Historical Overview of Public Administration

Large scale administrative organization has existed from early times. The ancient empire of Egypt, Persia, Greece, Rome, China, and later the Holy Roman Empire as well as recent colonial empires of Britain, Spain, Russia, Portugal, and France -- they all organized and maintaned political rule over wide areas and large populations by use of quite a sophisticated administrative appatatus and more or less skilled administrative functionaries.

The personal natures of that rule was very great. Everything depended on the emperor. The emperor turn had to rely on the personal loyalty of his subordinates, who maintaned themselves by the personal underlings, down to rank and file personnel on the fringes of the empire. The emperor carried an enormous work load reading and listening for petitions, policy arguments, judicial claims, appeals for favor, and the like in an attempt to keep the vast imperial machine functioning. It was a system of favoritism and patronage.

In a system based on personal preferement, a change of emperor disrupted the entire arrangement of government. Those who had been in favor might now be out of favor. Weak rules followed strong rules, foolish monarchs succeded wise monarchs -- but all were dependent on the army, which supplied the continuity that enabled the empire to endure so long. In absence of institutional, bureaucratic procedures, government moved from stability to near anarchy and back again.

Modern administrative system based on objective norms (such as laws, rules, and regulations) rather than on favoritism. It is a system of offices rather than officers. Loyalty is owed first of all to the state and the administrative organization. Members of the burreaucracy, or large, formal, complex organizations in the recent times, ar choosen for their qualification rather than for their personal connections with powerful person. When vacancies occur by death, resignation, or for other reasons, new qualified person are selected according to clearly defined rules. Burreaucracy does not die when its members die.