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The Crackling Idea of a Universal Model of State
There is no one-size-fits-all-bureaucracy.
What is the modern state? One idea is that the modern state is characterised by an impersonal bureaucracy. In short, we before had patrimonial states, where a nation was led by a king or an emperor, where the king stood above the rest of the populace. This was aptly summarised by a quote apocryphally contributed to The Sun King of France, Louis XIV: “L’état, c’est moi” (The State, it is I).
In other words, the king was above the law and the body of the state, the bureaucracy, was an instrument to forward the goals of the king and not the people.
Times have changed. Today, the purpose of the state bureaucracy is to serve the needs of its citizens. There is now a conception that it is wrong if leaders exploit the bureaucracy to enrich or empower themselves. What is important to appreciate is, that this notion is in no way natural, but a modern conception of bureaucracy.
Building Bureaucracy
With this notion established, that we wish to have a bureaucracy that serves its citizens, I now want to focus on how discussions have roamed on how to best design such a bureaucracy.
One of the great designers of state bureaucracy was the 28th President (1913–1921)…
