Creveld, Martin von. The state as an instrument: 1648 1648 to 1789. In: ______. ______. The rise and decline of the state. . !irst !irst consid considera eration tionss “Growing “Growing out of feudalism and harking back to Roman imperial times, the system of government that appeared in Europe during the years 1337 1!"# was still, in most respects, entirely personal$ %he state as an abstract organi&ation with its own persona separate from that of the ruler did not yet e'ist( 1)!$ “%hat story, which represents an almost purely *est European development and which was e'ported to other continents only at a much later date, will be told in four parts( 1)7$ +$ irst irst part$ part$ +uilding +uilding the the burocr burocracy acy “-./ 0 shall trace the rise of the bureaucratic structure and the way in which it emancipated itself both from royal control and from civil society( 1)7$
"ivision “owever “owever weak or strong, no ruler in charge of a political unit larger than a family can operate without subordinates who look up to him and, in one way or another, are dependent on him “1)#$ “%hus the history of political communities including the one known as the state almost amounts to the story of the growth in the number of e'ecutives, the way they were organi&ed, and the way they received their living or were compensated for their e2orts$$$( 1)#$ “uring the period under consideration, the outstanding change was the one which led from indirect rule by feudal lords to direct government e'ercised e'ercised by salaried o4cials on the king5s behalf( 1)#$ “%he former derived their power from the possession of land and the rights which they e'ercised over their own vassals6 the latter were appointed by the king whom they served with or without pay( 1)#$ ivision ecretaries
secretaries of state
#8s monarchs e'panded their power at the e'pense of church, aristocratic landowners, and towns, these o4cials were turned from appointees who looked after the royal domains into government administrators “1)9$ “ooner or later, the e'pansion of the household into additional :elds led to its transformation$ 0ts development into a public administration was arrested6 arrested6 instead, overwhelmed by its own si&e and the e'tent of its responsibilities, the situation was inverted( 1)9$ “%he household was swallowed by its own o2spring, so to speak; it became simply one of a great many administrative departments whose
responsibility happened to be looking after the monarch5s person, his residences, his property, and the like( 13<$ E'ample; “=ossibly because it was always highly centrali&ed, the :rst important country to witness the transformation was England$ %hroughout the :fteenth century, and especially after the *ars of the Roses had come to an end, the si&e of the household grew and grew.( 13<$ >once?uences
“ %he reversal of roles marked a decisive step toward the establishment of a modern bureaucracy and, with it, of the modern impersonal state$( 13<$ “%he developing impersonal character of the o4ce is obvious from the fact that he, like his opposite number in England, *illiam =age, performed his duties under several monarchs in a line6 when :nally dismissed by enry 000 in 1@##, he found it necessary to compose an 0nstruction for his successor$ %he :rst fullAsi&ed manual intended for the use of secretaries of state was written in 1!31 by another renchman, Bean de ilhon$ >learly the position was being institutionali&ed$( 13<$
>hanges in organi&ation
“%he rise of bureaucratic organi&ation also meant that the traditional household ordinances were no longer ade?uate to their task$ %he :rst such ordinance on record was produced for rance5s Couis 0D in 1)!16 widely imitated by other courts, its function was to de:ne the duties of various cooks, servants, and other assorted personnel responsible for their master5s welfare(13
ources of income
“nlike the personnel that had served previous rulers, early modern European bureaucrats were neither priests, nor slaves, nor necessarily aristocrats$ Fver time their sources of income also changed.( 131 “%his was a fact which many rulers understood but, owing to :nancial constraints, could not change$ >onse?uently they were forced to agree to a system of compensation by way of rights that were attached to the o4ce, fees that were due to it, and monopolies that its holder could e'ercise( 131$ E'ample “0n rance it reached its apogee during the reigns of enry 0, Couis D000, and Couis D0, all of whom, pressed to raise money for their wars, created new o4ces and sold them by the hundreds$ 0n 1!<" the =aulette, named after ecretary of tate =aulet, put the :nal touch on the structure$ F4ces were turned into private property( 131
“E'cept at the highest levels, where the selection of the intendants depended entirely on the king5s will, the way to advance in the hierarchy was by turning each o4ce to pro:t and then using the latter in order to purchase one5s way from one to another until one reached the highest o4ces of all( 13)$
“8ccumulating o4ces was one way of making oneself powerful, additionally so as the king was often dependent on his o4cials for loans6 on the other hand it e'plains why historians are so often frustrated in their e2orts to determine who was responsible for what( 13)
enal o4ces “0n two countries, England and =russia, venal o4ces failed to develop to the same e'tent( 13)$ England “0n England, where the landowning class was rich, the Hustices of the peace had made their appearance as a result of the =eace 8ct in 13!1(513)$ =russia “0n =russia, by contrast, the nobility was poor and tended to get poorer after the devastation su2ered during the %hirty Iears *ar and the Great Jorthern *ar$ %his fact enabled the electors later, the kings to draw it into their own service by o2ering salaries6 the role played by other forms of income was, by comparison, minor$( 13)$ “%oward the end of the eighteenth century, the typical =russian system whereby the administration was sta2ed by universityAeducated bureaucrats at the top and by e'A J>F types at the bottom was in operation$ =ummeled into shape by rederick the Great, it became the most advanced in Europe$ 8t the other e'treme England was both run by amateurs and underadministered by continental standards6 an impersonal, salaried bureaucracy failed to develop$( 13)$
8 shift from a geographical to a functional division of labor “ %he move from feudal lords through state entrepreneurs to appointed, salaried o4cials also led to a shift from a geographical to a functional division of labor( 133$ ubdivision; foreign a2airs “=erhaps the most important characteristic of the modern state is its territoriality$ %herefore it is somewhat surprising to :nd that the distinction between internal and e'ternal a2airs, and the establishment of separate administrative structures for each, appeared only comparatively late in the day$(133$ “8s we saw, the practice of establishing permanent diplomatic representatives with foreign princes originated in 0taly after 1"@<( 13"$ “8fter 1!"# their numbers grew$( 13"$ “Jumerical growth soon made it necessary to have a central directory that would look after the ambassadors, send them instructions, and read their reports, all in addition to running the apparatus which transmitted messages from and to foreign capitals and which, for reasons of secrecy, was usually kept separate from the public mail systems developing inside each country( 13"$ Jumber of administrators “>ompared to the empires which had preceded them, these early modern states were remarkable for the number of their administrators( 13"$
=rint $ =aperwork “Even more spectacular than the growth in the number of o4cials was the rise in the ?uantity of paperwork that the invention of print permitted( 13@$ $ “+esides producing overwhelming amounts of paperwork, the invention of print had other results$( 13@ “0t became necessary to :nd entirely new systems for storing and retrieving documents( 13!
8nother results one “0n the long run, this kind of bureaucratic e'pansion itself made it necessary for o4cials to operate according to :'ed rules$( 13!$ “%he purpose of the various measures was to ensure uniformity, regularity, and a reasonable standard of competence, and in this they were generally successful( 13! “8lready the introduction of entrance e'aminations meant that monarchs were no longer free to decide whom to take into their service.(
%wo “+y this time o4cials, who for centuries past had been the king5s men, were beginning to think of themselves as servants of an impersonal state$( 137 “%he fact that the growing si&e and power of the administration was not without its dangers was understood at an early time( 137 “rederick5s =russia was, in fact, the perfect e'ample of the dilemma that bureaucracy created$ Fn the one hand he vehemently demanded KKsystem55 as indispensable for running the country and making the best of its limited resources$ Fn the other he inveighed against those who, even as they manned the system and provided the information on which it rested, KKwanted to govern despotically while their master is e'pected to be satis:ed with the empty prerogative of signing the orders issued in his name$55( 13#$ “+y that time the Hudiciary, too, had become independent and the sovereign had lost the prerogative of meddling with the Huridical decisions that his subordinates made( 139 istorical cases “ifteen years before the =russian collapse, the entire vast rench system of venal administration had been brought down at a single blow together with the société d’ordres in which it was anchored$ 8s in =russia, the bureaucracy was pulled up by the roots and taken out of civil society, so to speak( 139 “0ts place was taken by an ultramodern, highly centrali&ed, salaried government apparatus whose top echelons consisted of the cabinet and the conseil d’état and
whose tentacles spread uniformly into every département and arrondissement $( 1"< rench “ince the Revolution had eliminated the sociéte´ d’états as well as the provincial parliaments, Lattening and atomi&ing society, the power of the rench bureaucracy soon reached unprecedented heights$ uring the ne't century the forms of government were designed to undergo many changes from empire to absolute monarchy to constitutional monarchy to republic and Mafter another empireN to republic again$ Each time a revolution took place the administrative structure was shaken$ owever, after a few individuals had been e'ecuted or dismissed, it emerged stronger than before6 much as the waves of the ocean do not a2ect the underlying currents, so the foundations laid in 1#<<3 have, in many ways, survived to the present day$( 1"< “0n the event, the +ritish government took several measures to moderni&e the country5s administration( 1"1$ “%hese steps had gone into e2ect only when the Revolutionary and Japoleonic *ars broke out and gave government more important things to worry about than +entham5s KKfelici:c calculus,($$$( 1"1 “Jew legislation was passed, barring members of =arliament from holding o4ces6 ne't, in the 1#"harles %revelyan led to the institution of the modern civil service with regular entrance e'aminations, a promotion ladder, retirement pensions, and a :'ed if sometimes whimsical way of doing business$( 1"1 “%hough the details varied, in all countries the century and a half after 1!"# was characteri&ed above all by the growth in the power of state bureaucracy, both that part whose function was internal administration and the division responsible for e'ternal a2airs( 1"1A)$ “%hough its pace varied, the growth in the number and power of the bureaucracy that has been documented in this section took place regardless of the state5s lineage, i$e$, whether it was absolute, constitutional, or parliamentarian6 had been set up by armed coercion, as was mostly the case in rance, 8ustria, and =russia, or with the aid of capital as in the Jetherlands and, in a di2erent way, England6 and ultimately even whether it was national or multinational, centrali&ed or federal, monarchical or republican$ 0f la&y rulers such as England5s enry 000 and rance5s Couis D found themselves trapped and sidetracked by their own bureaucracies so, though for the opposite reasons, did industrious ones such as pain5s =hilip 00 and =russia5s rederick the Great$ 0f hereditary rulers enHoying lifetime power failed to master the machinery they themselves had created, so, though again for the opposite reasons, did elected ones with their much shorter terms of o4ce$ 8s egel recogni&ed, by the beginning of the nineteenth century the point had been reached where the bureaucracy itself became the state, elevating itself high above civil society and turning itself into the latter5s master$( 1")A3
>$ econd part$
“econdly, 0 shall show how that structure strengthened its hold over society by de:ning its borders, collecting all sorts of information about it, and ta'ing it$(
