in the second half of the 1800s dramatically transformed the relations between governments and societies. During this historic period, public services and welfare provisions increased by epic proportions. Citizens’ expectations of government have grown considerably since the progressive era. Unemployment and social insurance, public transportation, and public parks and libraries were all products of democratic social movements. As the 20th century unfolded, societies continued to grow more complex, resulting in the development of additional public services and regulations. Consequently, the administrative processes and procedures involved in delivering these new government services became increasingly specialized and bureaucratic. In this process, governments assumed new responsibilities in protecting and promoting the economic and social security of citizens.