Bureaucrats of the empire or the empire of bureaucrats? On the development of the professional civil servant in the 19th-century Europe
Authors:   Kostroma State University, Turygin Alexander A. , Zimina Evgeniia V. ,   Kostroma State University
Published: December 2024

Under the influence of the French Revolution, many European countries underwent key changes in various areas. One of those was the reform of the civil service system and the emergence of a professional class of officials. The paper examines the development of public service in Prussia, France and the British Empire in the 19th century. The foundations laid down during this period influenced European politics and even shape the contemporary image of Germany, France and the UK around the world. The public services of these countries were created in different conditions and reflected national values. Thus, the paper describes three different types of civil servants: Prussian civil servants who followed the ideals of quality and excellence; French officials who pursued their own goals; British gentlemen who created the image of the Empire in the colonies. The study used the method of studying sources and primary sources, as well as the method of content analysis to compile a collective image of an official in historical and fiction literature. We have studied both the works of classical historians and philosophers of the 19th century (Saint-Just, Mirabeau, Arnold, etc.), and modern domestic and foreign researchers (Bahlov, Uvarova, Duffield). The study of literary portraits of an official was based on the works of Balzac, Kafka, Kipling, and Verne. The study found that despite national differences, officials were the product of a new system that required educational reforms designed specifically to train civil servants, qualifying exams, and rigorous selection procedures. The new system replaced patronage and appointments by the monarch and transformed the civil servant from an agent of the king or church to a professional who served the state, although in France and Germany the idea of the reform was supported by the monarch, and in the British Empire, it was based on the parliamentary tradition. The relevance of the topic is explained by the comprehensive, comparative study of the history of professional bureaucracy in Western Europe. Methodologically, using the example of three countries (Prussia, France and the British Empire), the authors show the transformation of a "monarchical state" into a civil one, which was an objective consequence of the deep revolutionary upheavals of the late 18th century. The emerging models of bureaucracy illustrate the reaction of the ruling elites to the French Revolution. Power, understood from the point of view of Max Weber, as a "form of domination", ceases to be "estate". On the contrary, it is extrapolated to institutional structures that already have characteristics regulated by civil norms rather than class. Proceeding from this, the purpose of this study is to substantiate the trend of an objective transformation of the model of public administration in Prussia, France and the British Empire, revealing their specific historical conditions in each of the countries.