Section: Social Complexity
Subsection: Bureaucracy characteristics

Full Time Bureaucrat

full-time bureaucrats refer to full-time administrative specialists. code this absent if administrative duties are performed by generalists such as chiefs and subchiefs. also code it absent if state officials perform multiple functions, e.g. combining administrative tasks with military duties. note that this variable shouldn't be coded 'present' only on the basis of the presence of specialized government buildings; there must be some additional evidence of functional specialization in government.   (See here)
Contributors:

Variable Definition
Polity The Seshat Polity ID
Year(s) The years for which we have the data. [negative = BCE]
Tag [Evidenced, Disputed, Suspected, Inferred, Unknown]
Verified A Seshat Expert has approved this piece of data.

Variable Definition
full_time_bureaucrat The absence or presence of full time bureaucrat for a polity.

# Polity Year(s) Full Time Bureaucrat Description   Edit
21
(Austria - Habsburg Dynasty II)
1867 CE 1918 CE
present
None
22
(Soviet Union)
1923 CE 1991 CE
present
None
23
(Early Tana 2)
Full Year Range of Early Tana 2 is assumed.
[750, 999]
present
EMPTY_COMMENT
24
(Kingdom of Sicily - Hohenstaufen and Angevin dynasties)
Full Year Range of Kingdom of Sicily - Hohenstaufen and Angevin dynasties is assumed.
[1194, 1281]
present
None
25
(Early Tana 1)
Full Year Range of Early Tana 1 is assumed.
[500, 749]
present
"A central hierarchy or ruling strata to control social relations and enforce political order would be necessary to co-ordinate the market workforce and other important functional relations of the site. The existence of an administration can be inferred firstly from the general organisation. The sheer scale of economic activities strongly suggests that such a central paramount authority was established. Secondly, the higher returns that spilled out from the wealth in circulation and increase in the output from craft production and transportation must have provided adequate stimuli for wealthy and elite groups to exercise their control over these sectors and consequently promote the growth of social hierarchy and differentiation." [Juma 2004]
26
(Kamarupa Kingdom)
Full Year Range of Kamarupa Kingdom is assumed.
[350, 1130]
present
"Officers associated with revenue administration included uparika (officer in charge of the recovery of the uparika tax), uthetika (officer in charge of collecting the uthetika impost) etc. Besides them, there were other officers like Bhandagaradhikrita and Kostagharika, who were in charge of the royal store-house and the treasury, respectively. [...] There were some junior officers like clerks, accountants and scribes attached to the department." [Baruah 1985, p. 143]
27
(Kakatiya Dynasty)
Full Year Range of Kakatiya Dynasty is assumed.
[1175, 1324]
absent
"Although I am using the word “officer” to designate the lower echelon of Kakatiya subordinates, I do not mean to imply that a coherent administrative structure existed. It is impossible to sustain any notion of bureaucracy or of a structure of discrete official positions in view of the unsystematic distribution of the so‐called administrative titles. For one thing, an individual could hold more than one title concurrently, as we find in the case of Bhaskaradeva who was both a mahāpradhāni and a gaja‐sāhiṇi (SII 6.622). Furthermore, numerous men at any given point in time simultaneously possessed titles like mahāpradhāni (chief minister), sakala‐sēnāpati (commander‐in‐chief), and gaja‐sāhiṇi (commander of the elephant corps). Hence, we have to discard any notion of a rigid organizational setup in which a single individual occupied only one post at a time. Mahāpradhāni, in particular, should be understood as a signifier of rank rather than as an occupational designation." [Talbot 2001, p. 157]
28
(La Mula-Sarigua)
Full Year Range of La Mula-Sarigua is assumed.
[-1300, 200]
absent
Administrative structures in Central Panama during this period are not well understood, and the evidence for social stratification and centralized decision-making is weak. [Hoopes_Peregrine_Ember 2001] Panamanian societies before Spanish contact produced no written records, [Mendizábal_Archibold 2004, p. 14] so it is not clear how bureaucrats would have performed their duties.
29
(Late Greater Coclé)
Full Year Range of Late Greater Coclé is assumed.
[1000, 1515]
absent
Helms argues that 'Although the ethnohistoric data are very scanty, some degree of "internal" administrative associations and responsibilities surely existed between the commoner population of a given territory or "province" and the elite cabras, sacos and/or quevis of that territory, who at the very least accepted generalized stewardship of the overall well-being, socially and ideologically, of the population of a given ancestral territory'. [Helms_Brumfiel_Fox 1994, p. 56] She believes cabras, the lowest-ranked elites, would have served as 'local administrators', [Helms_Brumfiel_Fox 1994, p. 56] but does not speculate on whether they were full-time. The evidence does not seem strong enough to justify coding full-time specialist bureaucrats present.
30
(Early Tana 1)
Full Year Range of Early Tana 1 is assumed.
[500, 749]
present
EMPTY_COMMENT
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