Normativity and the Abuse of Office in the Context of the Imperial Relations between the Netherlands and the Netherlands Indies, c. 1848-1904
Authors:   , Linde Sebastiaan Otto 
Published: November 2024

This study tries to define the nature of normativity in a colonial context. It does so by looking at discourses revolving around corruption within the context of the historical relations between the Netherlands and Indonesia during the years between 1848 and 1904. I have primarily written this study in order to nuance existing views on the history of corruption in colonial Indonesia, as I noted a conspicuous tendency to depict Indonesian officials as actors who were somehow especially inclined towards corrupt acts. As corruption, and especially European corruption, can at times be hard to grasp in the historical records of colonial Indonesia, I follow the specific methodology of looking at the history of the Dutch empire through the lens of its scandals. By looking critically at archival sources, parliamentary debates, newspapers, pamphlets, and even novels related to these scandals, I have been able to answer a number of essential questions: a) who decided what constituted a corrupt act?; b) what kind of actors were accused of corrupt acts?; c) how did civilian actors throughout the Dutch empire react to corrupt acts?; d) how did the colonial state react to corrupt acts?; e) how did the Dutch parliament react to corrupt acts? Answering these questions is essential in order to further understand the nature of ‘‘colonial normativity.’’
These questions have been answered over the course of four extensive chapters. I argue that ‘‘colonial normativity’’ was closely linked to the inherent tension between humanitarian and liberal ideals and norms on the one hand and the goal to make the colony as profitable as possible on the other. The colony had served as a ‘‘cash cow’’ for the Netherlands during most of the nineteenth century. With the proclamation of a liberal constitution in 1848 a new normative standard was introduced in the Dutch empire. This did not, however, spell an end to the colony’s role as a ‘‘cash cow.’’ In practice norms were applied differently throughout the empire. This because in the colony the ideal of ‘‘colonial profitability’’ played a major role in distorting liberal and humanitarian measures, laws and institutions. Liberal and humanitarian ideals and norms were very gradually introduced to the colony, but the new norms could not be evenly enforced due to the understaffing and underfunding of the colonial bureaucratic apparatus, which in turn was a result of perpetual metropole-induced austerity. This despite the fact that the Dutch empire used liberal and humanitarian ideals as a means to legitimize its presence in the Indonesian Archipelago – as a central part of its self-proclaimed ‘‘civilizing mission.’’ My conclusion is that it ultimately was the colonial condition itself which caused the (perceived) proliferation of corruption in the colony. The colonial condition, after all, forced the colonial state to put the Dutch national interests first, to the detriment of the colonized. The effects of this were further exacerbated by a lack of adequate resources allotted to the colonial state by the Dutch parliament. This resulted in the poor and uneven implementation of metropolitan norms and legislation, as perpetual austerity came to the detriment of the development and quality of the administrative apparatus. When norms were not adhered to in the colony or when legislation was so poorly implemented that it appeared not to work, the metropole blamed the colony and its inhabitants for the failure – not its own lack of investment in the colony’s administration. ‘‘Colonial normativity,’’ therefore, entailed the formulation of norms without ensuring their enforcement, with the colony being judged for the resulting deviation from the Dutch normative model.