Development of public administration

IN PRUSSIA

Ø 1) Read texts 5.3 – 5.8 and fill in the table “Development of modern public administration in different countries”:

	Prussia	France	The British Empire	The USA	The East	Developing nations
a)Important dates
b)Head of state
c)Official documents
d)Duties of civil servants
e)Appointment of civil servants
f)Requirements for civil servants
g)Further training of civil servants
h)Peculiarities of civil service
i)Drawbacks of civil service
g)National terms and concepts

Ø 2) Read the words correctly: a century, machinery, feudal, a sovereign, a corps of civil servants, a crown, throughout.

The foundations of modern public administration in Europe were laid in Prussia in the late 17^th and 18^th centuries. A rigidly centralized government was considered to be a means of ensuring stability and furthering dynastic objective by the kings of Prussia. Their principal aim was to suppress the autonomy of the cities and to eliminate the feudal privileges of the aristocracy. Civil servants were therefore appointed by the central government to administer the provinces, where the management of crown lands and the organization of the military system were combined in a “Kriegs-und-Domänen-Kammer” (“Office of War and Crown Lands”).

The “Steuerräte” (“tax collectors”) were subordinate to these offices. They controlled the administration of the municipalities and communes. These officials were all appointed by the central government and were responsible to it. At the apex of the new machinery of government was the sovereign.

This centralized system was strengthened by creating a special corps of civil servants. In the beginning these civil servants – in a real sense servants of the Crown – were sent out from Berlin to deal with such purely military matters as recruiting, billeting, and victualling the troops, but in the course of time they extended their supervision to civil matters as well. By 1713 there were clearly recognizable administrative units dealing in civil affairs and staffed by crown civil servants.

Special ordinances in 1722 and 1748 regulated recruitment to the civil service. Senior officials proposed to the king the names of candidates suitable for appointment to the higher posts. The adjutant general proposed noncommissioned officers suitable for subordinate administrative posts.

Further steps were taken throughout the 18^th century to regularize the system of recruitment, promotion, and internal organization. All of these matters were brought together in a single General Code promulgated in 1794. The merit system of appointment covered all types of posts, and the general principle was that “special laws and instructions determine the appointing authority to different civil service rank, their qualifications, and the preliminary examinations required from different branches and different ranks.”

To enter the higher civil service a candidate needed a university degree in cameralistics, which included the science of public finance, the study of administrative law, police administration, estate management, and agricultural economics. After the degree course, candidates for the higher civil service spent a further period of supervised practical training in various branches of the administration. At the end of the practical training they had more oral and written examinations. The basic principles of modern civil services are to be found in this General Code.

Ø 3) Simplify the text in your own words.

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