| # | Polity | Coded Value | Tags | Year(s) | Edit | Desc |
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"In 107 CE, Emperor An of the Eastern Han Dynasty (r. 106-25 CE) issued an edict that proclaimed, "I summon the excellencies and ministers, the officials of the Inner and Outer Courts, the governors of commanderies, and chancellors of the princely kingdoms to recommend one person in each of the following categories: those who are capable and good and sincere and upright, those with special powers and skills, those with political and administrative talents, those who understand the past and present, and those who are able to speak out frankly and admonish unflinchingly.""
[1]
"Some high-level government branches also tried to recruit lower-leverl government officials in a similar manner (bi zhao)." [1] By the late second century bureaucratic posts "openly sold to the highest bidder." [2] [1]: (Zhao 2015, 69) Zhao, Dingxin in Scheidel, Walter. ed. 2015. State Power in Ancient China and Rome. Oxford University Press. [2]: (Keay 2009, 177) |
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"In 107 CE, Emperor An of the Eastern Han Dynasty (r. 106-25 CE) issued an edict that proclaimed, "I summon the excellencies and ministers, the officials of the Inner and Outer Courts, the governors of commanderies, and chancellors of the princely kingdoms to recommend one person in each of the following categories: those who are capable and good and sincere and upright, those with special powers and skills, those with political and administrative talents, those who understand the past and present, and those who are able to speak out frankly and admonish unflinchingly.""
[1]
"Some high-level government branches also tried to recruit lower-leverl government officials in a similar manner (bi zhao)." [1] By the late second century bureaucratic posts "openly sold to the highest bidder." [2] [1]: (Zhao 2015, 69) Zhao, Dingxin in Scheidel, Walter. ed. 2015. State Power in Ancient China and Rome. Oxford University Press. [2]: (Keay 2009, 177) |
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"In 107 CE, Emperor An of the Eastern Han Dynasty (r. 106-25 CE) issued an edict that proclaimed, "I summon the excellencies and ministers, the officials of the Inner and Outer Courts, the governors of commanderies, and chancellors of the princely kingdoms to recommend one person in each of the following categories: those who are capable and good and sincere and upright, those with special powers and skills, those with political and administrative talents, those who understand the past and present, and those who are able to speak out frankly and admonish unflinchingly.""
[1]
"Some high-level government branches also tried to recruit lower-leverl government officials in a similar manner (bi zhao)." [1] By the late second century bureaucratic posts "openly sold to the highest bidder." [2] [1]: (Zhao 2015, 69) Zhao, Dingxin in Scheidel, Walter. ed. 2015. State Power in Ancient China and Rome. Oxford University Press. [2]: (Keay 2009, 177) |
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"The most effective of these were talented local men who rose through the ranks."
[1]
"Slaves, just as in Baghdad, could rise to high positions of authority, and the palace school for court slaves is described in detail by Nizam al-Mulk in his Siydsat-ndma."
[2]
However, later on the government was a Turkish military ruling class.
[3]
[1]: (Starr 2013) Starr, S. Frederick. 2013. Lost Enlightenment: Central Asia’s Golden Age from the Arab Conquest to Tamerlane. Princeton University Press. Princeton. [2]: (Frye 1975, 143) Frye, Richard Nelson. 1975. The Cambridge History of Iran, Volume 4. Cambridge University Press. Cambridge. [3]: (Negmatov 1997, 84) Negmatov, N N. in Asimov, M S and Bosworth, C E eds. 1997. History of Civilizations of Central Asia. Volume IV. Part I. UNESCO. |
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"The most effective of these were talented local men who rose through the ranks."
[1]
"Slaves, just as in Baghdad, could rise to high positions of authority, and the palace school for court slaves is described in detail by Nizam al-Mulk in his Siydsat-ndma."
[2]
However, later on the government was a Turkish military ruling class.
[3]
[1]: (Starr 2013) Starr, S. Frederick. 2013. Lost Enlightenment: Central Asia’s Golden Age from the Arab Conquest to Tamerlane. Princeton University Press. Princeton. [2]: (Frye 1975, 143) Frye, Richard Nelson. 1975. The Cambridge History of Iran, Volume 4. Cambridge University Press. Cambridge. [3]: (Negmatov 1997, 84) Negmatov, N N. in Asimov, M S and Bosworth, C E eds. 1997. History of Civilizations of Central Asia. Volume IV. Part I. UNESCO. |
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"Ubaydullah Khan sought to make some departure from the established conventions: rather than confine his choice to members of the distinguished, old-fashioned nobility, he began to recruit to his service the sons of craftsmen and merchants; as his contemporary Mir Muhammad Amin Bukhari noted in his Ubaydullah-nama [The History of Ubaydullah], people ‘of humble origin’ were promoted by him. ‘The son of a slave was made a court official,’ grumbles the indignant historian. Ubaydullah Khan offered ’the little man the places of great men’, made him ‘a ruler of state, a leading emir, and the ornament of the military caste, thereby deviating from the course of previous rulers and from the decisions and habits of his forefathers.’"
[1]
Coded as inferred absent from Ubaydullah’s reign because no regular, institutional procedures are mentioned. AD
[1]: (Mukminova 2003, 51) |
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"Ubaydullah Khan sought to make some departure from the established conventions: rather than confine his choice to members of the distinguished, old-fashioned nobility, he began to recruit to his service the sons of craftsmen and merchants; as his contemporary Mir Muhammad Amin Bukhari noted in his Ubaydullah-nama [The History of Ubaydullah], people ‘of humble origin’ were promoted by him. ‘The son of a slave was made a court official,’ grumbles the indignant historian. Ubaydullah Khan offered ’the little man the places of great men’, made him ‘a ruler of state, a leading emir, and the ornament of the military caste, thereby deviating from the course of previous rulers and from the decisions and habits of his forefathers.’"
[1]
Coded as inferred absent from Ubaydullah’s reign because no regular, institutional procedures are mentioned. AD
[1]: (Mukminova 2003, 51) |
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“Finally, the crown seems to have actively sought to provide tangible and enticing rewards to those provincial governors who served faithfully in Spanish America, either by promoting them to more important and reputed posts within the Indies, or by granting them distinctions and appointments in Spain. Upon his return to the Peninsula in 1731, Antonio Manso Maldonado, was appointed interim, and then proprietary, governor of Ceuta; he received a promotion to the rank of teniente general of the Spanish armies in 1734 and was finally appointed captain-general of Guipuzcoa in 1739.”(Eissa-Barroso 2017: 214) Eissa-Barroso, Francisco A. 2017. The Spanish Monarchy and the Creation of the Viceroyalty of New Granada (1717–1739). Leiden: Brill. https://www.zotero.org/groups/1051264/seshat_databank/items/XNET89MW
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“The structure of civil-service compensation was then further modified by the Liberals in early 1873, when the (Adolf) Auersperg Cabinet introduced a major bill to create eleven rank classes (Rangklassen) and systematic promotion opportunities based on length of service, along with salary increases that in some cases amounted to 30% to 40%, including various additional supplements.”
[1]
[1]: (Boyer 2022: 131) Boyer, John W. 2022. Austria, 1867–1955. Oxford: Oxford University Press. https://www.zotero.org/groups/1051264/seshat_databank/items/CG3P4KKD |
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The Hmong population was subject to Chinese administrative integration even before the republican period: ’From Song on, in periods of relative peace, government control was exercised through the tusi system of indirect rule by appointed native headmen who collected taxes, organized corvée, and kept the peace. Miao filled this role in Hunan and eastern Guizhou, but farther west the rulers were often drawn from a hereditary Yi nobility, a system that lasted into the twentieth century. In Guizhou, some tusi claimed Han ancestry, but were probably drawn from the ranks of assimilated Bouyei, Dong, and Miao. Government documents refer to the "Sheng Miao" (raw Miao), meaning those living in areas beyond government control and not paying taxes or labor service to the state. In the sixteenth century, in the more pacified areas, the implementation of the policy of gaitu guiliu began the replacement of native rulers with regular civilian and military officials, a few of whom were drawn from assimilated minority families. Land became a commodity, creating both landlords and some freeholding peasants in the areas affected. In the Yunnan-Guizhou border area, the tusi system continued and Miao purchase of land and participation in local markets was restricted by law until the Republican period (1911-1949).’
[1]
’Throughout the Republican period, the government favored a policy of assimilation for the Miao and strongly discouraged expressions of ethnicity. Southwestern China came under Communist government control by 1951, and Miao participated in land reform, collectivization, and the various national political campaigns.’
[1]
The quasi-feudal Yi nobility was rewarded with labour services performed by the Hmong tenants working their land and not subject to formal examination or promotion. Officials serving in the military and civilian administrations were likely examined and promoted on the basis of demonstrated merit, as suggested by the degree of formalization presented in primary and secondary sources: ’Like Kweiyang, the hsien city of Lung-li was in an open plain, but a narrow one. The space between the mountains was sufficient for a walled town of one long street between the east and west gates and one or two on either side. There were fields outside the city walls. Its normal population was between three and four thousand, augmented during the war by the coming of some “companies” for the installation and repair of charcoal burners in motor lorries and the distillation of grain alcohol for fuel, an Army officers’ training school, and the engineers’ corps of the railway being built through the town from Kwangsi to Kweiyang. To it the people of the surrounding contryside, including at least three groups of Miao and the Chung-chia, went to market. It was also the seat of the hsien government and contained a middle school, postal and telegraph offices, and a cooperative bank, with all of which the non-Chinese, as well as the Chinese, had some dealings. A few of the more well-to-do families sent one of their boys to the middle school. Cases which could not be settled in the village or by the lien pao official, who was also a Chinese, were of necessity brought to the hsien court, as well as cases which involved both Miao and Chinese.’
[2]
The administration relied on clerks and other professionals, as evidenced in primary sources: ’Article 9. The secretary of the Bureau will receive his orders from the chief of the Bureau, and will attend to such matters as the writing of official despatches of the Bureau, the keeping of the archives, and directing the copying of documents. Article 10. The clerks will receive orders from the chief of the Bureau, and, under the direction of the department head, will assist in carrying out the various duties of the department. Article 11. The copyists will receive their orders from the chief of the Bureau and the departmental heads, and, under the direction of department members and the secretary, shall be responsible for copying despatches and telegrams.’
[3]
We have provisionally assumed that petty officials in the military bureaucracy were subject to some form of examination and merit promotion. This is open to re-evaluation.
[1]: Diamond, Norma: eHRAF Cultural Summary for the Miao [2]: Mickey, Margaret Portia 1947. “Cowrie Shell Miao Of Kweichow”, 40b [3]: Ling, Shun-sheng, Yifu Ruey, and Lien-en Tsao 1947. “Report On An Investigation Of The Miao Of Western Hunan”, 179 |
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The following quote refers to continuity between the late Roman Empire and the Ostrogothic Kingdom under Theoderic. It seems reasonable to infer that the "traditional structures of patronage and career options" that Theoderic preserved were also present during Odovacer’s interregnum. "Appointment to offices within the palatine bureaucracy was generally bestowed upon members of the Roman aristocracy, which meant that traditional structures of patronage and career options remained largely intact."
[1]
[1]: (Heydemann 2016: 25) Heydemann, G. 2016. The Ostrogothic Kingdom: Ideologies and Transitions. In Arnold, Bjornlie and Sessa (eds) A Companion to Ostrogothic Italy pp. 17-46. Brill. Seshat URL: https://www.zotero.org/groups/1051264/seshat_databank/items/ZKWTCNSM/library |
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permanent officials within the king’s household, probably sourced from the aristocracy.
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Code for Early Carolingian
but informal, i.e. if the rules believed a bureaucrat was competent the bureaucrat was promoted. |
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Positions hereditary.
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Positions hereditary.
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The following excerpts summarise the early development of Ottoman bureaucracy. They seem to suggest that at this stage, not only were only some elements of bureaucracy in place rather than the whole system, which came later, but what bureaucracy existed was patrimonial rather than meritocratic.
"The Ottoman bureaucracy is defined here as the men who were paid to manage the affairs of the government: specifically the members of the scribal service and financial officers (kalemiye), along with the ubiquitous secretaries who accompanied every bureau in the empire. […] It is not until the reign of Süleyman in the sixteenth century that the kalemiye and the government as a whole may properly be called a bureaucracy. As the Ottoman armies pushed west into Hungary and Austria and south and east to the Indian Ocean, the influx of new territories brought about increases in the bureaucracy’s size, influence and degrees of specialization and professionalization. So while the origins of the Ottoman bureaucracy lay in the patrimonial house of the sultan and while its general contours reflect this fact, the administration developed characteristics of an impersonal, predictable and rationalized organization as it expanded. This process of bureaucratization did not come about immediately or easily. It took time, and people continued to rely on patrimonial relations to advance in rank while adopting bureaucratic styles. The transition mostly took place during Süleyman’s reign, although, once established, bureaucracy continued to coexist with elements of patrimonialism for centuries. […] Looking at the core regions of the empire, we quickly get a sense of the bureaucratic features of Ottoman rule that had formed by the end of the sixteenth century. In these regions, administrators and judges were appointed from the capital on a rotating basis, rules of office were codified and passed down, training was formalized, career lines and hierarchies were present, and universalistic principles as well as an ‘ethos’ of office – being an Ottoman bureaucrat – were all in evidence. Elements of the system – which had roots in the traditions of Near Eastern and Islamic governance as well as Byzantine land practices – were already discernable in the fourteenth century when the house of Osman was still an Anatolian principality." [1] [1]: (Barkey 2016: ) Barkey, K. 2016. The Ottoman Empire (1299–1923): The Bureaucratization of Patrimonial Authority. In Crooks and Parsons (ed) Empires and Bureaucracy in World History: From Late Antiquity to the Twentieth Century pp. 102-126. Cambridge University Press. https://www.zotero.org/groups/1051264/seshat_databank/items/JGQJ29PI/library |
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"While the necessary reliance on archaeological evidence has ensured that many aspects of Harappan civilization, such as economic activities, settlements, industry, and biological anthropology, have been investigated as well as or better than those of literate civilizations, the absence of intelligible documentary material is a major handicap to understanding Harappan social and political organization and has put some aspects of Harappan life, such as the law, quite beyond cognizance."
[1]
[1]: (McIntosh 2008: 245) Jane McIntosh. 2008. The Ancient Indus Valley. Santa Barbara; Denver; Oxford: ABC-CLIO. |
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Unclear.
Nizami suggests a rudimentary bureaucratic system before the conquest of Ghazna--likely, perhaps, one that is not meritocratic. “Government machinery in the earlier period was confined to the management of essential government functions, but when Ghazna came under Ghurid control, it was natural that the administrative institutions as developed by the Ghaznavids should be adopted. A certain number of features of the Seljuq administrative system were also taken over. […] The vizier was the head of the civil administration.” [1] Thomas suggests that nepotism was prevalent in higher administrative ranks, which perhaps suggests that it was present all the way down the ladder as well. Moreover, Thomas briefly refers to the lack of a robust, coherent centralized imperial administrative structure. “… in the center and west of the Ghurid empire, Ghiyath al-Din continued the Ghurid tradition of assigning appanages, or provinces, to his relatives, who displayed varying degrees of loyalty and were prone to flee in the face of adversity. This lack of a robust, coherent centralized imperial administrative structure contributed to the demise of the dynasty and its empire.” [2] At the same time, Husseini points to the existence of bureaucratic officials, though much key information about them appears to be unknown, including whether they received a state salary, which would help us determine whether or not they were professional, and therefore may have received some sort of official training. Equally, however, Husseini does suggest that the role of muqaddam may have been assigned to people for their knowledge of a region rather than through nepotism. “Persian documents from Ghur offer new information on the administrative role of the Ghurid Muqaddam. In all the relevant documents, the term Muqaddam is specifically associated with the village (qarya). The Muqaddam was an influential person within his village, had good knowledge of his region, and was recognized as the village headmen by the administration in Ghur. In KMS 36, the Muqaddams of a place called Bandalizh are mentioned alongside the notables (Khwajagān), suggesting that the Muqaddams were important figures in their villages. In some documents they are praised with a specific formula, dāma ʿizzahum (“may their glory continue!”). Possibly, their knowledge about the village and their social position as local notables paved the way for them to be the Muqaddam. “Whether the Muqaddam was appointed by the state is not clear from the KMS documents. However, the Muqaddam is mentioned in documents issued by the fiscal department suggesting that he worked for the state. Whether the Muqaddam received a state salary or was entitled to a portion of the yield is also not mentioned. It is also not known if the state share was taken after the harvest was collected and winnowed or before that. In any case, the Muqaddam was allowed to borrow grain from the government stores if he needed it. We know this because one of the KMS documents include a letter in which certain Muqaddams are ordered to return the grain that they borrowed. “The main responsibility of the Muqaddam was to collect ʿushr when it was ready and to check if his village paid the state share in full.33 In KMS 34, the Muqaddams of Bandalizh were asked to make sure that all ordinary (ʿām) and elite (khās)̣ people paid the taxes.34 The collection of ʿushr was done in the presence of the state’s agent, the Muʿtamid. The Muqaddam had no right to collect the state share without the Muʿtamid’s presence and without his direct supervision.” [3] [1]: (Nizami 1999, 194) K A Nizami. The Ghurids. M S Asimov. C E Bosworth. eds. 1999. History of Civilizations of Central Asia. Volume IV. Part One. Motilal Banarsidass Publishers Private Limited. Delhi. [2]: Thomas, David C. 2016. Ghurid Sultanate. In MacKenzie (ed) The Encyclopedia of Empires. John Wiley & Sons. Seshat URL: https://www.zotero.org/groups/1051264/seshat_databank/items/EJJTSHCM/library [3]: (Husseini 2021, 98-99) Husseini, Said Reza. 2021. The Muqaddam Represented in the pre-Mongol Persian Documents from Ghur. Afghanistan 4(2): 91–113. Seshat URL: https://www.zotero.org/groups/1051264/seshat_databank/items/ID6DBB75/library |
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The Omanhene was chosen from royal lineages and assisted by multiple officials: ’The several Akan peoples each consist of a single kingdom ruled by a king, OMANHENE (lit. "state-chief"). The king comes from whatever clan provides the royal line in a particular kingdom, and is chosen in rotation from one of this clan’s kingly lineages (there are often other, non-kingly, lineages within a royal clan). He is elected by various officials, of which the most important is the OHEMMAA (or similar terms; lit. "woman-chief" and usually translated in the literature as "queen-mother") although she is typically not the actual mother but a senior woman of the clan, who "knows" genealogy and may have her own court and be assisted by various officials. Criteria for the selection of a king include assumed competence, general personality, and the fact that kingly lines usually rotate in providing the king. Once selected, the king is "enstooled"-that is, seated upon the stool of kingship. His former status is annulled symbolically, his debts and lawsuits are settled, his clothing and personal possessions st ored; he is then symbolically reborn and given the identity of one of his forebears. He assumes the royal name and title borne by that previous ruler. A king has his palace, in which work members of his court. Details vary considerably, but, in general, the royal officials comprise several categories: those from the royal clan itself; those representing the remainder of the people; and ritual officials, drummers, and others who were considered the "children" of the king, being recruited from many sources, including royal slaves, and often observing patrilineal descent. The king is a sacred person. He may not be observed eating or drinking and may not be heard to speak nor be spoken to publicly (speaking only through a spokesman or "linguist," OKYEAME). He is covered from the sky by a royal umbrella, avoids contact with the earth by wearing royal sandals, and wears insignia of gold and elaborate and beautiful cloth of royal design. In the past, an Akan king held power over the life and death of his subjects and slaves. These powers were eroded during colonial rule, but today an Akan king remains extremely powerful, representing his people both politically an d ritually and acting as a focus for the identity of his kingdom. By far the most powerful is the king of Ashanti, who has the largest of all the Akan kingdoms, the Asantehene at Kumasi.’
[1]
Councillors aided the Omanhene in judicial matters, but there was no formalized system of examination or merit promotion for them: ’But as a man attracts the favourable attention of the observant ones of his tribe, as he more and more impresses the people by his ability in their public gatherings, by the soundness of his opinion, by the depth of his knowledge of the customary laws and traditions, by his skill in public debate, by his keen interest in public affairs, by his bravery or warlike qualities, or by some other qualifications, he acquires public influence, and is accepted, in a greater or less degree, as a public man, representative of a portion of the community. Success in trade, or other personal attributes, are likewise qualifications for this post. The position of such a person is definitely confirmed when the head ruler with his council invites him to be a councillor. Attending an Omanhene or Ohene are always to be found some councillors, who assist him in hearing and determining lawsuits and administering justice. In the town of the [Page 11] Omanhene these men perform many of the duties of officers, who in European countries are known as ministers of state. It is worthy of note that, as a general rule, a Tufuhene is not a member of the Council (Begwa) of the Ohene or Omanhene.’
[2]
[1]: Gilbert, Michelle, Lagacé, Robert O. and Skoggard, Ian: eHRAF Cultural Summary for the Akan [2]: Sarbah, John Mensah 1968. “Fanti National Constitution: A Short Treatise On The Constitution And Government Of The Fanti, Asanti, And Other Akan Tribes Of West Africa Together With A Brief Account Of The Discovery Of The Gold Coast By Portuguese Navigators, A Short Narration Of Early English Voyages, And A Study Of The Rise Of British Gold Coast Jurisdiction, Etc., Etc.”, 10p |
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inferred from discussion in sources of development/introduction in later periods
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The White Rajahs themselves have been characterized as ’benevolent autocrats’ and were accordingly not formally examined or promoted as such: ’Sir Charles Anthony Johnson Brooke (b. June 3, 1829, Berrow, Somerset, Eng.-d. May 17, 1917, Cirencester, Gloucestershire), who adopted the surname Brooke, became the second raja. The government of Charles Brooke has been described as a benevolent autocracy. Charles himself had spent much of his life among the Iban people of Sarawak, knew their language, and respected their beliefs and customs. He made extensive use of down-river Malay chiefs as administrators, and encouraged selective immigration of Chinese agriculturalists, while the dominant indigenous group, the Ibans, were employed in military service. In general, social and economic changes were limited in impact, shielding the inhabitants from both the benefits and the hardships of Western-style development.’
[1]
But the administrators employed in their developing bureaucracy probably were: ’Sir Charles Vyner de Windt Brooke (b. Sept. 26, 1874, London-d. May 9, 1963, London) was the third and last “white raja” (1917-46). He joined the Sarawak administration in 1897. After World War I, a boom in rubber and oil drew Sarawak further into the world economy, and for that and other reasons the state embarked on gradual modernization of its institutions. Public services were developed, a Sarawak penal code modelled on that of British India was introduced in 1924, and there was some extension of educational opportunity.’
[1]
The regional-level positions introduced for the Iban specifically were subject to appointment or election, not examination or formal promotion based on merit: ’The appointment to Penghulu is salaried. Before the Japanese occupation it was made by the government for life; Penghulus are now appointed for a limited period (of five years) on the basis of a local election. Although the office is not hereditary, it is not uncommon for the Penghulu to be succeeded by his son or other relative. This is especially true when a Penghulu has been conspicuously successful in office. Since profound knowledge of customary law and precedent, respected judgement, and wide acquaintance with the area administered are prerequisites, the son, son-in-law, or other close relative of a retiring Penghulu is considered more likely to possess these than any other person. The tendency is, therefore, to look first for suitable candidates among the Penghulu’s immediate relatives, and only if these are found wanting, to seek elsewhere. Where a particular Penghulu has lost public respect, a rival leader for the area may evolve, and he naturally becomes a strong candidate for the succession.’
[2]
[1]: http://www.britannica.com/topic/Brooke-Raj [2]: Jensen, Erik 1974. “Iban And Their Religion”, 23 |
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Village-level leaders such as headmen or elders were not subject to examination, but chosen locally even in the post-colonial period: ‘After Playfair, we get some accounts on the institution of nokma by Robbins Burling (1963), D.N. Majumdar (1966), C. Nakane (1967). Burling mentioned about the mode of succession to the office of a nokma who looks for a nephew, a young man from his own lineage and preferably from his own village, who will become his son-in-law and an official heir. Burling also pointed out, the lands of the nokma is identifiable in terms of his possession of title to village land (a’King). When a nokma owns such a piece of land, he is referred to as a’King nokma. The nokmas were not supposed to sell a’King land without consulting the villagers and that too never to an outsider.’
[1]
Regional officials associated with the British system, such as laskars and sordars, were not formally examined either: ‘Many of the disputes of the Garos decided in their village Panchayats. When a man has some complaints against another he reports them to the Nokma or the village-head. If the nature of the complaints is simple, the Nokma in a meeting of the few leading persons of the village, decides the dispute; but if the nature of the complaints is complicated and not easy of solution the Nokma reports the matter to the Laskar. The Laskar is a very important and influential man in the Garo Hills District. The hills areas are divided into some elekas and each of such elekas is placed under a Laskar for convenient collection of the house tax as well as for deciding the disputes of small nature locally. The Laskar need not essentially be a literate man, worldly prudence is enough for the management of his eleka. In practice a Laskar wields immense influence in his eleka.’
[2]
‘The loskor has several duties. He collects the house tax within his district, keeping a fixed portion of this as his own payment, and he organizes work parties to keep the roads open. His most important duty, however, is to supervise and try to settle legal disputes. The loskor sometimes appoints one or more assistants called sordars, to whom the District Council pays an annual stipend of 100 Rupees, together with a shirt and a pair of short pants. Saljing, who lived in Rengsanggri, was a sordar; but not every village had one, and a sordar does not have jurisdiction over a particular village. As a general assistant to the loskor he may assist in collecting information about a dispute, and in petty matters a sordar may sit as representative of the loskor and preside at a trial. The loskorship demands a large part of a man’s time, but a sordar spends most of his time working in his fields like his neighbors.’
[3]
The precise structure and geographical extent of Zamindar rule remains to be confirmed. The Zamindars were aristocrats from neighbouring territories attempting to collect taxes from the local population, and therefore should not be considered bureaucrats. ’Zamindar, in India, a holder or occupier (dār) of land (zamīn). The root words are Persian, and the resulting name was widely used wherever Persian influence was spread by the Mughals or other Indian Muslim dynasties. The meanings attached to it were various. In Bengal the word denoted a hereditary tax collector who could retain 10 percent of the revenue he collected. In the late 18th century the British government made these zamindars landowners, thus creating a landed aristocracy in Bengal and Bihar that lasted until Indian independence (1947). In parts of north India (e.g., Uttar Pradesh), a zamindar denoted a large landowner with full proprietary rights. More generally in north India, zamindar denoted the cultivator of the soil or joint proprietors holding village lands in common as joint heirs. In Maratha territories the name was generally applied to all local hereditary revenue officers.’
[4]
‘There remains no record of when the Garos migrated and settled in their present habitat. Their traditional lore as recorded by Major Playfair points out that they migrated to the area from Tibet. There is evidence that the area was inhabited by the stone-using peoples-Palaeolithic and Neolithic groups-in the past. After settling in the hills, Garos initially had no close and constant contact with the inhabitants of the adjoining plains. In 1775-76 the Zamindars of Mechpara and Karaibari (at present in the Goalpara and Dhubri districts of Assam) led expeditions onto the Garo hills.’
[5]
‘In pre-British days the areas adjacent to the present habitat of the Garo were under the Zeminders of Karaibari, Kalumalupara, Habraghat, Mechpara and Sherpore. Garos of the adjoining areas had to struggle constantly with these Zeminders. Whenever the employees of the Zeminders tried to collect taxes or to oppress the Garo in some way or other, they retaliated by coming down to the plains and murdering ryots of the Zeminders. In 1775-76 the Zeminders of Mechpara and Karaibari led expeditions to the hills near about their Zeminderies and subjugated a portion of what is at present the Garo Hills district. The Zeminder of Karaibari appointed Rengtha or Pagla, a Garo as his subordinate.’
[6]
[1]: Chakrabarti, S. B., and G. Baruah 1995. “Institution Of Nokmaship In Garo Hills: Some Observations”, 76 [2]: Choudhury, Bhupendranath 1958. “Some Cultural And Linguistic Aspects Of The Garos”, 40 [3]: Burling, Robbins 1963. “Rengsanggri: Family And Kinship In A Garo Village”, 245 [4]: http://www.britannica.com/topic/zamindar [5]: Roy, Sankar Kumar: eHRAF Cultural Summary for the Garo [6]: Majumdar, Dhirendra Narayan 1978. “Culture Change In Two Garo Villages”, 29 |
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Professions were hereditary
[1]
[1]: http://en.unesco.org/silkroad/sites/silkroad/files/knowledge-bank-article/vol_II%20silk%20road_cities%20and%20urban%20life%20in%20the%20kushan%20kingdom.pdf pp. 301-302 |
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Various ’public works’ are suggestive of some form of administrative organization, but not sufficient to justify coding full-time bureaucrats present.
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"The regimes which followed the Han recruited their civilian and military officials from the hereditary aristocracy (the bureaucracy open to talent was an innovation of the Sui and T’ang era)."
[1]
"The Tuoba ... awarded rank to anyone who raised the appropriate number of men at his own expense." [1] "Wei leaders proved more skillful than other barbarian rulers in winning the loyalty of the defeated peoples. Like many of their predecessers such as Shi Le, the Wei rulers distinguished between a core element in their state, the so-called "compatriots" (guoren), and the mass of ordinary subjects. Almost all military commands and other positions of real power and authority were held by compatriots." [2] However, what does this argue? Dai Wei Hong. 2010. Investigation of the Merit System of the Northern Wei Dynasty [1]: (Peers 1995, 36) [2]: (Graff 2002, 72-73) |
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"The officials belonged to a hereditary class of aristocrats, usually related to the king himself."
[1]
[1]: (The Shang Dynasty, 1600 to 1050 BCE. Spice Digest, Fall 2007. http://iis-db.stanford.edu/docs/117/ShangDynasty.pdf) |
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Inferred from both continuity with preceding period and the period’s political instability and decreased centralisation.
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Inferred from both continuity with preceding period and the period’s political instability and decreased centralisation.
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Decline of the administrative system.
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There were likely no bureaucrats at all in this period.
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there is no indication that there were regular, institutionalized procedures for promotion based on performance.
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[1]
[1]: (Chamberlain 1998, 234-35) Chamberlain, Michael. 1998. “The Crusader Era and the Ayyūbid Dynasty.” In The Cambridge History of Egypt, Vol. 1: Islamic Egypt, 640-1517, edited by Carl F. Petry, 211-41. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Seshat URL: https://www.zotero.org/groups/1051264/seshat_databank/items/itemKey/XQVWZ4VA. |
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At least in theory a system of promotion existed as literary texts refer to it. See D. Crawford, "The Good Official of Ptolemaic Egypt," in H. Maehler and V. Strocka, Das ptolemäische Ägypten. Mainz, 1978:195-202.
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At least in theory a system of promotion existed as literary texts refer to it. See D. Crawford, "The Good Official of Ptolemaic Egypt," in H. Maehler and V. Strocka, Das ptolemäische Ägypten. Mainz, 1978:195-202.
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"Sultans could not afford to estrange the feelings of their Hindu subjects who contributed largely to the material strength and prosperity of the Sultanate. In fact, the sultans soon realized that it was impossible to carry on administration without the assistance of Hindus, therefore appointing them to posts of trust and responsibility."
[1]
Especially from Muhammad bin Tughlaq.
[1]
Some became provincial governors.
[1]
[1]: (Ahmed 2011, 105) Ahmed, Farooqui Salma. 2011. A Comprehensive History of Medieval India: Twelfth to the Mid-Eighteenth Century. Pearson Education India. |
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Formalization was largely absent from village councils and trials: ‘The Rules require the village court to “try all suits and cases in accordance with the customary laws of the village.” Village courts are supposed to be non-professional bodies and decide [minor, village-level] cases in an informal atmosphere without procedural technicalities and formalities.’
[1]
Most local and lower regional offices were staffed by appointment rather than a formal system of merit promotion: ‘After Playfair, we get some accounts on the institution of nokma by Robbins Burling (1963), D.N. Majumdar (1966), C. Nakane (1967). Burling mentioned about the mode of succession to the office of a nokma who looks for a nephew, a young man from his own lineage and preferably from his own village, who will become his son-in-law and an official heir. Burling also pointed out, the lands of the nokma is identifiable in terms of his possession of title to village land (a’King). When a nokma owns such a piece of land, he is referred to as a’King nokma. The nokmas were not supposed to sell a’King land without consulting the villagers and that too never to an outsider. Burling also mentioned about the laskar who is selected by the nokmas. The laskar collects the house tax and tries to settle disputes within the jurisdiction of his operation following the customary rules of the community. Majumdar (1966) mentioned that about 60 laskarships were found in the whole area of his study. He mentioned that the nokmas and the sirdars were under the laskars. A’King nokma is the man who identifies the woman for inheriting the land. This land belongs to a particular clan ( machong). According to Majumdar, a nokma was also expected to report about the unnatural death to a laskar in addition to his role for deciding minor disputes within his a’King.’
[2]
The same is true for regional officials: ‘Many of the disputes of the Garos decided in their village Panchayats. When a man has some complaints against another he reports them to the Nokma or the village-head. If the nature of the complaints is simple, the Nokma in a meeting of the few leading persons of the village, decides the dispute; but if the nature of the complaints is complicated and not easy of solution the Nokma reports the matter to the Laskar. The Laskar is a very important and influential man in the Garo Hills District. The hills areas are divided into some elekas and each of such elekas is placed under a Laskar for convenient collection of the house tax as well as for deciding the disputes of small nature locally. The Laskar need not essentially be a literate man, worldly prudence is enough for the management of his eleka. In practice a Laskar wields immense influence in his eleka.’
[3]
‘The loskor has several duties. He collects the house tax within his district, keeping a fixed portion of this as his own payment, and he organizes work parties to keep the roads open. His most important duty, however, is to supervise and try to settle legal disputes. The loskor sometimes appoints one or more assistants called sordars, to whom the District Council pays an annual stipend of 100 Rupees, together with a shirt and a pair of short pants. Saljing, who lived in Rengsanggri, was a sordar; but not every village had one, and a sordar does not have jurisdiction over a particular village. As a general assistant to the loskor he may assist in collecting information about a dispute, and in petty matters a sordar may sit as representative of the loskor and preside at a trial. The loskorship demands a large part of a man’s time, but a sordar spends most of his time working in his fields like his neighbors.’
[4]
Judges employed at government courts functioned on a higher administrative level than the native village councils and were solely dependent on the colonial or independent Indian district executive. The provisions for judges and other higher-ups are unclear from the sources, but a state salary with appropriate formal examination and a standardized system of merit promotion seems most likely: ‘The judicial officers (who preside over those courts) are appointed by, or with the approval of the Governor. The rules as to administration of justice do not contain specific provisions as to their tenure and salary, or as to their full time or part time character. But most of these matters will be regulated as rules or orders issued under Rule 15 of the Assam Autonomous Districts (Constitution of District Councils) Rules, 1951. It may be of interest to note that there is a specific prohibition against a member of the Executive Committee being appointed to these courts. To this extent, their independence is protected. A legal practitioner can appear before these courts. But in cases where an accused is not arrested, the legal practitioner takes the permission of the District Council Court for such appearance.’
[5]
The British colonial administration probably relied on some formally trained and promoted core officials in the district capital: ‘There was a move for retention of the old institution of nokmaship which could not function with authority since the British administration had appointed the laskars and sardars for the smooth running of their administration from 1824 onwards. The nokmas became only the clan chief and custodian of the clan land a’king. The nokma could not administer effectively as he used to do prior to the British administration in the district. The nokmas were supposed to be well versed with their functions and duties in the villages. The British administration enforced the Rules of Administration of Justice in the Garo Hills both Civil and Police in 1937. These rules have been renewed again and again. They are in use till the present day. The head of the district administration was the Deputy Commissioner and his Assistants and it has never been changed.’
[6]
Lineage elders may be appointed temporarily, but only as advisers: ‘The District Council may, whenever it deems necessary, also nominate two or more local elders well conversant with the tribal usages and customary laws, to sit with the judicial officer of the court as a bench and may, by order, invest such bench with any of the powers conferred or conferrable by or under the rules for the trial of suits and cases based on the tribal usages and the tribal customary laws only.’
[7]
We have assumed that personal merit was factored into appointment decisions, but without a formal system in the case of native officials.
[1]: Marak, Julius 1995. “Garo Customary Laws And The Application Of General Laws In Garo Hills”, 64 [2]: Chakrabarti, S. B., and G. Baruah 1995. “Institution Of Nokmaship In Garo Hills: Some Observations”, 76 [3]: Choudhury, Bhupendranath 1958. “Some Cultural And Linguistic Aspects Of The Garos”, 40 [4]: Burling, Robbins 1963. “Rengsanggri: Family And Kinship In A Garo Village”, 245 [5]: Marak, Kumie R. 1997. “Traditions And Modernity In Matrilineal Tribal Society”, 62 [6]: Marak, Kumie R. 1997. “Traditions And Modernity In Matrilineal Tribal Society”, 170 [7]: Marak, Kumie R. 1997. “Traditions And Modernity In Matrilineal Tribal Society”, 61 |
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"the transmission of one’s professional knowledge from father to son was not a particularly negative tendency for the palace. In the long run, however, it transformed the palace and temple personnel into a series of closed corporations. In other words, members of these elite groups prevented anyone outside this clique from accessing their posts. They also monopolised the technical knowledge needed for the management of these institutions."
[1]
[1]: (Liverani 2014, 196) Liverani, Mario. Tabatabai, Soraia trans. 2014. The Ancient Near East: History, Society and Economy. London: Routledge. Seshat URL: https://www.zotero.org/groups/1051264/seshat_databank/items/itemKey/7DRZQS5Q/q/liverani. |
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Present.
[1]
However, ethnic Persians held the most important civil and military positions
[2]
so this likely was merit promotion among Persians, or perhaps merit promotion among Persians and among other ethnicity but with a bias toward Persians for the most important positions..
[1]: (Farazmand 2002) |
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"Simultaneously with and probably in response to this development, the central bureaucratic apparatus staffed by Iranian urban notables, many of whom had served the Qaraquyunlu Turkmens and the Timurids before the Aqquyunlu conquests, also underwent tremendous expansion and elaboration. Representatives of such important local Iranian families as the Kujuji of Azarbayjan, the Savaji of Persian Iraq, the Sa’idi of Persian Iraq and Fars, the Daylami of Persian Iraq and Gilan, and the Bayhaqi of Khurasan were appointed to supervise the administrative, fiscal, and religious affairs of the government. There is also evidence of an attempt to standardize and regularize the administrative and financial procedures in this period."
[1]
Implies that administrative positions were given to members of elite families.
[1]: (Woods 1998, 108) |
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No mention of regular, institutionalized procedures for promotion based on performance.
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within the confines of the elites who were eligible to hold office there does appear to be a certain amount of recognition of merit, however this operated in a very limited sense and cannot be said to be a meritocracy. the granting of positions was not always based on the merits of the applicants as can be seen from the numerous complaints against officials detailing incompetence.
[1]
[1]: Mass, Jeffrey P., and William B. Hauser (eds). 1985.The Bakufu in Japanese History. Stanford University Press.p.60 |
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There were likely no bureaucrats at all in this period.
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this was the code for the Samanid bureaucracy.
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Many positions appear to have been hereditary. ’In this country there are ministers, generals, astronomers, and other officials, and, below them, all kinds of minor employees; only their names differ from ours. Mostly princes are designated for [official] positions; in other cases those selected offer their daughters as royal concubine.’
[1]
’Administrative officials were classified in four divisions, apparently horizontally arranged, which may have had a geographical basis, but about which little is known (Sahai 1978: 18). At least some administrative posts were hereditary, especially in the Angkorian period. For example, the purohita and the yājaka usually seem to have been hereditary officials and a single family was said to have been in charge of the devarāja cult for a period of 250 years (ibid., 24-25). A number of positions close to the kings (purohita, hotar, guru, ācārya and guṇadośadarśi) are referred to in Angkorian period inscriptions written by officials. These tend to be Sanskrit terms which had religious connotations, but as Vickery (2002: 93) points out, some of these became secular, as in India, and perhaps were so in Cambodia from the start. Researchers are not in agreement on issues such as whether certain roles and titles had to be held by Brahmins, could be held by women or were hereditary (Mabbett 1978: 33; Sahai 1978: 28; Chakravarti 1980: 53).’
[2]
[1]: (Zhou and Smithies 2001, p. 27) [2]: (Lustig 2009, p. 74) |
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Sources do not suggest there is evidence for full-time bureaucracy during this period.
[1]
[1]: Marcus and Flannery (1996) Zapotec Civilization: How urban society evolved in Mexico’s Oaxaca Valley. Flannery and Marcus (1983) The Cloud People: divergent evolution of the Zapotec and Mixtec civilizations. Museum of Anthropology, University of Michigan, Ann Arbor. Academic Press, New York. |
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present in Yuan but diffiuclt to infer that the Khalkhas also had a merit promotion system.
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No evidence for employment specialization characteristic of a developed urban society. Agricultural and herding would be typical occupations with "some internal differentiation ... in view of the sophistication of craft production documented at Mehrgarh.”
[1]
[1]: Agrawal, D. P. (2007) The Indus Civilization: An interdisciplinary perspective. Aryan Books International: New Delhi. |
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Foreign Kushite rulers may have been willing to choose Egyptian officials based on their abilities since there wouldn’t be the problem of nepotism.
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Not enough data, though it seems to reasonable infer absence.
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The king employed Muslims who were not of the official faith or, one must imagine, related to him. This implies they were hired for their ability to organize not because of nepotism or bribery.
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Bureaucracy was staffed mostly from a slave class of boys raised from the devsirme tribute system, every five years, from Christian families (mostly from the Balkans region). They were taught Turkish, converted to Islam and educated from childhood to work in the military and government, excluding sons of most Muslim fathers within the Empire.
[1]
Present in the Egyptian financial administration: "All the positions of Efendi in the Treasury were established as Muqata’at which were distributed when vacant at auctions held in the house of the Ruznameji to the highest bidder from amongst those members qualified to hold them, and whose price was delivered to the Vali as part of his Hulvan revenues. For that reason, the departments were also called Muqata’a and the Efendis Muqata’a’i, "holder of the Muqata’a",in the registers. Only those possessing the requisite qualifications, as manifested by prior membership in the scribal corporation of an Imperial Treasury, whether in Egypt or elsewhere in the Ottoman Empire, could bid for these positions." [2] [1]: (Palmer 1992) [2]: (Shaw 1962, 346) |
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Roman administration was typically formed out of a class of hereditary aristocrats. Distinctions between classes of legionary and distinctions between age and experience within the army had been eliminated by Marius in 105 BCE
[1]
and the Illyrian emperors demonstrate that "low born" individuals could make it to the top of the administrative hierarchy. Since there was no general policy of merit promotion in the Roman bureaucracy - and the promotion of low-born individuals to position of power might be considered a matter of "politics" among aristocrats - the code is inferred absent.
[1]: (Dupuy and Dupuy 2007) |
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The colonial administration initially struggled to extend its reach to the interior: ’Armed clashes and the threat of use of violence were, of course, not effective means of achieving pacification. Government, commerce and the missionaries all used gift-giving as a method of establishing some kind of modus vivendi with the local people. The missionaries were most likely to handle threatening situations by giving goods such as cloth, iron, tobacco, beads and mirrors. They lamented that their Christian message was taken by the people as secondary to their provision of medical aid and goods. The Administration also made some use of the giving of gifts as a placatory technique. MacGregor and Monckton used presents suspended on trees or left on paths to avert trouble. However, in riskier situations, government officers would not hesitate to use firearms (Cecil King 1934:13; Chignell 1911:6, 140, 226; Wetherell 1977:32, 159).’
[1]
Village constables were installed as intermediaries: ’Village Constables. The suppression by force which had marked the early contact phase gave way to a form of ‘indirect rule’ through the appointment of Village Constables. The earliest Village Constables were the strong, leading men who had confronted the Europeans as warriors. As time passed war leaders were no longer a feature of the society, but patrol reports indicate that by and large Village Constables were influential and effective in the maintenance of law and order. The position of Village Constables was an uncomfortable and interstitial one. They had the difficult task of attempting to juggle the interests of their relatives and exchange partners and of the Administration, so that both sides were reasonably happy most of the time. Between 1907 and 1914 the number of Village Constables in the Northern Division rose from fifty-four to eighty-three, indicating that this system of administration was satisfactory to the Australian authorities. The Village Constables were concerned with enforcing legislation which impinged upon many aspects of daily life: burial of the dead, upkeep of roads, construction of latrines, neatness of houses and so on. Failure to obey these regulations could lead to imprisonment.’
[2]
’Patrol reports from 1915 to the 1920s note regular satisfactory reporting by the Village Constables despite variations in the standard of housing, village cleanliness and road maintenance. Occasionally police would have to deal with disobedience against the colonial authority. In some cases the non-compliance stemmed from confusion about changed regulations but at other times the people deliberately avoided their obligations to carry for the government. In 1918 the Koropatan Village Constable enquired if carrying was still to be compulsory. He was probably confused following rumours of new legislation on carrying conditions. In 1919 and 1924 men in the area ran away when requested to carry (Bowden, 423, 6550, G91; Baker, 3995, 6548, G91; Flint, 402, 6549, G91).’
[3]
’At the time of the eruption, a certain number of new roles had already become firmly established among Papuans: member of the Royal Papuan Constabulary, Village Constable, Mission Teacher, Medical Orderly, Clerk, Labourer. Post-war government policy aimed at greatly increasing the number and scope of these roles, both by [Page 56] instituting numerous training programmes for the development of skills hitherto unknown to Papuans, and by setting up organisations in which Papuans wield a limited amount of political and administrative responsibility. It suffices, for my present purpose, to enumerate modern roles, performed by Papuans, with which the people of Sivepe came into contact during the year of my field study.’
[4]
Government Councils later replaced ad hoc administration by individual officials: ’The Government, keen now to develop a prosperous and loyal colony for defence purposes, no longer used coercion in the establishment of cash crops. They strongly encouraged such activity, but in the context of individual plots as anything co-operative or communal smacked of communism (Schwimmer 1969:86). They promoted coffee and cocoa by promising large, individual returns. The new Local Government Councils became the agencies of the Administration to promote land-tenure conversion and the planting of coffee and Malayan rubber on the individual blocks created (Waddell & Krinks 1968:15; Healey 1961:490; Jinks 1968:31, 28; Griffin, Nelson & Firth 1979:123).’
[5]
Village Constables were paid by the colonial administration: ’In response to Australian pressure, the British government annexed Papua in 1888. Gold was discovered shortly thereafter, resulting in a major movement of prospectors and miners to what was then the Northern District. Relations with the Papuans were bad from the start, and there were numerous killings on both sides. The Protectorate of British New Guinea became Australian territory by the passing of the Papua Act of 1905 by the Commonwealth Government of Australia. The new administration adopted a policy of peaceful penetration, and many measures of social and economic national development were introduced. Local control was in the hands of village constables, paid servants of the Crown. Chosen by European officers, they were intermediaries between the government and the people. In 1951 an eruption occurred on Mount Lamington, completely devastating a large part of the area occupied by the Orokaiva.’
[6]
[Constables received training from colonial authorities. As to local bureaucrats, it is not quite clear how extensively they were examined, in the early days. It may not have been a formal, standard examination with set questions but something more of an interview. This remains in need of further confirmation. The Papua Annual Reports, other reports by J.H.P. Murray (possibly a special reivew of the administration for the government in Canberra around 1920 or 1922) or his letters or biography by Francis West may provide more information on this. While there was some training, it was limited (i.e., mostly "on the job") until after WWII, when the Australian School of Pacific Adminsitration (ASOPA) was formed. An attempt that was made In the 1920s to start a formal training course in Sydney for administrative officers ("patrol officers", also called "kiaps") who were bound for Papua. How long the course continued remains in need of confirmation.] Constables were promoted based on merit, but systematic formal examination seems to have been rare overall for native officials: ’Some idea of the education level reached after the completion of the six months training at the depot in Papua is revealed by Corporal Garuwa’s examination paper (figure 4). Two lance-corporals vied for promotion to the rank of corporal in the Papuan Armed Constabulary in 1932. As both men had given meritorious service to the force, an examination was conducted to decide the one most eligible for the promotion. Corporal Garuwa made only one mistake and was promoted.’
[7]
There may have been more standardization for colonial officials. We have provisionally assumed little formalization for the promotion system as it applied to native officials. This is open to re-evaluation. [Janice Newton (pers. comm.): On p 25 of my monograph footnote 6, I claim that the first Resident magistrates and their assistants were ‘a motley group of adventurers varying greatly in their concept of humanity and their methods..... They were trained on the job. The Encyclopaedia of Papua and New Guinea Melbourne University Press 1972, p50 has a detailed entry on the evolution of training under ASOPA (Australian School of Pacific Administration) After the Second World War’’ Patrol Officers and Administrators were trained in Mosman Sydney, with a general orientation course followed up by academic training and refresher courses, ‘ acknowledging that expatriates needed special skills to function effectively in non -European environments.’ Jonathan Ritchie (pers. comm.): Do you think they mean the training provided to patrol officers before or after the war? If after, then of course they were trained at ASOPA. Ian Campbell has written about this, I think, in JOURNAL OF Pacific History (The ASOPA Controversy: A Pivot of Australian Policy for Papua and New Guinea, 1945-49 Journal of Pacific History 08/2010; 35(1):83-99. DOI: 10.1080/713682830.]
[1]: Newton, Janice 1985. “Orokaiva Production And Change”, 30 [2]: Newton, Janice 1985. “Orokaiva Production And Change”, 38 [3]: Newton, Janice 1985. “Orokaiva Production And Change”, 57 [4]: Schwimmer, Eric G. 1969. “Cultural Consequences Of A Volcanic Eruption Experienced By The Mount Lamington Orokaiva”, 55 [5]: Newton, Janice 1982. “Feasting For Oil Palm”, 66 [6]: Latham, Christopher S.: eHRAF Cultural Summary for the Orokaiva [7]: Kituai, August Ibrum K. 1998. "My Gun, My Brother: The World of the Papua New Guinea Colonial Police, 1920-1960", 100 |
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Archaeological evidence, mostly in the form of seals, suggests the existence of some kind of bureaucratic system through Pirak II and III, of one or two levels at least
[1]
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[1]: Ceccarelli, pers. comm. to E. Cioni, Feb 2017) |
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Absence of full-time specialised bureaucracy (which would have likely been characterised also by some kind of merit promotion) inferred nferred from the fact that the king seemed to struggle to maintain control over provinces, and left them either in the hands of close relatives, or those of local chiefs: "Though Ntare Rugamba is said to have doubled the area of the country, the administrative legacy of Ntare’s rule was at least as important history to Burundi political history as were his military exploits. With such rapid expansion, Ntare relied on his sons as administrators: he was strong enough to set up his sons, but not strong enough to incorporate these regions fully within central control. [...] During the late nineteenth century, under the reign of Mwezi Gisabo, a four- tiered system of administration emerged: a central area around Muramvya under the control of the king; an area under the administration of his sons or brothers most closely allied to the king; a broad swath further east and south administered by Batare chiefs, the descendants of Ntare; and another zone, covering the western and northwestern areas of the country, under the administration of others, not Baganwa (in fact, they were mostly Hutu authorities). (See Figure 8.) From this pattern, three types of political relations emerged. Administrative authorities in the east and south- east, often Batare (descendants of Ntare Rugamba), simply retained their administrative autonomy while acknowledging nominal central court ritual hegemony. Those in the northeast more characteristically undertook open revolt, often by those who sought to overthrow Mwezi. [...] In the northwest, by contrast, pretenders to royal power had more tenuous claims to Ganwa identity; they drew on local traditions of resistance and benefited from the resources of the Lake Tanganyika trade network (as well as support from other states such as the Shi kingdoms west of Lake Kivu)."
[1]
Note, too, that bureaucracy did not clearly emerge in neighbouring, culturally related polities. For example, in Nkore, "The royal court served as a judicial and political center, but not as a bureaucratic focal point. The Mugabe’s chief minister, the Enganzi, was not a prime minister in the usual sense of leader of government business. He was merely the King’s favorite. Neither was there a cabinet nor governmental bureaux [...]. No distinction between the royal and state treasury was made and the heads of local administrative units were not required to attend court or reside at the capital as in Buganda, for instance."
[2]
In Rwanda: "In this sort of government, administration was not yet institutionalized."
[3]
Indeed, no information could be found on the existence of full-time specialised bureaucracy in the Ugandan kingdoms of Buganda and Bunyoro, both particularly well studied.
[1]: (Newbury 2001: 283-284) Seshat URL: https://www.zotero.org/groups/1051264/seshat_databank/collections/GWWIKDDM/items/J5A6DM3P/collection. [2]: (Steinhart 1978: 144) Seshat URL: https://www.zotero.org/groups/1051264/seshat_databank/collections/GWWIKDDM/items/D3FV7SKV/collection. [3]: (Vansina 2004: 63) Seshat URL: https://www.zotero.org/groups/1051264/seshat_databank/collections/GWWIKDDM/items/5J4MRHUB/collection. |
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Inferred from the fact that full-time specialised bureaucracy does not seem to have emerged in the broader Great Lakes region prior to the colonial era. For example, in Nkore, "The royal court served as a judicial and political center, but not as a bureaucratic focal point. The Mugabe’s chief minister, the Enganzi, was not a prime minister in the usual sense of leader of government business. He was merely the King’s favorite. Neither was there a cabinet nor governmental bureaux [...]. No distinction between the royal and state treasury was made and the heads of local administrative units were not required to attend court or reside at the capital as in Buganda, for instance."
[1]
In Rwanda: "In this sort of government, administration was not yet institutionalized."
[2]
In Burundi, the king seemingly entrusted administration mostly to close relatives and local chiefs: "Ntare relied on his sons as administrators: he was strong enough to set up his sons, but not strong enough to incorporate these regions fully within central control. [...] During the late nineteenth century, under the reign of Mwezi Gisabo, a four-tiered system of administration emerged: a central area around Muramvya under the control of the king; an area under the administration of his sons or brothers most closely allied to the king; a broad swath further east and south administered by Batare chiefs, the descendants of Ntare; and another zone, covering the western and northwestern areas of the country, under the administration of others, not Baganwa (in fact, they were mostly Hutu authorities). [...] Administrative authorities in the east and south- east, often Batare (descendants of Ntare Rugamba), simply retained their administrative autonomy while acknowledging nominal central court ritual hegemony. Those in the northeast more characteristically undertook open revolt, often by those who sought to overthrow Mwezi."
[3]
[1]: (Steinhart 1978: 144) Seshat URL: https://www.zotero.org/groups/1051264/seshat_databank/collections/GWWIKDDM/items/D3FV7SKV/collection. [2]: (Vansina 2004: 63) Seshat URL: https://www.zotero.org/groups/1051264/seshat_databank/collections/GWWIKDDM/items/5J4MRHUB/collection. [3]: (Newbury 2001: 283-284) Seshat URL: https://www.zotero.org/groups/1051264/seshat_databank/collections/GWWIKDDM/items/J5A6DM3P/collection. |
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levels. "We emphasise from the beginning that our historical knowledge of kings and the length of their reigns, and of the political structure and organisation of Kaabu remains very limited."
[1]
[1]: (Giesing and Vydrine 2007: 4, quoted in Green 2009: 92) Seshat URL: https://www.zotero.org/groups/1051264/seshat_databank/collections/GWWIKDDM/items/V2GTBN8A/collection. |
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"Promotions were granted according to precise rules and could lead to the highest positions in the government, both military (atabak al-asakir, general-in-chief; amir silah, director of the arsenal; amir akhur, supreme commander of the army) and administrative (amir majlis, emir of the audience; dawawar, chancellor), as well as to the governorship of the provinces. ... To be acclaimed sultan was naturally the chief career objective of a capable and ambitious emir. One might reach it through seniority, merit, cabal, intrigue, or violence."
[1]
"Elite personnel of the regime, including the sultan, were slaves or former slaves. In principle, although there were important exceptions, no one could be a member of the military elite unless he was of foreign origin (usually Turkish or Circassian), purchased and raised as a slave, and trained to be a soldier and administrator. No native of Egypt or Syria could ever belong to this elite, nor, in principle, could the sons of slaves." [2] "The Mamluks’ descendants, the awlad al-nas ... were in theory prohibited from holding political or military office. The rule, however, was subject to exceptions..." [3] [1]: (Raymond 2000, 113-114) [2]: (Lapidus 2012, 247) [3]: (Raymond 2000, 113) |
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The system was not meritocratic. Senior position often became hereditary. All positions were ultimately the appointed of the Sultan or the regional officials.
[1]
[1]: Andrew Peacock ’SALJUQS iii. SALJUQS OF RUM’ http://www.iranicaonline.org/articles/saljuqs-iii |
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Most communal matters were decided by village, tribal, and central councils, combining judicial, executive, and legislative functions. Leadership in ’civil’ affairs was largely hereditary and councils as well as lineage organization were not bureucratized in the early colonial period: ’Quite apart from this supervision by the women, however, the council suffered from another and more serious limitation. Its members obtained their position by birthright, not by military prowess or ability in other ways; and while they might declare peace or war in the name of the whole league, they could not control ambitious individuals who sought profit, revenge, or renown through sudden attacks on neighbouring peoples. Many of the so-called wars of the Iroquois seem to have been irresponsible affairs, organized and conducted without the consent and often without the knowledge of the council; for since the sachems were civil chieftains, not necessarily leaders in warfare or gifted with military talents, it was easy for a warrior who had gained a reputation for skill or valour to muster a band of hunters and start out on the warpath without notice. . . . There arose in consequence a group of warrior chiefs who attained considerable influence and sometimes rivalled the sachems themselves. It was the warrior chiefs, indeed, not the sachems, who won most fame and honour during the Revolutionary War.’
[1]
The same is true for non-hereditary leadership in warfare, which was based on personal merit, but not subject to formal exmination or a standardized system of promotion: ’The powers and duties of the sachems and chiefs were entirely of a civil character, and confined, by their organic laws, to the affairs of peace. No sachem could go out to war in his official capacity, as a civil ruler. If disposed to take the war-path, he laid aside his civil office, for the time being, and became a common warrior. It becomes an important inquiry, therefore, to ascertain in whom the military power, was vested. The Iroquois had no distinct class of war-chiefs, raised up and set apart to command in time of war; neither do the sachems or chiefs appear to have possessed the power of appointing such persons as they considered suitable to the post of command. All military operations were left entirely to private enterprise, and to the system of voluntary service, the sachems seeking rather to repress and restrain, than to encourage the martial ardor of the people. Their principal war-captains were to be found among he class called chiefs, many of whom were elected to this office in reward for their military achievements. The singular method of warfare among the Iroquois renders it extremely difficult to obtain a complete and satisfactory explanation of the manner in which their varlike operations were conducted. Their whole civil policy was averse to the concentration of power in the hands of any single individual, but inclined to the opposite principle of division among a number of equals; and this policy they carried into their military as well as through their civil organization. Small bands were, in the first instance, organized by individual leaders, each of which, if they were afterwards united upon the same enterprise, continued under its own captain, and the whole force, as well as the conduct of the expedition, was under their joint management. They appointed no one of their number to absolute command, but the general direction was left open to the strongest will, or the most persuasive voice.’
[2]
[1]: Speck, Frank Gouldsmith 1945. “Iroquois: A Study In Cultural Evolution", 31 [2]: Morgan, Lewis Henry, and Herbert M. Lloyd 1901. “League Of The Ho-De’-No-Sau-Nee Or Iroquois. Vol. I”, 67 |
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Some later Old Kingdom tomb biographies suggest at least an informal promotional system. e.g. Biography of Weni, Dynasty 6, from Abydos.
[1]
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Promotion on merit was essential to scribal culture but knowing the right person and informal networks also helped a bureaucrat’s career. [2] Example given 6th Dynasty scribe Weni of Abydos. "It was administered by a literate elite selected at least partly on merit." [3] [1]: (Lichtheim 1975, 18-23) [2]: (Garcia 2013, 1029) Garcia, Juan Carlos Moreno "The ’Other’ Administration: Patronage, Factions, and Informal Networks of Power in Ancient Egypt" in Garcia, Juan Carlos Moreno ed. 2013. Ancient Egyptian Administration. BRILL. [3]: (Malek 2000, 85) |
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Much nepotism but "in various cases people are also promoted due to their talents."
[1]
"The officials brought into association with the central administration in this way were not only the members of certain privileged families. They were often men who had risen from lower social classes by reason of their own ability." [2] "Provincials, the best example being Michael Attaleiates, benefited from social mobility based on talent at a time of the development of the schools of Constantinople." [3] Women and men from humble origins could rise to positions of power [4] . Woman played "leading part in state affairs and society... political constitution did not exclude women from the throne" [5] Nepotism ("always, and widespread" [1] ) "It often happened that certain particularly energetic civil servants through their unusual activity in the central departments gave their office far greater importance than really belonged to it. They took great care to ensure that the importance gained by this usurpation of the responsibilities of other departments was retained, and with this in mind they appointed suitable successors, colleagues or men drawn from their own circle of relatives." [2] "The administration, in spite of the great services it rendered to the State, was honeycombed with vices. As places were sold, so were favours and justice. To make a fortune and gain advancement, merit was of less use than intrigue...". [6] [1]: (Johannes Preiser-Kapeller 2015) Institute for Medieval Research, Division of Byzantine Research, Austrian Academy of Sciences. Personal Communication [2]: (Haussig 1971, 182) Haussig, H W.trans Hussey, J M. 1971. History of Byzantine Civilization. Thames and Hudson. [3]: (Cheynet 2008, 522) Jeffreys E, Haldon J and Cormack R eds. 2008. The Oxford Handbook of Byzantine Studies. Oxford University Press. Oxford. [5]: (Tanner, Previte-Orton, Brooke 1923, 757) Tanner, J, Previte-Orton, C, Brooke, Z eds. (1923) Charles Diehl, The Cambridge Medieval History, Volume IV, The Eastern Roman Empire 171-1453 [2] [6]: (Tanner, Previte-Orton, Brooke 1923, 775) Tanner, J, Previte-Orton, C, Brooke, Z eds. (1923) Charles Diehl, The Cambridge Medieval History, Volume IV, The Eastern Roman Empire 171-1453 [3] |
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“The burst of “modernization” in the middle decades of the eighteenth century gave the Habsburg monarchy institutions reasonably advanced for their time. Centralization of power was achieved in large part through the growth of a central bureaucracy, in the Habsburg lands as elsewhere. One estimate has 6,000 members of the state bureaucracy in 1740, 10,000 in 1762, and 20,000 in 1782. These numbers increasingly came from people of non-noble classes, which helped expand the regime’s base of support. Joseph’s travels around the monarchy convinced him that the professionalism of local officials was often low, which inspired his mission to improve the bureaucracy. Thus training was improved, pay increased and tied more to merit, and a pension system introduced.”
[1]
“The period 1780 to 1848 saw both an absolute and a proportional increase in the numbers of non- noble men who served at the higher levels of the bureaucratic ser vice. During this period a bureaucrat’s success depended increasingly on proof of his individual merit. A bureaucratic post could be considered neither hereditary nor venal. The candidate who earned it became an active participant in the very construction of the new state. In this sense, as Waltraud Heindl has argued, the expansion of the bureaucracy as the executor of state policy rested on an Enlightenment ideal of dedicated citizenship. “[The bureaucrat’s] job presupposed a concept of citizenship, and to be a citizen meant, according to the Enlightenment . . . active participation in the construction of the nation state. His post could neither be hereditary, nor for sale [venal], nor could it depend on the caprice of the prince [monarch].”12 In turn, the rapid expansion of non- noble membership in this bureaucracy produced a workplace ethos that by 1800 had incorporated new habits, new social behaviors, and new cultural practices among bureaucrats both at the office and in domestic settings with their families.”
[2]
[1]: (Curtis 2013: 242) Curtis, Benjamin. 2013. The Habsburgs: The History of a Dynasty. London; New York: Bloomsbury. https://www.zotero.org/groups/1051264/seshat_databank/items/TRKUBP92 [2]: (Judson 2016: 59) Judson, Pieter M. 2016. The Habsburg Empire: A New History. Cambridge, USA; London, England: The Belknap Press of Harvard University Press. https://www.zotero.org/groups/1051264/seshat_databank/items/BN5TQZBW |
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As a tribal confederacy, promotion was based on individual ability within the tribal structure. However, the stratification of the ruling elites seems to have taken place with increasing sedentary lifestyles, especially in India. A Chinese account states that the throne of the Hephthalites, ‘was not transmitted by inheritance but awarded to the most capable kinsman’
[1]
Does not qualify as regular, institutionalized procedures for promotion based on performance.
[1]: Litvinsky B.A.,Guang-da Zhang , and Shabani Samghabadi R. (eds)History of Civilizations of Central Asia, pp. 141-144 |
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"The problem of residence determination was first raised during the reign of Emperor Wu of the Western Jin in connection with the Nine Rank system of selecting officials. ... Another official, Li Zhong, took issue with their assessment and asserted that for all practical purposes the system of Nine Ranks had ceased to operate. He believed, however, that such a system was necessary and wanted to strengthen it through residence determination. ... Although it is not clear what became of Li’s proposal, there is good reason to believe that it was adopted."
[1]
"Emperor Wu clearly wished to do away with the Nine Ranks, but there was probably too much opposition from those who benefited from the system. Being unable to rid himself of it, the emperor may have sought to tighten the system in order to eliminate abuses." [1]: (Crowell 1991, 187) Crowell, William G in Dien, Albert E. 1991. State and Society in Early Medieval China. Stanford University Press. |
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Fang Kuang-i was promoted from magistrate to governor for good performance. Other officials were told: "All of you should take him as your master and model."
[1]
Introduction of examination system "was the beginning of an institution for selecting candidates for office on the basis of merit".
[2]
[1]: (Wright 1979, 92) [2]: (Wright 1979, 93) |
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"It is a fact that from the T’ang period on an ever-increasing proportion of officials was recruited from successful candidates at the examinations, that most of the political leaders for the next thirteen centuries did pass the examinations and were thus chosen on grounds of intellectual talent. It is also true that this system was less aristocratic than the recommendation on the basis of family standing which was used during the Period of Division."
[1]
[1]: (Rodzinski 1979, 119) |
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"It is a fact that from the T’ang period on an ever-increasing proportion of officials was recruited from successful candidates at the examinations, that most of the political leaders for the next thirteen centuries did pass the examinations and were thus chosen on grounds of intellectual talent. It is also true that this system was less aristocratic than the recommendation on the basis of family standing which was used during the Period of Division."
[1]
[1]: (Rodzinski 1979, 119) |
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"Around 445 BC, Wei started the new wave of self-strengthening reforms ... In conventional accounts, Wu Qi, a military general who arrived [in Chu] from Wei in 390 BC, introduced a self-strengthening program to eradicate the entrenched nobility and establish meritocracy. The reforms were so comprehensive that Wu Qi was much hated by the aristocrats. When the king died in 381 BC, Wu Qi was killed and the reforms were abandoned."
[1]
[1]: (Tin-bor Hui 2005, n90 85) Tin-bor Hui, Victoria. 2005. War and State Formation in Ancient China and Early Modern Europe. Cambridge University Press. |
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Social order considered maat, that is, divinely intended.
[1]
However, in the army commoners could achieve promotion to officer status.
[2]
shn[t]y st.f m ’h "One whose position/status was promoted in the ’h." (tomb of Dhwty, Thut III - Hatsh. period).
[3]
the ’h is considered to be a palace with ceremonial and ritual functions.
[1]: (Hinds 2006, 5) [2]: (Healy 1992, 19) [3]: (Pagliari 2012, 716) Pagliari, Giulia. 2012. Function and significance of ancient Egyptian royal palaces from the Middle Kingdom to the Saite period: a lexicographical study and its possible connection with the archaeological evidence. Ph.D. thesis. University of Birmingham. |
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"Classical commentators, writing from quite a different perspective, reveal without compunction the complex interaction of individual ambition untrammelled by loyalty or ideological factors whereby ambitious political figures seize any opportunity for advancement provided by the sectional interests of the native Egyptian warrior class, Greek mercenary captains, and, less obviously, the Egyptian priesthood."
[1]
This doesn’t seem conducive to a meritocratic environment. About Nectanebo II: "Once established as undisputed ruler, this experienced soldier was well aware that the key to preserving his authority lay in keeping control of the army, particularly through his eldest son who was promoted ‘‘First Generalissimo of His Majesty’’ (imy-r mSa wr tpy n Hm.f)."
[2]
[1]: (Lloyd 2000, 377) [2]: (Perdu 2010, 156) |
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"Promotions were granted according to precise rules and could lead to the highest positions in the government, both military (atabak al-asakir, general-in-chief; amir silah, director of the arsenal; amir akhur, supreme commander of the army) and administrative (amir majlis, emir of the audience; dawawar, chancellor), as well as to the governorship of the provinces. ... To be acclaimed sultan was naturally the chief career objective of a capable and ambitious emir. One might reach it through seniority, merit, cabal, intrigue, or violence."
[1]
However, from 1290-1382 CE the top position of sultan was inherited by 17 descendants of Sultan Qalawun.
[2]
"Elite personnel of the regime, including the sultan, were slaves or former slaves. In principle, although there were important exceptions, no one could be a member of the military elite unless he was of foreign origin (usually Turkish or Circassian), purchased and raised as a slave, and trained to be a soldier and administrator. No native of Egypt or Syria could ever belong to this elite, nor, in principle, could the sons of slaves." [3] "The Mamluks’ descendants, the awlad al-nas ... were in theory prohibited from holding political or military office. The rule, however, was subject to exceptions..." [4] [1]: (Raymond 2000, 113-114) [2]: (Raymond 2000, 114) [3]: (Lapidus 2012, 247) [4]: (Raymond 2000, 113) |
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The al-Madhara’i family were "financial officials in Fustat (Old Cairo) since the reign of Ibn Tulun" and they "would continue to play an important role in the country’s administration well into the Ikshidid period."
[1]
[1]: (Sundelin 2013, 430-431) Shillington, K. 2013. Encyclopedia of African History: Volume 3. Routledge. |
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ineage generally. The latter was executive chief, or "chief of talk," and the former symbolic chief, or "chief of food." Food presentations were made to the symbolic chief. Sometimes the symbolic and executive functions fell to the same individual; often they did not. The symbolic chief was surrounded by his lineage brothers and by his sons, who acted as his agents. These followers and his sisters and daughters were of chiefly rank, distinct from commoners. Through conquest, a lineage might gain the chiefship in more than one district and establish a junior branch as the chiefly lineage in the conquered district. The now subordinate district rendered food presentations to the superordinate one. Most districts were linked in two rival leagues based on competing schools of magic and ritual relating to war, politics, and rhetoric. A chief’s authority derived from two things. His lineage’s ownership of the district’s space entitled him to presentations of first fruits at stated times of the year. More importantly, it gave him authority over the conservation and use of the district’s food resources. His authority also derived from his connection with the sky world, its gods, and their superhuman power to accomplish purposes. There was, therefore, a degree of sacredness associated with chiefs.’
[1]
[1]: Goodenough, Ward and Skoggard 1999) Seshat URL: https://www.zotero.org/groups/1051264/seshat_databank/items/5IETI75E. |
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Within the church, the papal Concordat of Bologna (negotiated between king of France and the pope) promulgated in Rome 1516 CE "dispensed princes of the blood and members of great families from the requirement of a University degree, although the king had the phrase: "the king will name a qualified person, that is to say a graduate or a noble" modified by deleting the last three words in order to minimise lobbying. However, the overwhelming noble status of the bishops appointed after 1516 CE is clear."
[1]
[1]: (Potter 1995, 225. 228-229) |
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In the Carolingian era, the lands under Frankish control grew considerably and an administrative system was developed in order to govern this large territory.
[1]
One official position that first appeared in this period was the missus dominicus (king’s representative), who could be sent out from the court to inspect the counties and pass on the king’s decrees.
[2]
However, it is not clear how this or other administrative positions were obtained.
[1]: (Chazelle 1995, 329-30) Chazelle, Celia. 1995. “Carolingian Dynasty.” In Medieval France: An Encyclopedia, edited by William W. Kibler, Grover A. Zinn, Lawrence Earp, and John Bell Henneman, Jr., 328-34. New York: Garland Publishing. Seshat URL: https://www.zotero.org/groups/1051264/seshat_databank/items/itemKey/F3ZBDZSD. [2]: (Chazelle 1995, 330) Chazelle, Celia. 1995. “Carolingian Dynasty.” In Medieval France: An Encyclopedia, edited by William W. Kibler, Grover A. Zinn, Lawrence Earp, and John Bell Henneman, Jr., 328-34. New York: Garland Publishing. Seshat URL: https://www.zotero.org/groups/1051264/seshat_databank/items/itemKey/F3ZBDZSD. |
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Society was based on a Caste system.
[1]
"Although every effort was made by Chandragupta and his successors to select competent people to fill government positions, in a very short time these offices became virtually hereditary and, over time, the quality of government officials declined. The Indian Imperial state never developed a permanent bureaucratic system staffed by officials selected for merit and competence." [2] [1]: Singh, Upinder. A History of Ancient and Early medieval India, pp 418-421 [2]: (Gabriel 2002, 217) Gabriel, Richard A. 2002. The Great Armies of Antiquity. Greenwood Publishing Group. |
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Expert disagreement.
According to Van Berkel, El Cheikh, Kennedy and Osti the two most important factors for promotion were kinship and patronage. [1] However, according to Lapidus the Abbasids "returned to the principles of Umar II, The Abbasids swept away Arab caste supremacy and accepted the universal equality of Muslims." Persians and Nestorian Christians were heavily represented in the bureaucracy. "Jews were active in administrative and commercial activities. Shi’i families were also prominent." [2] Furthermore the "Abbasid policy of recruiting notables regardless of ethnic background not only soothed the conflicts that racked the Umayyad dynasty but was essential if a centralized government was to be built at all." [3] [1]: Van Berkel, Maaike, Nadia Maria El Cheikh, Hugh Kennedy, and Letizia Osti. Crisis and Continuity at the Abbasid Court p. 108) [2]: (Lapidus 2012, 93-95) [3]: (Lapidus 2012, 102) |
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Expert disagreement.
According to Van Berkel, El Cheikh, Kennedy and Osti the two most important factors for promotion were kinship and patronage. [1] However, according to Lapidus the Abbasids "returned to the principles of Umar II, The Abbasids swept away Arab caste supremacy and accepted the universal equality of Muslims." Persians and Nestorian Christians were heavily represented in the bureaucracy. "Jews were active in administrative and commercial activities. Shi’i families were also prominent." [2] Furthermore the "Abbasid policy of recruiting notables regardless of ethnic background not only soothed the conflicts that racked the Umayyad dynasty but was essential if a centralized government was to be built at all." [3] [1]: Van Berkel, Maaike, Nadia Maria El Cheikh, Hugh Kennedy, and Letizia Osti. Crisis and Continuity at the Abbasid Court p. 108) [2]: (Lapidus 2012, 93-95) [3]: (Lapidus 2012, 102) |
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Inferred continuity with preceding period: "the transmission of one’s professional knowledge from father to son was not a particularly negative tendency for the palace. In the long run, however, it transformed the palace and temple personnel into a series of closed corporations. In other words, members of these elite groups prevented anyone outside this clique from accessing their posts. They also monopolised the technical knowledge needed for the management of these institutions."
[1]
[1]: (Liverani 2014, 196) Liverani, Mario. Tabatabai, Soraia trans. 2014. The Ancient Near East: History, Society and Economy. London: Routledge. Seshat URL: https://www.zotero.org/groups/1051264/seshat_databank/items/itemKey/7DRZQS5Q/q/liverani. |
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"the Daylamites showed strong family loyalties; true, there were often disputes within the kin, but their leaders tended to think in terms of family rather than in terms of more abstract ideas of state or the Muslim community."
[1]
[1]: (Kennedy 2004, 211) Kennedy, Hugh N. 2004. The Prophet and the Age of the Caliphates. Second edition. Pearson Longman. Harlow. |
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Appointments were made by the Khan, it was not a meritocratic service.
[1]
[1]: Morgan, David. The Mongols. 2nd ed. The Peoples of Europe. Malden, MA ; Oxford: Blackwell Publishing, 2007, pp.142-143; Ann K. S. Lambton, ’ECONOMY v. FROM THE ARAB CONQUEST TO THE END OF THE IL-KHANIDS’ (part 2) http://www.iranicaonline.org/articles/economy-5-part2 |
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"The old characteristic of the sukkal-mah is not attested anymore, or at least is not as visible. However, it is still possible to see a system in which the ruling king (residing in Susa) was surrounded by a series of high functionaries. These were all more or less his relatives, ruled over regions and cities, and were involved in the succession to the throne."
[1]
[1]: (Leverani 2014, 529) Liverani, Mario. Tabatabai, Soraia trans. 2014. The Ancient Near East. History, society and economy. Routledge. London. |
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The Iqtas were granted by the sultan and later, many became hereditary. It was not a meritocratic system of appointments.
[1]
According to Nizam al-Mulk "women must be strictly excluded from matters of state." [2] According to Nizam al-Mulk "Today there are men, utterly incapable, who hold ten posts, and if another appointment were to turn up they would apply for it, giving bribes if necessary, and get it." [3] [1]: Findley, Carter V., The Turks in World History (New York: Oxford University Press, 2005 pp.70-72. [2]: (Starr 2013) Starr, S. Frederick. 2013. Lost Enlightenment: Central Asia’s Golden Age from the Arab Conquest to Tamerlane. Princeton University Press. Princeton. [3]: (Peacock 2015, 194) Peacock, A C S. 2015. The Great Seljuk Empire. Edinburgh University Press Ltd. Edinburgh. |
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Patron-clientele networks, nepotism, and political considerations played a major role in advancement, yet merit was still a factor in the government of the Papal States; this was usually the determining criterion in the case of non-Italian bureaucrats and administrators, such as Cardinal Albornoz.
[1]
The code should be bracketed in the future, to reflect the existence of merit promotion within a general system in which nepotism and cronyism were the norm.
[1]: On nepotism and cronyism in the Renaissance papacy, see Partner and Peterson in Najemy, 74 |
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Roman administration was typically formed out of a class of hereditary aristocrats. Distinctions between classes of legionary and distinctions between age and experience within the army had been eliminated by Marius in 105 BCE
[1]
and the Illyrian emperors did demonstrate that "low born" individuals could make it to the top of the administrative hierarchy. Since there was no general policy of merit promotion in the Roman bureaucracy - and the promotion of low-born individuals to position of power might be considered a matter of "politics" among aristocrats - the code is inferred absent.
[1]: (Dupuy and Dupuy 2007) |
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Roman administration was typically formed out of a class of hereditary aristocrats. Distinctions between classes of legionary and distinctions between age and experience within the army had been eliminated by Marius in 105 BCE
[1]
and the Illyrian emperors demonstrate that "low born" individuals could make it to the top of the administrative hierarchy. Since there was no general policy of merit promotion in the Roman bureaucracy - and the promotion of low-born individuals to position of power might be considered a matter of "politics" among aristocrats - the code is inferred absent.
[1]: (Dupuy and Dupuy 2007) |
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"many appointments to the administrative institutions were made entirely by inheritance or patronage and not on merit".
[1]
[1]: Virtual Museum of Public Service. 2013. Rudgers. Newark. http://www.vmps.us/notitia-dignitatum |
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"many appointments to the administrative institutions were made entirely by inheritance or patronage and not on merit".
[1]
[1]: Virtual Museum of Public Service. 2013. Rudgers. Newark. http://www.vmps.us/notitia-dignitatum |
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Inferred present in terms of minor bureaucrats and civil servants: "It is opportune to remember that the Venetian “bureaucratic” system functioned on two levels: the first, constituted substantially by membersof the Ducal Chancellery, was occupied by civil servants attached to the great political councils; the second, clearly separated from the first, was made up of a plethora of secretaries, notaries, and others who in each single magistracy carried out the tasks of conserving the official acts and transmitting orders and mandates."
[1]
. Absent for nobles: "Venetiannobles, elected to office for a period of 18 or 24 months, would have had little impact on the ordinary mechanisms by which these offices functioned"
[2]
[1]: (Viggiano 2013: 67) Seshat URL: [2]: (Viggiano 2013: 67) Seshat URL: https://www.zotero.org/groups/1051264/seshat_databank/items/3TCVQMYV |
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’the ‘cap rank’ system introduced earlier by Prince Sho¯toku was in theory based, as in China, on merit not birth. However, in practice, and particularly during the Nara period, both rank and position in the Japanese bureaucracy quickly became determined by inherited family status rather than by individual merit’
[1]
[1]: Henshall, Kenneth .2012. A History of Japan: From Stone Age to Superpower. Palgrave Macmillan. New York. [Third Edition]p.25 |
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within the confines of the elites who were eligible to hold office there does appear to be a certain amount of recognition of merit, however this operated in a very limited sense and cannot be said to be a meritocracy. the granting of positions was not always based on the merits of the applicants as can be seen from the numerous complaints against officials detailing incompetence.
[1]
[1]: Mass, Jeffrey P., and William B. Hauser (eds). 1985.The Bakufu in Japanese History. Stanford University Press.p.60 |
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’the ‘cap rank’ system introduced earlier by Prince Sho¯toku was in theory based, as in China, on merit not birth. However, in practice, and particularly during the Nara period, both rank and position in the Japanese bureaucracy quickly became determined by inherited family status rather than by individual merit’
[1]
[1]: Henshall, Kenneth .2012. A History of Japan: From Stone Age to Superpower. Palgrave Macmillan. New York. [Third Edition]p.25 |
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Although inherited status was the basis for most appointments and authority within the appropriate class there was some room for merit based promotion, encouraged by the popularity of Confucianism.‘Confucianism was not always good for the shogunate. One of its ironies was that it encouraged ideas of merit and learning. This was allowed for in concepts of hierarchy and rank in China, which permitted some mobility on the basis of learning and meritorious achievement, and in later centuries this was also to some extent to be allowed for in Japan. However, encouragement of merit and learning did not necessarily work in the best interests of the Tokugawa shogunate and its policy of unquestioning orthodoxy and stability.’
[1]
‘Instruction also differed depending on the status of a student’s family. It was often the case that status was treated as more important than ability’.
[2]
[1]: Henshall, Kenneth (2012) A History of Japan: From Stone Age to Superpower. New York: Palgrave Macmillan. [Third Edition]. p.64. [2]: Deal, William E. 2005. Handbook to Life in Medieval and Early Modern Japan. Oxford University Press.p.229. |
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The earliest evidence for a “bureaucratic machinery” dates to the late fifth century CE.
[1]
[1]: (Steenstrup 1996: 11) Seshat URL: https://www.zotero.org/groups/1051264/seshat_databank/items/itemKey/7YDV5KGG |
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There was an "extensive enrollment of minorities in government." Christians and Jews dominated the central administration.
[1]
Jews rose in the administration to the position of Vizier, whilst Coptic Christians frequently held the important posts within the financial administration. [2] However rulers were Shia muslim whilst the majority of the population of Egypt were Sunni Muslim. Discrimination against Sunnis likely. This is suggested when the Caliph Al-Hakim (996-1021 CE) defied precedent and appointed a Sunni chief qadi "on the ground that he was both the justest and shrewdest man available (on points of law the qadi was guided by Ismaili muftis)." [3] [1]: (Raymond 2000, 45) [2]: (Oliver 1977, 22-23) [3]: (Hodgson 1977, 26) |
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Many positions appear to have been hereditary. ’In this country there are ministers, generals, astronomers, and other officials, and, below them, all kinds of minor employees; only their names differ from ours. Mostly princes are designated for [official] positions; in other cases those selected offer their daughters as royal concubine.’
[1]
’Administrative officials were classified in four divisions, apparently horizontally arranged, which may have had a geographical basis, but about which little is known (Sahai 1978: 18). At least some administrative posts were hereditary, especially in the Angkorian period. For example, the purohita and the yājaka usually seem to have been hereditary officials and a single family was said to have been in charge of the devarāja cult for a period of 250 years (ibid., 24-25). A number of positions close to the kings (purohita, hotar, guru, ācārya and guṇadośadarśi) are referred to in Angkorian period inscriptions written by officials. These tend to be Sanskrit terms which had religious connotations, but as Vickery (2002: 93) points out, some of these became secular, as in India, and perhaps were so in Cambodia from the start. Researchers are not in agreement on issues such as whether certain roles and titles had to be held by Brahmins, could be held by women or were hereditary (Mabbett 1978: 33; Sahai 1978: 28; Chakravarti 1980: 53).’
[2]
[1]: (Zhou and Smithies 2001, p. 27) [2]: (Lustig 2009, p. 74) |
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No bureaucracy. The chief of the village "worked to maintain peace and was the authority in regard to all matters legal or moral, including land ownership, religion, and ceremonies."
[1]
[1]: (Keil 2012, 108) Sarah Keil. Bambara. Andrea L Stanton. ed. 2012. Cultural Sociology of the Middle East, Asia, and Africa: An Encyclopedia. Sage. Los Angeles. |
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"In contrast to other medieval societies, the Chinese civilization has distinguished by the high vertical mobility. It was related to the existence in China of the system of tests of positions. This system was adopted by Kitans and, since 988, introduced in Liao. According to the rules established, the examinations were conducted in the volosts, regions and administration of Stationary Office every three years. Those who passed examinations in volosts were called hsiang-chien, in the region - fu-chieh and in the administration of Stationary Office - chiti (LS 12: 4a; Wittfogel, Feng 1949: 454-455, 491)."
[1]
[1]: (Kradin 2014, 157-158) |
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"...the exams were revived again in 1384 and remained in place from then on. Serious problems remained, however, as the metropolitan exam of 1397 did not pass a single northern scholar. ... A new evaluation added 61 names; the original examiners were punished, and the precedent of quotas of regional graduates was established. The purely meritocratic aspect of the exam system was thus overridden by the need to create a fully empire-wide bureaucracy, or at least one in which the particular advantages of a few regions in the south did not dominate the government."
[1]
[1]: (Lorge 2005, 109) |
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The monumental construction at Monte Alban has been seen as a sign of a high degree of administrative centralization.
[1]
However, we lack adequate information about administrative structures at Monte Albán to be able to discern whether full-time specialist bureaucrats (i.e. not just chiefs or generals with administrative duties) were present.
[2]
[3]
[1]: Marcus and Flannery (1996) Zapotec Civilization: How urban society evolved in Mexico’s Oaxaca Valley. Flannery and Marcus (1983) The Cloud People: divergent evolution of the Zapotec and Mixtec civilizations. Museum of Anthropology, University of Michigan, Ann Arbor. Academic Press, New York. [2]: Gary Feinman, pers. comm., January 2018. [3]: Charles Spencer, pers. comm., January 2018. |
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The monumental construction at Monte Alban has been seen as a sign of a high degree of administrative centralization.
[1]
However, we lack adequate information about administrative structures at Monte Albán to be able to discern whether full-time specialist bureaucrats (i.e. not just chiefs or generals with administrative duties) were present.
[2]
[3]
[1]: Marcus and Flannery (1996) Zapotec Civilization: How urban society evolved in Mexico’s Oaxaca Valley. Flannery and Marcus (1983) The Cloud People: divergent evolution of the Zapotec and Mixtec civilizations. Museum of Anthropology, University of Michigan, Ann Arbor. Academic Press, New York. [2]: Gary Feinman, pers. comm., January 2018. [3]: Charles Spencer, pers. comm., January 2018. |
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Sources do not suggest there is evidence for full-time bureaucrats during this period.
[1]
[1]: Marcus and Flannery (1996) Zapotec Civilization: How urban society evolved in Mexico’s Oaxaca Valley. Flannery and Marcus (1983) The Cloud People: divergent evolution of the Zapotec and Mixtec civilizations. Museum of Anthropology, University of Michigan, Ann Arbor. Academic Press, New York. |
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Alan Covey: After several years in the aqllawasi, most girls were married off to provincial men by Inca governors in mass ceremonies, but some were selected to go to Cuzco for further religious and craft training. Many of these became mamakuna, and they ran the aqllawasi cloisters and took care of sacred objects, shrines, and royal mummies. There wasn’t much of a selection, training, and promotion for Inca men, but the aqllawasi did these things for Inca women.
[1]
No formalised procedure.Usually high officials (provincial governor level) had to be ethnic Inca, however there were exceptions. [2] There was some degree of merit promotion. "Inka rulers began to appoint close relatives to religious, administrative, and military positions." [3] Inca of Privilege could hold roles in the government administration and leadership positions like provincial governor. [4] Commoners could rise to become top administrators and military leaders. [5] [1]: (Covey 2015, personal communication) [2]: (D’Altroy 2014, 353) [3]: (Covey 2003, 353) [4]: (Bauer 2004, 18-22) [5]: (Kaufmann and Kaufmann 2012) |
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No evidence for employment specialization characteristic of a developed urban society. Agricultural and herding would be typical occupations with "some internal differentiation ... in view of the sophistication of craft production documented at Mehrgarh.”
[1]
[1]: Agrawal, D. P. (2007) The Indus Civilization: An interdisciplinary perspective. Aryan Books International: New Delhi. |
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No evidence has been found of state organisation at Mehrgarh.
[1]
[2]
An urban community of thousands suggests Mehrgarh likely had some degree of hierarchy for dispute resolution, perhaps a chief or collective decision making body but there is no evidence for any institutions of government.
[1]: Gregory L. Possehl. The Indus Civilization. A Contemporary Perspective. Walnut Creek, Altamira, 2002, p. 6 [2]: Petrie, C. A. (in press) Chapter 11, Case Study: Mehrgarh. In, Barker, G and Goucher, C (eds.) Cambridge World History, Volume 2: A World with Agriculture, 12,000 BCE - 500 CE. Cambridge University Press: Cambridge |
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In the early period the conquering Arabs had no choice but to hire the best educated available because institutions to educate Muslim-Arabs had not been established. For example. in Egypt "during the first hundred years, all the provincial officials were Christians."
[1]
From the Copts, Orthodox Greeks and Jews the Arabs "drew the bureaucrats they needed to administer the country."
[2]
Or? kinship and connections were the most important part in determining promotion. Alternatively, skilled writers could seek patronage of the caliph directly, leading to a fiscal reward for skill. However, to gain access to such a network required the right background and social network. However? There may not have been an explicit policy to promote on merit but the officials who ran the bureaucracies of the Caliphate were not picked based on their Muslim-Arab heritage. Both Arab and non-Arab were appointed as administrators. [3] Arab-Muslims did not have the personnel to staff an empire and relied on local bureaucrats, who therefore kept their positions based on their skills rather than removed because they were conquered people. From the end of the 7th century "the business of government was conducted by professional administrators (both Arab and non-Arab) rather than by councils of Arab chiefs." However, the non-Arabs (except in Persia?) came to work in Arabic. "In the first decades of the Arab empire, administration had been carried out by Greek- and Persian-speaking officials inherited from the older Empires. By 700, however, a new generation of Arabic-speaking clients came to power - an indication of a broad process of Arabization in the region." Caliph Umar (717-720 CE) "believed that the domination of one ethnic caste over other peoples was un-Islamic. The peoples who filled the armies and staffed the administration, the merchants and artisans who took a leading part in the propagation of Islam, would all have to be accepted as participants in the empire. The antagonisms between Arab and non-Arab would have to be dissolved into a universal Muslim unity." [4] However, the Abbasids "returned to the principles of Umar II, The Abbasids swept away Arab caste supremacy and accepted the universal equality of Muslims." [5] [1]: (Raymond 2000, 17) [2]: (Raymond 2000, 20) [3]: (Lapidus 2013, 86) [4]: (Lapidus 2013, 88) [5]: (Lapidus 2013, 93) |
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Thai bureaucracy was extensively reformed between the late nineteenth and the early twentieth century
[1]
. It seems reasonable to infer that, before the reforms, Rattanakosin bureaucracy resembled Ayutthayan bureaucracy. Specifically, "[e]ntry into the official ranks was a noble preserve. Families presented their sons at court, where they were enrolled as pages. Ascent up the ladder of success then depended on personal skill, family connections, and royal favour"
[2]
.
[1]: (Baker and Phongpaichit 2009, p. 96) [2]: (Baker and Phongpaichit 2009, p. 15) |
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Preiser-Kapeller says present.
[1]
"The officials brought into association with the central administration in this way were not only the members of certain privileged families. They were often men who had risen from lower social classes by reason of their own ability." [2] "Provincials, the best example being Michael Attaleiates, benefited from social mobility based on talent at a time of the development of the schools of Constantinople." [3] Women and men from humble origins could rise to positions of power [4] . Woman played "leading part in state affairs and society... political constitution did not exclude women from the throne" [5] Nepotism (when? how widespread?) "It often happened that certain particularly energetic civil servants through their unusual activity in the central departments gave their office far greater importance than really belonged to it. They took great care to ensure that the importance gained by this usurpation of the responsibilities of other departments was retained, and with this in mind they appointed suitable successors, colleagues or men drawn from their own circle of relatives." [2] "The administration, in spite of the great services it rendered to the State, was honeycombed with vices. As places were sold, so were favours and justice. To make a fortune and gain advancement, merit was of less use than intrigue...". [6] [1]: (Preiser-Kapeller 2015) Institute for Medieval Research, Division of Byzantine Research, Austrian Academy of Sciences) [2]: (Haussig 1971, 182) Haussig, H W.trans Hussey, J M. 1971. History of Byzantine Civilization. Thames and Hudson. [3]: (Cheynet 2008, 522) Jeffreys E, Haldon J and Cormack R eds. 2008. The Oxford Handbook of Byzantine Studies. Oxford University Press. Oxford. [5]: (Tanner, Previte-Orton, Brooke 1923, 757) Tanner, J, Previte-Orton, C, Brooke, Z eds. (1923) Charles Diehl, The Cambridge Medieval History, Volume IV, The Eastern Roman Empire 171-1453 [2] [6]: (Tanner, Previte-Orton, Brooke 1923, 775) Tanner, J, Previte-Orton, C, Brooke, Z eds. (1923) Charles Diehl, The Cambridge Medieval History, Volume IV, The Eastern Roman Empire 171-1453 [3] |
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Preiser-Kapeller says present.
[1]
"The officials brought into association with the central administration in this way were not only the members of certain privileged families. They were often men who had risen from lower social classes by reason of their own ability." [2] "Provincials, the best example being Michael Attaleiates, benefited from social mobility based on talent at a time of the development of the schools of Constantinople." [3] Women and men from humble origins could rise to positions of power [4] . Woman played "leading part in state affairs and society... political constitution did not exclude women from the throne" [5] Nepotism (very widespread [6] ) "It often happened that certain particularly energetic civil servants through their unusual activity in the central departments gave their office far greater importance than really belonged to it. They took great care to ensure that the importance gained by this usurpation of the responsibilities of other departments was retained, and with this in mind they appointed suitable successors, colleagues or men drawn from their own circle of relatives." [2] "The administration, in spite of the great services it rendered to the State, was honeycombed with vices. As places were sold, so were favours and justice. To make a fortune and gain advancement, merit was of less use than intrigue...". [7] [1]: (Preiser-Kapeller 2015) Institute for Medieval Research, Division of Byzantine Research, Austrian Academy of Sciences) [2]: (Haussig 1971, 182) Haussig, H W.trans Hussey, J M. 1971. History of Byzantine Civilization. Thames and Hudson. [3]: (Cheynet 2008, 522) Jeffreys E, Haldon J and Cormack R eds. 2008. The Oxford Handbook of Byzantine Studies. Oxford University Press. Oxford. [5]: (Tanner, Previte-Orton, Brooke 1923, 757) Tanner, J, Previte-Orton, C, Brooke, Z eds. (1923) Charles Diehl, The Cambridge Medieval History, Volume IV, The Eastern Roman Empire 171-1453 [2] [6]: (Preiser-Kapeller 2015) Institute for Medieval Research, Division of Byzantine Research, Austrian Academy of Sciences. Personal Communication. [7]: (Tanner, Previte-Orton, Brooke 1923, 775) Tanner, J, Previte-Orton, C, Brooke, Z eds. (1923) Charles Diehl, The Cambridge Medieval History, Volume IV, The Eastern Roman Empire 171-1453 [3] |
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Merit promotion present within the slave class.
Bureaucracy was staffed mostly from a slave class of boys raised from the devsirme tribute system, every five years, from Christian families (mostly from the Balkans region). They were taught Turkish, converted to Islam and educated from childhood to work in the military and government, excluding sons of most Muslim fathers within the Empire. [1] However, amongst the slave class promotion was usually on merit "Appointments to judgeships required the attainment of appropriate levels in the educational system." [2] [1]: (Palmer 1992) [2]: (Lapidus 2012, 440) |
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"No text makes it possible for us to make a direct connection between the presence of a strong merchant class and the Sogdian political structure. While it cannot be proven, the hypothesis of this connection is nonetheless very tempting. Indeed, the summit of Sogdian society was occupied by an oligarchy whose exact social nature we must struggle to discern. One can suppose that it was formed by the union of the families of noble dihqans, with their possessions in the countryside, and the merchant families. At Bukhara, in any case, when the Arabs had seized the city, the merchant family of Kashkathan was at the head of the resistance to Islamization. Likewise, at Paykent, the “city of merchants” par excellence in the Arabic sources, no sovereign is ever named and the merchants seem to have acted collectively. The community (naf ) of Turfan is cited together with the Chinese king of Gaochang/Turfan."
[1]
[1]: (De la Vaissière 2005, 168-169) |
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Ayyubid period: "In the generation after Saladin, the Mamelukes had become household armies of individual Ayyubid princes, each contingent on maintaining a separate identity through endogamous marriage, with advancement in rank determined by proved merit."
[1]
"Such endowments normally provided for the subsistence and education of a specified number of orphans or other poor children. This implies that education and employment in public service provided an avenue to upward mobility for the less privileged strata of Yemeni society." [2] "Within the bureaucracy, mobility was lateral as well. As indicated by the content of the biographical dictionaries pertaining to the period and the obituaries interspersed in the chronicles, a judge or administrator might serve in up to a half-dozen posts throughout Lower Yemen during his career." [2] [1]: (Stookey 1978, 104) Robert W Stookey. 1978. Yemen: The Politics of the Yemen Arab Republic. Westview Press. Boulder. [2]: (Stookey 1978, 114) Robert W Stookey. 1978. Yemen: The Politics of the Yemen Arab Republic. Westview Press. Boulder. |
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Full-time specialists most likely absent, their duties being fulfilled by the chiefs and other social leaders of communities within the social hierarchy, if Great Zimbabwe was organized along the same lines as the Karanga, as Chirikure suggests. “Great Zimbabwe is a ruined Shona city or guta which controlled a sizeable territory…. As a collection of homesteads and misha, the guta had no formalised bureaucracy, no formalised division of labour or occupational specialisations… In general [in Karanga society], imba…, was the smallest and lowest level social unit. A collection of dzimba formed misha…. A group of misha formed dunhu…. A group of matunhu formed a state (nyika) under a chief (ishe/mambo/changamire)…. Each level performed administrative, economic, religious, and political roles consistent with rank.”
[1]
.
[1]: (Chirikure 2021, 258-267) Shadreck Chirikure, Great Zimbabwe: Reclaiming a ‘Confiscated’ Past (Routledge, 2021). Seshat URL: https://www.zotero.org/groups/1051264/seshat_databank/collections/GWWIKDDM/items/MWWKAGSJ/collection |
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“The principal war-chiefs of the capital were the seventy Eso, divided into sixteen senior and fifty-four junior titles. The Eso titles were not hereditary, but were conferred individually on merit: this was no doubt a concession to the demands of military efficiency.”
[1]
[1]: Law, R. (1977). The Oyo Empire c. 1600 – c. 1836: A West African Imperialism in the Era of the Atlantic Slave Trade. Oxford University Press: 189. https://www.zotero.org/groups/1051264/seshat_databank/collections/GWWIKDDM/items/SB32ZPCF/collection |
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“Except for the heirs to enigie and hereditary priests of community cults, the ultimate pinnacles of ambition lay outside the village. Relatively few managed to transpose themselves from the age-ascriptive hierarchy of the village to the achievement hierarchy of the state, yet virtually everyone had a kinsman or neighbour who had succeeded in doing so.”
[1]
“Once a man became ukɔ he was eligible to apply for a title. All non-hereditary titles were at the Oba’s disposal when they fell vacant through the death or promotion of the previous holder. […] In each otu there were two main grades of titles—ekhaɛnbhɛn and eghaɛbho. […] However, promotion was not automatic. The death of a senior chief did not mean that all those below him moved up one step. All titles were open to competition each time they fell vacant. […] wealth and family tradition combined to produce something in the nature of an hereditary aristocracy of retainers, through the generations of which administrative and political skills were passed down. Yet, at any one time, all ranks of the palace associations included a leavening of ‘new men’ who had risen from lowly origins. The strength of the palace organization as an instrument of centralization and stability lay, in part at least, in the way it thus combined a solid core of continuity with an open system of recruitment.”
[2]
“Unlike the Uzama, who were hereditary nobles, the Town Chiefs were commoners who, by their enterprise and the Oba’s favour, had risen to positions of power.”
[3]
[1]: Bradbury, R. E. (1967). The Kingdom of Benin. In West African Kingdoms in the Nineteenth Century (Repr, pp. 1–35). Published for the International African Institute by Oxford University Press: 20. https://www.zotero.org/groups/1051264/seshat_databank/collections/GWWIKDDM/items/Z8DJIKP8/collection [2]: Bradbury, R. E. (1967). The Kingdom of Benin. In West African Kingdoms in the Nineteenth Century (Repr, pp. 1–35). Published for the International African Institute by Oxford University Press: 21–22. https://www.zotero.org/groups/1051264/seshat_databank/collections/GWWIKDDM/items/Z8DJIKP8/collection [3]: Bradbury, R. E. (1967). The Kingdom of Benin. In West African Kingdoms in the Nineteenth Century (Repr, pp. 1–35). Published for the International African Institute by Oxford University Press: 25–26. https://www.zotero.org/groups/1051264/seshat_databank/collections/GWWIKDDM/items/Z8DJIKP8/collection |
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Some later Old Kingdom tomb biographies suggest at least an informal promotional system. e.g. Biography of Weni, Dynasty 6, from Abydos.
[1]
. However there was probably no regular, institutionalized procedure for promotion based on performance.
Promotion on merit was essential to scribal culture but knowing the right person and informal networks also helped a bureaucrat’s career. [2] Example given 6th Dynasty scribe Weni of Abydos. "It was administered by a literate elite selected at least partly on merit." [3] [1]: (Lichtheim 1975, 18-23) [2]: (Garcia 2013, 1029) Garcia, Juan Carlos Moreno "The ’Other’ Administration: Patronage, Factions, and Informal Networks of Power in Ancient Egypt" in Garcia, Juan Carlos Moreno ed. 2013. Ancient Egyptian Administration. BRILL. [3]: (Malek 2000, 85) |
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"The royal court served as a judicial and political center, but not as a bureaucratic focal point. The Mugabe’s chief minister, the Enganzi, was not a prime minister in the usual sense of leader of government business. He was merely the King’s favorite. Neither was there a cabinet nor governmental bureaux, although the colonial era saw the formation of a council of chiefs (Eishengyero) claiming traditional status. No distinction between the royal and state treasury was made and the heads of local administrative units were not required to attend court or reside at the capital as in Buganda, for instance. In fact, the only governmental business conducted at court was the hearing of cases, often involving the disputed possession of cattle or women by the Hima. The appointment and dismissal of military and administrative functionaries from among those aristocratic Hima and Hinda princes who regularly attended court was the Mugabe’s sole administrative function."
[1]
[1]: (Steinhart 1978: 144) Seshat URL: https://www.zotero.org/groups/1051264/seshat_databank/collections/GWWIKDDM/items/D3FV7SKV/collection. |
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“Although the leadership of the Caliphate did not specify all the offices to be filled, it is clear that the Shehu categorically rejected the proliferation of political titles characteristic of the pre-jihad Hausa kingdoms and planned to abolish parasitic sarauta titles in favour of a more streamlined political system consonant with the Islamic theory of political administration drawn largely from the Maliki school of jurisprudence. The Shehu was also vehemently opposed to the hereditary traditions of the pre-jihad Hausa kingdoms and emphasised scholarship and unquestioned morality as the principal criteria for office.”
[1]
“The Caliphate thus fell far short of achieving its ideals. It did transform the political map of the Central Sudan and brought hitherto antagonistic communities together within the confines of a popular ideological framework. But it continued to operate largely within the structures of the old order against which the jihad had been waged in the first place. Political office was still based on hereditary principles rather than competence and piety. Many elements of the sarauta system survived as the new aristocracy appropriated vast tracts of land which it worked with slave and unpaid peasant labour. Both agricultural and handicraft production increased, but the condition of the producers and their relationship to production remained largely unchanged. So too did the Caliphate’s class structure in general, though it was now constructed on a different ideological basis.”
[2]
[1]: Chafe, Kabiru Sulaiman. “Challenges to the Hegemony of the Sokoto Caliphate: A Preliminary Examination.” Paideuma, vol. 40, 1994, pp. 99–109: 101. https://www.zotero.org/groups/1051264/seshat_databank/collections/GWWIKDDM/items/ZANHCUFH/collection [2]: Chafe, Kabiru Sulaiman. “Challenges to the Hegemony of the Sokoto Caliphate: A Preliminary Examination.” Paideuma, vol. 40, 1994, pp. 99–109: 105-106. https://www.zotero.org/groups/1051264/seshat_databank/collections/GWWIKDDM/items/ZANHCUFH/collection |
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|
“Although the leadership of the Caliphate did not specify all the offices to be filled, it is clear that the Shehu categorically rejected the proliferation of political titles characteristic of the pre-jihad Hausa kingdoms and planned to abolish parasitic sarauta titles in favour of a more streamlined political system consonant with the Islamic theory of political administration drawn largely from the Maliki school of jurisprudence. The Shehu was also vehemently opposed to the hereditary traditions of the pre-jihad Hausa kingdoms and emphasised scholarship and unquestioned morality as the principal criteria for office.”
[1]
“In catering for the development and management needs of the state, the sarauta system evolved in such a way that commoners and slaves could occupy the highest offices if they were considered highly trustworthy. Thus it was that royal slaves, particularly eunuchs, came to constitute an essential cog in the state machinery throughout the region.”
[2]
[1]: Chafe, Kabiru Sulaiman. “Challenges to the Hegemony of the Sokoto Caliphate: A Preliminary Examination.” Paideuma, vol. 40, 1994, pp. 99–109: 101. https://www.zotero.org/groups/1051264/seshat_databank/collections/GWWIKDDM/items/ZANHCUFH/collection [2]: Ogot, B. (Ed.). (1998). Africa from the Sixteenth to the Eighteenth century. Heinemann; University of California Press: 473. https://www.zotero.org/groups/1051264/seshat_databank/collections/GWWIKDDM/items/M4FMXZZW/collection |
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|
The following directly applies to northern Sierra Leone, but, based on Fyle and Foray’s assertion that "[p]olitical systems in the Sierra Leone area were fairly similar in structure,"
[1]
it seems reasonable to infer that it can be applied to the whole of Sierra Leone’s interior. "The precolonial sociopolitical organization of northern Sierra Leone is difficult to characterize, in part because of the limited information available prior to the late nineteenth century. [...] Features of centralized political authority (e.g., Cohen 1991; Southhall 1988, 1991), such as institutionalized bureaucracy, taxation, centralized redistribution of goods and labor, stratified accumulation of wealth, and military control, that have been traditionally seen as markers of state-level organization were limited."
[2]
[1]: (Fyle and Foray 2006: xxx) Seshat URL: https://www.zotero.org/groups/1051264/seshat_databank/collections/GWWIKDDM. [2]: (DeCorse 2012: 285) Seshat URL: https://www.zotero.org/groups/1051264/seshat_databank/collections/GWWIKDDM/items/7FGSKCDI/collection. |
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|
Promotion in the aristocracy through military service. "The military leader was or became an aristocrat ipso facto, and the lower classes often had access to that rank through military achievement."
[1]
"Letrados could start life as commoners, although upon receiving a university education and serving as bureaucrats, they were treated as hidalgos."
[2]
[1]: (Payne 1973, 268) Payne, Stanley G. 1973. A History of Spain and Portugal, Volume 1. Madison, Wisconsin: University of Wisconsin Press. http://libro.uca.edu/payne1/spainport1.htm. https://www.zotero.org/groups/seshat_databank/items/itemKey/6MIH95XP [2]: (Alves, Abel. Personal Communication to Jill Levine, Dan Hoyer, and Peter Turchin. April 2020. Email.) |
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|
“Although the leadership of the Caliphate did not specify all the offices to be filled, it is clear that the Shehu categorically rejected the proliferation of political titles characteristic of the pre-jihad Hausa kingdoms and planned to abolish parasitic sarauta titles in favour of a more streamlined political system consonant with the Islamic theory of political administration drawn largely from the Maliki school of jurisprudence. The Shehu was also vehemently opposed to the hereditary traditions of the pre-jihad Hausa kingdoms and emphasised scholarship and unquestioned morality as the principal criteria for office.”
[1]
“The Caliphate thus fell far short of achieving its ideals. It did transform the political map of the Central Sudan and brought hitherto antagonistic communities together within the confines of a popular ideological framework. But it continued to operate largely within the structures of the old order against which the jihad had been waged in the first place. Political office was still based on hereditary principles rather than competence and piety. Many elements of the sarauta system survived as the new aristocracy appropriated vast tracts of land which it worked with slave and unpaid peasant labour. Both agricultural and handicraft production increased, but the condition of the producers and their relationship to production remained largely unchanged. So too did the Caliphate’s class structure in general, though it was now constructed on a different ideological basis.”
[2]
[1]: Chafe, Kabiru Sulaiman. “Challenges to the Hegemony of the Sokoto Caliphate: A Preliminary Examination.” Paideuma, vol. 40, 1994, pp. 99–109: 101. https://www.zotero.org/groups/1051264/seshat_databank/collections/GWWIKDDM/items/ZANHCUFH/collection [2]: Chafe, Kabiru Sulaiman. “Challenges to the Hegemony of the Sokoto Caliphate: A Preliminary Examination.” Paideuma, vol. 40, 1994, pp. 99–109: 105-106. https://www.zotero.org/groups/1051264/seshat_databank/collections/GWWIKDDM/items/ZANHCUFH/collection |
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|
Inferred from the fact that full-time specialised bureaucracy does not seem to have emerged in the broader Great Lakes region prior to the colonial era. For example, in Nkore, "The royal court served as a judicial and political center, but not as a bureaucratic focal point. The Mugabe’s chief minister, the Enganzi, was not a prime minister in the usual sense of leader of government business. He was merely the King’s favorite. Neither was there a cabinet nor governmental bureaux [...]. No distinction between the royal and state treasury was made and the heads of local administrative units were not required to attend court or reside at the capital as in Buganda, for instance."
[1]
In Rwanda: "In this sort of government, administration was not yet institutionalized."
[2]
In Burundi, the king seemingly entrusted administration mostly to close relatives and local chiefs: "Ntare relied on his sons as administrators: he was strong enough to set up his sons, but not strong enough to incorporate these regions fully within central control. [...] During the late nineteenth century, under the reign of Mwezi Gisabo, a four-tiered system of administration emerged: a central area around Muramvya under the control of the king; an area under the administration of his sons or brothers most closely allied to the king; a broad swath further east and south administered by Batare chiefs, the descendants of Ntare; and another zone, covering the western and northwestern areas of the country, under the administration of others, not Baganwa (in fact, they were mostly Hutu authorities). [...] Administrative authorities in the east and south- east, often Batare (descendants of Ntare Rugamba), simply retained their administrative autonomy while acknowledging nominal central court ritual hegemony. Those in the northeast more characteristically undertook open revolt, often by those who sought to overthrow Mwezi."
[3]
Moreover, it is curious that, despite the wealth of literature available on this polity, so far we have been unable to find mentions of a bureaucracy, which strongly suggests (without outright confirming) that it was simply not present at this time.
[1]: (Steinhart 1978: 144) Seshat URL: https://www.zotero.org/groups/1051264/seshat_databank/collections/GWWIKDDM/items/D3FV7SKV/collection. [2]: (Vansina 2004: 63) Seshat URL: https://www.zotero.org/groups/1051264/seshat_databank/collections/GWWIKDDM/items/5J4MRHUB/collection. [3]: (Newbury 2001: 283-284) Seshat URL: https://www.zotero.org/groups/1051264/seshat_databank/collections/GWWIKDDM/items/J5A6DM3P/collection. |
||||||
|
Inferred from the fact that full-time specialised bureaucracy does not seem to have emerged in the broader Great Lakes region prior to the colonial era. For example, in Nkore, "The royal court served as a judicial and political center, but not as a bureaucratic focal point. The Mugabe’s chief minister, the Enganzi, was not a prime minister in the usual sense of leader of government business. He was merely the King’s favorite. Neither was there a cabinet nor governmental bureaux [...]. No distinction between the royal and state treasury was made and the heads of local administrative units were not required to attend court or reside at the capital as in Buganda, for instance."
[1]
In Rwanda: "In this sort of government, administration was not yet institutionalized."
[2]
In Burundi, the king seemingly entrusted administration mostly to close relatives and local chiefs: "Ntare relied on his sons as administrators: he was strong enough to set up his sons, but not strong enough to incorporate these regions fully within central control. [...] During the late nineteenth century, under the reign of Mwezi Gisabo, a four-tiered system of administration emerged: a central area around Muramvya under the control of the king; an area under the administration of his sons or brothers most closely allied to the king; a broad swath further east and south administered by Batare chiefs, the descendants of Ntare; and another zone, covering the western and northwestern areas of the country, under the administration of others, not Baganwa (in fact, they were mostly Hutu authorities). [...] Administrative authorities in the east and south- east, often Batare (descendants of Ntare Rugamba), simply retained their administrative autonomy while acknowledging nominal central court ritual hegemony. Those in the northeast more characteristically undertook open revolt, often by those who sought to overthrow Mwezi."
[3]
[1]: (Steinhart 1978: 144) Seshat URL: https://www.zotero.org/groups/1051264/seshat_databank/collections/GWWIKDDM/items/D3FV7SKV/collection. [2]: (Vansina 2004: 63) Seshat URL: https://www.zotero.org/groups/1051264/seshat_databank/collections/GWWIKDDM/items/5J4MRHUB/collection. [3]: (Newbury 2001: 283-284) Seshat URL: https://www.zotero.org/groups/1051264/seshat_databank/collections/GWWIKDDM/items/J5A6DM3P/collection. |
||||||
|
Inferred from the fact that full-time specialised bureaucracy does not seem to have emerged in the broader Great Lakes region prior to the colonial era. For example, in Nkore, "The royal court served as a judicial and political center, but not as a bureaucratic focal point. The Mugabe’s chief minister, the Enganzi, was not a prime minister in the usual sense of leader of government business. He was merely the King’s favorite. Neither was there a cabinet nor governmental bureaux [...]. No distinction between the royal and state treasury was made and the heads of local administrative units were not required to attend court or reside at the capital as in Buganda, for instance."
[1]
In Rwanda: "In this sort of government, administration was not yet institutionalized."
[2]
In Burundi, the king seemingly entrusted administration mostly to close relatives and local chiefs: "Ntare relied on his sons as administrators: he was strong enough to set up his sons, but not strong enough to incorporate these regions fully within central control. [...] During the late nineteenth century, under the reign of Mwezi Gisabo, a four-tiered system of administration emerged: a central area around Muramvya under the control of the king; an area under the administration of his sons or brothers most closely allied to the king; a broad swath further east and south administered by Batare chiefs, the descendants of Ntare; and another zone, covering the western and northwestern areas of the country, under the administration of others, not Baganwa (in fact, they were mostly Hutu authorities). [...] Administrative authorities in the east and south- east, often Batare (descendants of Ntare Rugamba), simply retained their administrative autonomy while acknowledging nominal central court ritual hegemony. Those in the northeast more characteristically undertook open revolt, often by those who sought to overthrow Mwezi."
[3]
[1]: (Steinhart 1978: 144) Seshat URL: https://www.zotero.org/groups/1051264/seshat_databank/collections/GWWIKDDM/items/D3FV7SKV/collection. [2]: (Vansina 2004: 63) Seshat URL: https://www.zotero.org/groups/1051264/seshat_databank/collections/GWWIKDDM/items/5J4MRHUB/collection. [3]: (Newbury 2001: 283-284) Seshat URL: https://www.zotero.org/groups/1051264/seshat_databank/collections/GWWIKDDM/items/J5A6DM3P/collection. |
||||||
|
Inferred from the fact that even when this polity grew in complexity following the reforms of the 18th century, it still lacked a bureaucracy: "The royal court served as a judicial and political center, but not as a bureaucratic focal point. The Mugabe’s chief minister, the Enganzi, was not a prime minister in the usual sense of leader of government business. He was merely the King’s favorite. Neither was there a cabinet nor governmental bureaux, although the colonial era saw the formation of a council of chiefs (Eishengyero) claiming traditional status. No distinction between the royal and state treasury was made and the heads of local administrative units were not required to attend court or reside at the capital as in Buganda, for instance. In fact, the only governmental business conducted at court was the hearing of cases, often involving the disputed possession of cattle or women by the Hima. The appointment and dismissal of military and administrative functionaries from among those aristocratic Hima and Hinda princes who regularly attended court was the Mugabe’s sole administrative function."
[1]
[1]: (Steinhart 1978: 144) Seshat URL: https://www.zotero.org/groups/1051264/seshat_databank/collections/GWWIKDDM/items/D3FV7SKV/collection. |
||||||
|
Inferred from the fact that full-time specialised bureaucracy does not seem to have emerged in the broader Great Lakes region prior to the colonial era. For example, in Nkore, "The royal court served as a judicial and political center, but not as a bureaucratic focal point. The Mugabe’s chief minister, the Enganzi, was not a prime minister in the usual sense of leader of government business. He was merely the King’s favorite. Neither was there a cabinet nor governmental bureaux [...]. No distinction between the royal and state treasury was made and the heads of local administrative units were not required to attend court or reside at the capital as in Buganda, for instance."
[1]
In Rwanda: "In this sort of government, administration was not yet institutionalized."
[2]
In Burundi, the king seemingly entrusted administration mostly to close relatives and local chiefs: "Ntare relied on his sons as administrators: he was strong enough to set up his sons, but not strong enough to incorporate these regions fully within central control. [...] During the late nineteenth century, under the reign of Mwezi Gisabo, a four-tiered system of administration emerged: a central area around Muramvya under the control of the king; an area under the administration of his sons or brothers most closely allied to the king; a broad swath further east and south administered by Batare chiefs, the descendants of Ntare; and another zone, covering the western and northwestern areas of the country, under the administration of others, not Baganwa (in fact, they were mostly Hutu authorities). [...] Administrative authorities in the east and south- east, often Batare (descendants of Ntare Rugamba), simply retained their administrative autonomy while acknowledging nominal central court ritual hegemony. Those in the northeast more characteristically undertook open revolt, often by those who sought to overthrow Mwezi."
[3]
[1]: (Steinhart 1978: 144) Seshat URL: https://www.zotero.org/groups/1051264/seshat_databank/collections/GWWIKDDM/items/D3FV7SKV/collection. [2]: (Vansina 2004: 63) Seshat URL: https://www.zotero.org/groups/1051264/seshat_databank/collections/GWWIKDDM/items/5J4MRHUB/collection. [3]: (Newbury 2001: 283-284) Seshat URL: https://www.zotero.org/groups/1051264/seshat_databank/collections/GWWIKDDM/items/J5A6DM3P/collection. |
||||||
|
Inferred from the fact that full-time specialised bureaucracy does not seem to have emerged in the broader Great Lakes region prior to the colonial era. For example, in Nkore, "The royal court served as a judicial and political center, but not as a bureaucratic focal point. The Mugabe’s chief minister, the Enganzi, was not a prime minister in the usual sense of leader of government business. He was merely the King’s favorite. Neither was there a cabinet nor governmental bureaux [...]. No distinction between the royal and state treasury was made and the heads of local administrative units were not required to attend court or reside at the capital as in Buganda, for instance."
[1]
In Rwanda: "In this sort of government, administration was not yet institutionalized."
[2]
In Burundi, the king seemingly entrusted administration mostly to close relatives and local chiefs: "Ntare relied on his sons as administrators: he was strong enough to set up his sons, but not strong enough to incorporate these regions fully within central control. [...] During the late nineteenth century, under the reign of Mwezi Gisabo, a four-tiered system of administration emerged: a central area around Muramvya under the control of the king; an area under the administration of his sons or brothers most closely allied to the king; a broad swath further east and south administered by Batare chiefs, the descendants of Ntare; and another zone, covering the western and northwestern areas of the country, under the administration of others, not Baganwa (in fact, they were mostly Hutu authorities). [...] Administrative authorities in the east and south- east, often Batare (descendants of Ntare Rugamba), simply retained their administrative autonomy while acknowledging nominal central court ritual hegemony. Those in the northeast more characteristically undertook open revolt, often by those who sought to overthrow Mwezi."
[3]
[1]: (Steinhart 1978: 144) Seshat URL: https://www.zotero.org/groups/1051264/seshat_databank/collections/GWWIKDDM/items/D3FV7SKV/collection. [2]: (Vansina 2004: 63) Seshat URL: https://www.zotero.org/groups/1051264/seshat_databank/collections/GWWIKDDM/items/5J4MRHUB/collection. [3]: (Newbury 2001: 283-284) Seshat URL: https://www.zotero.org/groups/1051264/seshat_databank/collections/GWWIKDDM/items/J5A6DM3P/collection. |
||||||
|
Inferred from the fact that full-time specialised bureaucracy does not seem to have emerged in the broader Great Lakes region prior to the colonial era. For example, in Nkore, "The royal court served as a judicial and political center, but not as a bureaucratic focal point. The Mugabe’s chief minister, the Enganzi, was not a prime minister in the usual sense of leader of government business. He was merely the King’s favorite. Neither was there a cabinet nor governmental bureaux [...]. No distinction between the royal and state treasury was made and the heads of local administrative units were not required to attend court or reside at the capital as in Buganda, for instance."
[1]
In Rwanda: "In this sort of government, administration was not yet institutionalized."
[2]
In Burundi, the king seemingly entrusted administration mostly to close relatives and local chiefs: "Ntare relied on his sons as administrators: he was strong enough to set up his sons, but not strong enough to incorporate these regions fully within central control. [...] During the late nineteenth century, under the reign of Mwezi Gisabo, a four-tiered system of administration emerged: a central area around Muramvya under the control of the king; an area under the administration of his sons or brothers most closely allied to the king; a broad swath further east and south administered by Batare chiefs, the descendants of Ntare; and another zone, covering the western and northwestern areas of the country, under the administration of others, not Baganwa (in fact, they were mostly Hutu authorities). [...] Administrative authorities in the east and south- east, often Batare (descendants of Ntare Rugamba), simply retained their administrative autonomy while acknowledging nominal central court ritual hegemony. Those in the northeast more characteristically undertook open revolt, often by those who sought to overthrow Mwezi."
[3]
[1]: (Steinhart 1978: 144) Seshat URL: https://www.zotero.org/groups/1051264/seshat_databank/collections/GWWIKDDM/items/D3FV7SKV/collection. [2]: (Vansina 2004: 63) Seshat URL: https://www.zotero.org/groups/1051264/seshat_databank/collections/GWWIKDDM/items/5J4MRHUB/collection. [3]: (Newbury 2001: 283-284) Seshat URL: https://www.zotero.org/groups/1051264/seshat_databank/collections/GWWIKDDM/items/J5A6DM3P/collection. |
||||||
|
Inferred from the fact that full-time specialised bureaucracy does not seem to have emerged in the broader Great Lakes region prior to the colonial era. For example, in Nkore, "The royal court served as a judicial and political center, but not as a bureaucratic focal point. The Mugabe’s chief minister, the Enganzi, was not a prime minister in the usual sense of leader of government business. He was merely the King’s favorite. Neither was there a cabinet nor governmental bureaux [...]. No distinction between the royal and state treasury was made and the heads of local administrative units were not required to attend court or reside at the capital as in Buganda, for instance."
[1]
In Rwanda: "In this sort of government, administration was not yet institutionalized."
[2]
In Burundi, the king seemingly entrusted administration mostly to close relatives and local chiefs: "Ntare relied on his sons as administrators: he was strong enough to set up his sons, but not strong enough to incorporate these regions fully within central control. [...] During the late nineteenth century, under the reign of Mwezi Gisabo, a four-tiered system of administration emerged: a central area around Muramvya under the control of the king; an area under the administration of his sons or brothers most closely allied to the king; a broad swath further east and south administered by Batare chiefs, the descendants of Ntare; and another zone, covering the western and northwestern areas of the country, under the administration of others, not Baganwa (in fact, they were mostly Hutu authorities). [...] Administrative authorities in the east and south- east, often Batare (descendants of Ntare Rugamba), simply retained their administrative autonomy while acknowledging nominal central court ritual hegemony. Those in the northeast more characteristically undertook open revolt, often by those who sought to overthrow Mwezi."
[3]
[1]: (Steinhart 1978: 144) Seshat URL: https://www.zotero.org/groups/1051264/seshat_databank/collections/GWWIKDDM/items/D3FV7SKV/collection. [2]: (Vansina 2004: 63) Seshat URL: https://www.zotero.org/groups/1051264/seshat_databank/collections/GWWIKDDM/items/5J4MRHUB/collection. [3]: (Newbury 2001: 283-284) Seshat URL: https://www.zotero.org/groups/1051264/seshat_databank/collections/GWWIKDDM/items/J5A6DM3P/collection. |
||||||
|
Inferred from the fact that full-time specialised bureaucracy does not seem to have emerged in the broader Great Lakes region prior to the colonial era. For example, in Nkore, "The royal court served as a judicial and political center, but not as a bureaucratic focal point. The Mugabe’s chief minister, the Enganzi, was not a prime minister in the usual sense of leader of government business. He was merely the King’s favorite. Neither was there a cabinet nor governmental bureaux [...]. No distinction between the royal and state treasury was made and the heads of local administrative units were not required to attend court or reside at the capital as in Buganda, for instance."
[1]
In Rwanda: "In this sort of government, administration was not yet institutionalized."
[2]
In Burundi, the king seemingly entrusted administration mostly to close relatives and local chiefs: "Ntare relied on his sons as administrators: he was strong enough to set up his sons, but not strong enough to incorporate these regions fully within central control. [...] During the late nineteenth century, under the reign of Mwezi Gisabo, a four-tiered system of administration emerged: a central area around Muramvya under the control of the king; an area under the administration of his sons or brothers most closely allied to the king; a broad swath further east and south administered by Batare chiefs, the descendants of Ntare; and another zone, covering the western and northwestern areas of the country, under the administration of others, not Baganwa (in fact, they were mostly Hutu authorities). [...] Administrative authorities in the east and south- east, often Batare (descendants of Ntare Rugamba), simply retained their administrative autonomy while acknowledging nominal central court ritual hegemony. Those in the northeast more characteristically undertook open revolt, often by those who sought to overthrow Mwezi."
[3]
[1]: (Steinhart 1978: 144) Seshat URL: https://www.zotero.org/groups/1051264/seshat_databank/collections/GWWIKDDM/items/D3FV7SKV/collection. [2]: (Vansina 2004: 63) Seshat URL: https://www.zotero.org/groups/1051264/seshat_databank/collections/GWWIKDDM/items/5J4MRHUB/collection. [3]: (Newbury 2001: 283-284) Seshat URL: https://www.zotero.org/groups/1051264/seshat_databank/collections/GWWIKDDM/items/J5A6DM3P/collection. |
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|
"Contexts that could shed light on the dynamics of social structure and hierarchies in the metropolis, such as the royal burial site of Oyo monarchs and the residences of the elite population, have not been investigated. The mapping of the palace structures has not been followed by systematic excavations (Soper, 1992); and questions of the economy, military system, and ideology of the empire have not been addressed archaeologically, although their general patterns are known from historical studies (e.g, Johnson, 1921; Law, 1977)."
[1]
Regarding this period, however, one of the historical studies mentioned in this quote also notes: "Of the earliestperiod of Oyo history, before the sixteenth century, very little is known."
[2]
Law does not then go on to provide specific information directly relevant to this variable.
[1]: (Ogundiran 2005: 151-152) [2]: (Law 1977: 33) |
||||||
|
"In respect to selecting officials, the appointment of capable and talented people emerged as a trend in the Spring and Autumn Period."
[1]
"During the Spring and Autumn Period, the powerful states such as Qin and Chu set up a new administrative system of provinces and counties in each of the places they conquered through wars of annexation. In general, counties were based in the center of the state, while provinces were based in the outlying areas. The governorships of the provinces and counties were no longer hereditary positions. Rather governors were appointed and dismissed directly by the kings or lords. These governors in the provinces and counties comprised the first bureaucracy in Chinese history." [2] [1]: (Zhang 2015, 143) Zhang, Qizhi. 2015. An Introduction to Chinese History and Culture. Springer. [2]: (Zhang 2015, 144) Zhang, Qizhi. 2015. An Introduction to Chinese History and Culture. Springer. |
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|
Present
"Theoretically, the process of promotion review entailed two components: a review by the relevant central government authority of the yearly performance evaluations written by the official’s immediate superior and a verification of the years in service necessary to qualify for the promotion." [1] "The development of professional services also refers to the prevalence of the revenue-centred meritocracy in the Song bureaucracy. Officials were appointed, reviewed, and rewarded based on their financial administration records. The chance of promotion in someone’s official career heavily depended on how much he could increase the share of indirect tax revenues contributed to the court, a key step in centralizing the financial administration." [2] "To ensure professionalism, the appointment of high officials in the central government had to demonstrate their financial expertise background. For most of the first century of the Northern Song dynasty (960-1127), over 75 per cent of the Council of the State members, the top level of the central authority, had previous experience in financial administration." [2] Present, among a limited class “Once a bureaucrat had achieved high office, his descendants were entitled to such privileges and advantages that facilitated examinations and direct entry into officialdom. Hence the attainment of high political office for its members allowed an elite lineage to reaffirm its social status and solidify its economic base for another generation.” [3] [1]: (Hartman 2015, 63) [2]: (Liu 2015, 65) [3]: (Levine 2008, 4) Levine, Ari Daniel. 2008. Divided by a Common Language: Factional Conflict in Late Northern Song China. University of Hawai’i Press. Honolulu. |
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|
"The criteria of official promotion during the Western Han Dynasty were by and large those of meritocracy, at least on paper, even though personal relations with superiors always played a crucial role in the promotion process."
[1]
"During the Western Han Dynasty, the most common method of recruiting government officials was the recommendation system. In an edict of 134 BCE, Emperor Wu required each commandery or feudal kingdom to recommend someone "fially pious and incorrupt" (xiao lian) to the central government each year. This method was routinized and became the most important channel of recruiting government officials." [2] "Liao has provided systematic data that give a sense of the recruitment and promotion of local government officials during the Western Han period. ... sixty of them (63 per cent) were promoted because of their good performance..." etc. [3] [1]: (Zhao 2015, 70) Zhao, Dingxin in Scheidel, Walter. ed. 2015. State Power in Ancient China and Rome. Oxford University Press. [2]: (Zhao 2015, 68-69) Zhao, Dingxin in Scheidel, Walter. ed. 2015. State Power in Ancient China and Rome. Oxford University Press. [3]: (Zhao 2015, 71) Zhao, Dingxin in Scheidel, Walter. ed. 2015. State Power in Ancient China and Rome. Oxford University Press. |
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present
"In two recent studies, I have shown in detail that not only were some bureaucratic rules developed in the way the central administrative body was divided during the Western Zhou, but the selection and promotion of officials for higher services also seem to have followed some bureaucratic rules." [1] "Also, as Li has very convincingly argued, if such a lengthy and slow upward path "had been the normal pattern of promotion, experience and personal performance would have been considered very important factors in the government service of the Western Zhou." [2] "King Wen of Zhou appointed Jiang Shang as prime minister. He would go on to become the most meritorious minister from the Zhou Dynasty. These occasional examples of appointment by virtue and quality still could not break the basic principle of the hereditary system." [3] absent "The official positions of the Zhou bureaucracy were only open to descendants of the aristocracy." [4] - however, the meritocracy was present within the lineage system. [1]: (Feng 2006, 95 n30) Feng, Li. 2006. Landscape and Power in Early China: The Crisis and Fall of the Western Zhou 1045-771 BC. Cambridge University Press. [2]: (Zhao 2015, 58-59) Zhao, Dingxin in Scheidel, Walter. ed. 2015. State Power in Ancient China and Rome. Oxford University Press. [3]: (Zhang 2015, 142) Zhang, Qizhi. 2015. An Introduction to Chinese History and Culture. Springer. [4]: (Zhao 2015, 59) Zhao, Dingxin in Scheidel, Walter. ed. 2015. State Power in Ancient China and Rome. Oxford University Press. |
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"Promotions were granted according to precise rules and could lead to the highest positions in the government, both military (atabak al-asakir, general-in-chief; amir silah, director of the arsenal; amir akhur, supreme commander of the army) and administrative (amir majlis, emir of the audience; dawawar, chancellor), as well as to the governorship of the provinces. ... To be acclaimed sultan was naturally the chief career objective of a capable and ambitious emir. One might reach it through seniority, merit, cabal, intrigue, or violence."
[1]
However, from 1290-1382 CE the top position of sultan was inherited by 17 descendants of Sultan Qalawun.
[2]
"Elite personnel of the regime, including the sultan, were slaves or former slaves. In principle, although there were important exceptions, no one could be a member of the military elite unless he was of foreign origin (usually Turkish or Circassian), purchased and raised as a slave, and trained to be a soldier and administrator. No native of Egypt or Syria could ever belong to this elite, nor, in principle, could the sons of slaves." [3] "The Mamluks’ descendants, the awlad al-nas ... were in theory prohibited from holding political or military office. The rule, however, was subject to exceptions..." [4] [1]: (Raymond 2000, 113-114) [2]: (Raymond 2000, 114) [3]: (Lapidus 2012, 247) [4]: (Raymond 2000, 113) |
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Social order considered maat, that is, divinely intended.
[1]
However, in the army commoners could achieve promotion to officer status.
[2]
shn[t]y st.f m ’h "One whose position/status was promoted in the ’h." (tomb of Dhwty, Thut III - Hatsh. period).
[3]
the ’h is considered to be a palace with ceremonial and ritual functions.
[1]: (Hinds 2006, 5) [2]: (Healy 1992, 19) [3]: (Pagliari 2012, 716) Pagliari, Giulia. 2012. Function and significance of ancient Egyptian royal palaces from the Middle Kingdom to the Saite period: a lexicographical study and its possible connection with the archaeological evidence. Ph.D. thesis. University of Birmingham. |
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Within the church, the papal Concordat of Bologna (negotiated between king of France and the pope) promulgated in Rome 1516 CE "dispensed princes of the blood and members of great families from the requirement of a University degree, although the king had the phrase: "the king will name a qualified person, that is to say a graduate or a noble" modified by deleting the last three words in order to minimise lobbying. However, the overwhelming noble status of the bishops appointed after 1516 CE is clear."
[1]
[1]: (Potter 1995, 225. 228-229) |
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’The vast area brought under Asante control by force or threat of arms could not be governed unless new methods of controlling it were developed. From the 1760s, beginning under Asantehene Osei Kwadwo, various steps were taken to bring the control of outlying areas directly under Kumase [...] Senior officeholders in Kumase were placed in charge of particular areas of the administration, controlling considerable numbers of lesser officials. Some supervised the trade in ivory and kola, while others oversaw the gold-producing regions which now fell within the borders of Asante. A form of treasury partly staffed by literate Muslims was created. Groups within the capital began to build up expertise in particular areas of administration and to concentrate on this as a way to power and wealth. Careers began to open for those with intelligence, negotiating skill and a steady nerve.’
[1]
’Significant changes in Asante administrative practice, in the direction of increasing specialization of role, were attributed to Asantehene Osei Kwadwo (1764-1777). The class of administrators was a growing one, but I do not think we should yet speak of an administrative class emerging, one reproducing itself as a class.’
[2]
This indicates that professional merit and expertise were important factors in the emerging bureucracy, but the sources make no mention of standardized procedures for promotion based on performance. The personal opinions of the Asantehene and other superior officials about the expertise of their inferiors seems paramount.
[1]: McLeod, M. D. (Malcolm D.) 1981. “Asante”, 17 [2]: Wilks, Ivor 1993. “Forests Of Gold: Essays On The Akan And The Kingdom Of Asante”, 294 |
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Inferred continuity with preceding period: "the transmission of one’s professional knowledge from father to son was not a particularly negative tendency for the palace. In the long run, however, it transformed the palace and temple personnel into a series of closed corporations. In other words, members of these elite groups prevented anyone outside this clique from accessing their posts. They also monopolised the technical knowledge needed for the management of these institutions."
[1]
[1]: (Liverani 2014, 196) Liverani, Mario. Tabatabai, Soraia trans. 2014. The Ancient Near East: History, Society and Economy. London: Routledge. Seshat URL: https://www.zotero.org/groups/1051264/seshat_databank/items/itemKey/7DRZQS5Q/q/liverani. |
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Access to offices was via kin networks.
[1]
Mithradates II rock reliefs at Behistun 87 BCE show "his principal officials ... The chief of these is called satrap of satraps, the other three simply satraps. Probably these men belonged to the great families of Iran such as the Surens and Karens." [2] According to Chinese records "From Dayuan heading west towards Anxi the different countries speak different languages, but their customs are largely similar and they can understand each other’s speech. ... Women seem to be held in high respect, and the men make decisions on the advice of their women." In other words the records "suggests that the oases between the Pamirs and the Amu-darya were occupied by people who were culturally related to each other, probably all of Iranian stock. [3] [1]: Perikhanian, A., ‘Iranian Society and Law’, in The Cambridge history of Iran: the Seleucid, Parthian and Sasanian periods. Part 2, ed. by Ehsan Yar-Shater (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1983), vol.3, P.645 [2]: (Debevoise 1938, xxxix) Debevoise, Neilson C. 1938. A Political History of Parthia. University of Chicago Press Chicago. https://oi.uchicago.edu/sites/oi.uchicago.edu/files/uploads/shared/docs/political_history_parthia.pdf [3]: (Tao 2007) Tao, Wang in Josef in Curtis, Vesta Sarkhosh and Stewart, Sarah eds. 2007. The Age of the Parthians. I.B.Tauris & Co Ltd. London. |
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Access to offices was via kin networks.
[1]
Mithradates II rock reliefs at Behistun 87 BCE show "his principal officials ... The chief of these is called satrap of satraps, the other three simply satraps. Probably these men belonged to the great families of Iran such as the Surens and Karens." [2] According to Chinese records "From Dayuan heading west towards Anxi the different countries speak different languages, but their customs are largely similar and they can understand each other’s speech. ... Women seem to be held in high respect, and the men make decisions on the advice of their women." In other words the records "suggests that the oases between the Pamirs and the Amu-darya were occupied by people who were culturally related to each other, probably all of Iranian stock. [3] [1]: Perikhanian, A., ‘Iranian Society and Law’, in The Cambridge history of Iran: the Seleucid, Parthian and Sasanian periods. Part 2, ed. by Ehsan Yar-Shater (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1983), vol.3, P.645 [2]: (Debevoise 1938, xxxix) Debevoise, Neilson C. 1938. A Political History of Parthia. University of Chicago Press Chicago. https://oi.uchicago.edu/sites/oi.uchicago.edu/files/uploads/shared/docs/political_history_parthia.pdf [3]: (Tao 2007) Tao, Wang in Josef in Curtis, Vesta Sarkhosh and Stewart, Sarah eds. 2007. The Age of the Parthians. I.B.Tauris & Co Ltd. London. |
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"Succession was typically hereditary for all administrative positions, although the shah could always break the line."
[1]
[2] [1]: Rudi Matthee ‘SAFAVID DYNASTY’ http://www.iranicaonline.org/articles/safavids. [2]: (Newman 2009) Newman, Andrew J. 2009. Safavid Iran: Rebirth of a Persian Empire. I.B. Tauris. New York. |
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Inferred present in terms of minor bureaucrats and civil servants: "It is opportune to remember that the Venetian “bureaucratic” system functioned on two levels: the first, constituted substantially by membersof the Ducal Chancellery, was occupied by civil servants attached to the great political councils; the second, clearly separated from the first, was made up of a plethora of secretaries, notaries, and others who in each single magistracy carried out the tasks of conserving the official acts and transmitting orders and mandates."
[1]
. Absent for nobles: "Venetiannobles, elected to office for a period of 18 or 24 months, would have had little impact on the ordinary mechanisms by which these offices functioned"
[2]
[1]: (Viggiano 2013: 67) Seshat URL: [2]: (Viggiano 2013: 67) Seshat URL: https://www.zotero.org/groups/1051264/seshat_databank/items/3TCVQMYV |
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Many positions appear to have been hereditary. ’In this country there are ministers, generals, astronomers, and other officials, and, below them, all kinds of minor employees; only their names differ from ours. Mostly princes are designated for [official] positions; in other cases those selected offer their daughters as royal concubine.’
[1]
’Administrative officials were classified in four divisions, apparently horizontally arranged, which may have had a geographical basis, but about which little is known (Sahai 1978: 18). At least some administrative posts were hereditary, especially in the Angkorian period. For example, the purohita and the yājaka usually seem to have been hereditary officials and a single family was said to have been in charge of the devarāja cult for a period of 250 years (ibid., 24-25). A number of positions close to the kings (purohita, hotar, guru, ācārya and guṇadośadarśi) are referred to in Angkorian period inscriptions written by officials. These tend to be Sanskrit terms which had religious connotations, but as Vickery (2002: 93) points out, some of these became secular, as in India, and perhaps were so in Cambodia from the start. Researchers are not in agreement on issues such as whether certain roles and titles had to be held by Brahmins, could be held by women or were hereditary (Mabbett 1978: 33; Sahai 1978: 28; Chakravarti 1980: 53).’
[2]
[1]: (Zhou and Smithies 2001, p. 27) [2]: (Lustig 2009, p. 74) |
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Many positions appear to have been hereditary. ’As for the clergy, the Brahmins (baku), descendants of the Hindu priests of Classic Angkor, form a patrilineal caste of several hundred facilities, distinguished from ordinary Cambodians by their long hair, which they wore in a chignon.’
[1]
’In this country there are ministers, generals, astronomers, and other officials, and, below them, all kinds of minor employees; only their names differ from ours. Mostly princes are designated for [official] positions; in other cases those selected offer their daughters as royal concubine.’
[2]
’Administrative officials were classified in four divisions, apparently horizontally arranged, which may have had a geographical basis, but about which little is known (Sahai 1978: 18). At least some administrative posts were hereditary, especially in the Angkorian period. For example, the purohita and the yājaka usually seem to have been hereditary officials and a single family was said to have been in charge of the devarāja cult for a period of 250 years (ibid., 24-25). A number of positions close to the kings (purohita, hotar, guru, ācārya and guṇadośadarśi) are referred to in Angkorian period inscriptions written by officials. These tend to be Sanskrit terms which had religious connotations, but as Vickery (2002: 93) points out, some of these became secular, as in India, and perhaps were so in Cambodia from the start. Researchers are not in agreement on issues such as whether certain roles and titles had to be held by Brahmins, could be held by women or were hereditary (Mabbett 1978: 33; Sahai 1978: 28; Chakravarti 1980: 53).’
[3]
[1]: (Coe 2003, p. 214) [2]: (Zhou and Smithies 2001, p. 27) [3]: (Lustig 2009, p. 74) |
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Family connections used to obtain positions. "The Kalmyk and Zünghar confederations were similar in many ways. Both were divided into tribes (AIMAG), which themselves were conglomerations of exogamous yasun (bones, or patrilineages). The khan or khung-taiji was assisted by an office (yamu) or court (zarghu) composed of four chief officials, variously called ministers (tüshimed), judges (zarghuchis; see JARGHUCHI), or zaisangs (from Chinese zaixiang, grand councillor). These were commoner retainers of the ruler’s tribe. The Zünghar ruler GALDAN-TSEREN (r. 1727-45) expanded the council by adding six zarghuchis to assist the four tüshimed.The people were assigned to appanages (ulus or anggi) controlled by a nobility (noyod or taiji; see NOYAN) of the tribes’ particular ruling “bones.” Below the noyods were the tabunangs, or sons-in-law or those who had married women of the noyod lineages. The positions of “four ministers,” or “judges,” were restricted to such tabunangs of the ruler. Below them were minor functionaries: standard bearers, trumpeters, aides-de-camp (kiya), and so on."
[1]
[1]: (Atwood 2004, 421) |
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The monumental construction at Monte Alban has been seen as a sign of a high degree of administrative centralization.
[1]
However, we lack adequate information about administrative structures at Monte Albán to be able to discern whether full-time specialist bureaucrats (i.e. not just chiefs or generals with administrative duties) were present.
[2]
[3]
[1]: Marcus and Flannery (1996) Zapotec Civilization: How urban society evolved in Mexico’s Oaxaca Valley. Flannery and Marcus (1983) The Cloud People: divergent evolution of the Zapotec and Mixtec civilizations. Museum of Anthropology, University of Michigan, Ann Arbor. Academic Press, New York. [2]: Gary Feinman, pers. comm., January 2018. [3]: Charles Spencer, pers. comm., January 2018. |
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There is little direct evidence for bureaucracy during this period.
[1]
[1]: Marcus and Flannery (1996) Zapotec Civilization: How urban society evolved in Mexico’s Oaxaca Valley. Flannery and Marcus (1983) The Cloud People: divergent evolution of the Zapotec and Mixtec civilizations. Museum of Anthropology, University of Michigan, Ann Arbor. Academic Press, New York. |
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The behaviors described by Gjerset seem to suggest an absence of formal training and promotion among royal officials: ’Still more offensive than the restrictions on trade was the new method of collecting revenues, introduced by the government. The taxes were farmed out to the hirdstjórar, or governors of Iceland, for a certain sum to be paid by them to the royal treasury. Little did the kings care how the people might be oppressed by the tax gatherers, or what sums were collected, so long as they received the stipulated amount. This system was first established in 1354. [...] In 1357 the annals state that one hirdstjóri was placed over each quarter, and that these for officials had leased all Iceland for three years with taxes and incomes.’
[1]
’Church and state officials vied with each other to collect taxes and dues from the impoverished and suffering people. Goaded to the utmost, the boendur would sometimes offer so violent a resistance to their oppressors, that scenes of conflict between the tyrannical officials and the angry people became favorite themes with poets and annalists.’
[2]
Due to his strong nationalist bias, his comments should be taken with a grain of salt; but they seem to fit in with the information provided above.
[1]: Gjerset, Knut [1924]. "History of Iceland", 247 [2]: Gjerset, Knut [1924]. "History of Iceland", 248 |
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Sieroszewski reports corruption and exploitation of the Sakha population by administrators: ’The government undertook to regulate the distribution of Yakut land, [Page 764] partly to cease the disorders which arose as a result of this and partly to assure and regulate the taking of yassak, which was being gathered with unbelievable arbitrariness and accompanied by terrible ill use, was stolen, substituted for, and hidden, and they stole from the Great Tsars by putting far too little in the treasury and by undervaluing the yassak greatly, and they impoverished the yassak-paying people and robbed the taxes and injured them.’
[1]
This suggests that Czarist control of local administrators was not tight enough to allow for systematic examination and merit promotion on a more than de iure basis.
[1]: Sieroszewski, Wacław 1993. “Yakut: An Experiment In Ethnographic Research", 763 |
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Bureaucracy was staffed mostly from a slave class of boys raised from the devsirme tribute system, every five years, from Christian families (mostly from the Balkans region). They were taught Turkish, converted to Islam and educated from childhood to work in the military and government, excluding sons of most Muslim fathers within the Empire.
[1]
"Appointments to judgeships required the attainment of appropriate levels in the educational system." [2] Present in the Egyptian financial administration: "All the positions of Efendi in the Treasury were established as Muqata’at which were distributed when vacant at auctions held in the house of the Ruznameji to the highest bidder from amongst those members qualified to hold them, and whose price was delivered to the Vali as part of his Hulvan revenues. For that reason, the departments were also called Muqata’a and the Efendis Muqata’a’i, "holder of the Muqata’a",in the registers. Only those possessing the requisite qualifications, as manifested by prior membership in the scribal corporation of an Imperial Treasury, whether in Egypt or elsewhere in the Ottoman Empire, could bid for these positions." [3] [1]: (Palmer 1992) [2]: (Lapidus 2012, 440) [3]: (Shaw 1962, 346) |
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This is based on the codes for the Rasulids as ’Sultan ’Amir also appears to have been emulating the high period of Rasulid power a hundred years earlier’
[1]
Ayyubid period: "In the generation after Saladin, the Mamelukes had become household armies of individual Ayyubid princes, each contingent on maintaining a separate identity through endogamous marriage, with advancement in rank determined by proved merit." [2] "Such endowments normally provided for the subsistence and education of a specified number of orphans or other poor children. This implies that education and employment in public service provided an avenue to upward mobility for the less privileged strata of Yemeni society." [3] "Within the bureaucracy, mobility was lateral as well. As indicated by the content of the biographical dictionaries pertaining to the period and the obituaries interspersed in the chronicles, a judge or administrator might serve in up to a half-dozen posts throughout Lower Yemen during his career." [3] [1]: Porter, Venetia Ann (1992) The history and monuments of the Tahirid dynasty of the Yemen 858-923/1454-1517, Durham theses, Durham University, p. 4 Available at Durham E-Theses Online: http://etheses.dur.ac.uk/5867/ [2]: (Stookey 1978, 104) Robert W Stookey. 1978. Yemen: The Politics of the Yemen Arab Republic. Westview Press. Boulder. [3]: (Stookey 1978, 114) Robert W Stookey. 1978. Yemen: The Politics of the Yemen Arab Republic. Westview Press. Boulder. |
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Catherine II, also known as Catherine the Great, further shaped the Russian bureaucracy after seizing power in 1762. She made changes to the promotion system within the bureaucracy, decreeing in 1764 and 1767 that bureaucrats would receive automatic promotions after seven years in one rank, regardless of office or merit. Catherine also aligned ecclesiastic provinces with administrative boundaries, thus increasing the bureaucracy’s control over the church.
[1]
[1]: Pipes, Richard. Russia under the Old Regime. 2nd ed, Penguin Books, 1995. Zotero link: LEIXLKAP |
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May have been present earlier on but likely inferred absent by 126 BCE when the Chinese chronicler Zhang Qian visited and wasn’t very impressed: "Daxia (Bactria) is located ... south of the Gui (Oxus) river. Its people cultivate the land and have cities and houses. It has no great ruler but only a number of petty chiefs ruling the various cities. ... The capital is called the city of Lanshi (Bactra) and has a market where all sorts of goods are bought and sold." "
[1]
[1]: (www.cemml.colostate.edu/cultural/09476/afgh02-06enl.html) |
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Somewhat difficult to evaluate. Examinations continued to take place, so there must have been an element of meritocracy to the promotion process, however important family connections may have been as well.
“Our argument that success in examinations in this period depended more on family relations than on knowledge is supported by the texts themselves. Just before the beginning of our period, Ts’ui I-sun, a member of the famous gentry family which traces its influence back to the second century A.D., "won the ’chin-shih’ degree because of the status of his family" (Chiu Wu-tai-shih 69 :4287d). And in connection with the examination of 955 it was ordered that the custom to give a degree to certain persons without any examination at all or to give a degree because of family status or to persons of respectable families which had been unsuccessful several times should be abolished (Chiu Wu-tai-shih II5 : 4347c). The emperor refused to give his consent to the papers of 12 of the 16 candidates which were recommended to him as good scholars. The wording of this order makes it clear that before 955 the general custom has been to promote any member of the ruling gentry either without an examination or with a sham examination.” [1] [1]: (Eberhad 1951: 293) Eberhard, W. 1951. Remarks on the Bureaucracy in North China during the Tenth Century. Oriens 4(2): 280-299. Seshat URL: https://www.zotero.org/groups/1051264/seshat_databank/items/ACFTR6FZ/library |
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