Editing Public administration (section)

===Antiquity to the 19th century===
Dating back to antiquity, states have required officials like pages, treasurers, and tax collectors to administer the practical business of government. Before the 19th century, the staffing of most public administrations was rife with nepotism, favoritism, and political patronage, which was often referred to as a "[[spoils system]]".<ref>{{Cite web |title=Spoils system {{!}} Definition, Examples, Significance, & Facts {{!}} Britannica |url=https://www.britannica.com/topic/spoils-system |access-date=2024-08-16 |website=www.britannica.com |language=en}}</ref> Public administrators have long been the "eyes and ears" of rulers. In medieval times, the abilities to read and write, as well as, add and subtract were as dominated by the educated elite as public employment. Consequently, the need for expert civil servants whose ability to read and write formed the basis for developing expertise in such necessary activities as legal record-keeping, paying and feeding armies, and levying taxes. As the [[European imperialism|European imperialist age]] progressed and the military powers extended their hold over other continents and people, the need for a sophisticated public administration grew.<ref>{{Cite journal |last=Basheka |first=B.C. |date=March 2012 |title=THE PARADIGMS OF PUBLIC ADMINISTRATION RE-EXAMINED: A REFLECTION |url=https://hdl.handle.net/10520/EJC121371 |journal=Journal of Public Administration |volume=47 |issue=1 |pages=25–67 |hdl=10520/EJC121371 |via=Sabinet African Journals}}</ref>

==== Roots in ancient China ====
The field of [[management]] may have originated in ancient [[China]],<ref name="Ewan Ferlie p.30">Ewan Ferlie, Laurence E. Lynn, Christopher Pollitt (2005) ''The Oxford Handbook of Public Management'', p.30.</ref> including, possibly, the first highly centralized bureaucratic state, and the earliest (by the second century BC) example of an [[meritocracy]] based on [[Imperial examination|civil service tests]].<ref name="APHq">Kazin, Edwards, and Rothman (2010), 142. ''One of the oldest examples of a merit-based civil service system existed' in the imperial bureaucracy of China.''
* {{cite book|last1=Tan|first1=Chung|first2=Yinzheng|last2=Geng|title=India and China: twenty centuries of civilization interaction and vibrations|year=2005|publisher=University of Michigan Press|page=128|quote=China not only produced the world's first "bureaucracy", but also the world's first "meritocracy"}}
* {{cite book|last=Konner|first=Melvin|title=Unsettled: an anthropology of the Jews|url=https://archive.org/details/unsettledanthrop00konn|url-access=registration|year=2003|publisher=Viking Compass|page=[https://archive.org/details/unsettledanthrop00konn/page/217 217]|isbn=9780670032440|quote=China is the world's oldest meritocracy}}
* {{cite journal |last1=Tucker|first1=Mary Evelyn|year=2009|title=Touching the Depths of Things: Cultivating Nature in East Asia|journal=Ecology and the Environment: Perspectives from the Humanities|page=51|quote=To staff these institutions, they created the oldest meritocracy in the world, in which government appointments were based on civil service examinations that drew on the values of the Confucian Classics}}</ref> In regards to public administration, China was considered to be "advanced" compared to the rest of the world up until the end of the 18th century.

[[Thomas Taylor Meadows]], the British consul in [[Guangzhou]], argued in his ''Desultory Notes on the Government and People of China'' (1847) that "the long duration of the Chinese empire is solely and altogether owing to the good government which consists in the advancement of men of talent and merit only."<ref name="Bodde" /> Influenced by the ancient Chinese imperial examination, the [[Northcote–Trevelyan Report]] of 1854 recommended that recruitment should be on the basis of merit determined through competitive examination, candidates should have a solid general education to enable inter-departmental transfers, and promotion should be through achievement rather than "preferment, patronage, or purchase".<ref>[http://www.civilservant.org.uk/northcotetrevelyan.pdf Full text of the Northcote-Trevelyan Report] {{webarchive |url=https://web.archive.org/web/20141222072511/http://www.civilservant.org.uk/northcotetrevelyan.pdf |date=22 December 2014 }}</ref><ref name="Bodde">{{cite web|last=Bodde|first=Derke|title=China: A Teaching Workbook|url=http://afe.easia.columbia.edu/song/readings/inventions_ideas.htm|publisher=Columbia University}}</ref> This led to implementation of [[Her Majesty's Civil Service]] as a systematic, meritocratic civil service bureaucracy.<ref>{{cite news|last=Walker|first=David|title=Fair game|work=The Guardian|date=2003-07-09|url=https://www.theguardian.com/society/2003/jul/09/publicsector.guardiansocietysupplement|access-date =2003-07-09|location=London, UK}}</ref> Like the British, the development of French bureaucracy was influenced by the Chinese system. [[Voltaire]] claimed that the Chinese had "perfected moral science" and [[François Quesnay]] advocated an economic and political system modeled after that of the Chinese.<ref>{{cite book |last1=Mark W. Huddleston |last2=William W. Boyer |title=The Higher Civil Service in the United States: Quest for Reform |date=1996 |publisher=University of Pittsburgh Pre |isbn=0822974738 |page=15}}</ref> French civil service examinations adopted in the late 19th century were also heavily based on general cultural studies. These features have been likened to the earlier Chinese model.<ref name="rung">{{cite book |last1=Rung |first1=Margaret C. |title=Servants of the State: Managing Diversity & Democracy in the Federal Workforce, 1933–1953 |date=2002 |publisher=University of Georgia Press |isbn=0820323624 |pages=8,200–201 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=ucVgkbmqynUC}}</ref>

Though Chinese administration cannot be traced to any one individual, figures of the [[Legalism (Chinese philosophy)|Fa-Jia]] emphasizing a [[merit system]], like [[Shen Buhai]] (400–337 BC), may have had the most influence, and could be considered its founders, if they are not valuable as rare pre-modern examples of the abstract theory of administration. Creel writes that, in Shen Buhai, there are the "seeds of the [[civil service examination]]", and that, if one wishes to exaggerate, it would "no doubt be possible to translate Shen Buhai's term Shu, or technique, as 'science'", and argue that he was the first political scientist, though Creel does "not care to go this far".<ref>Creel, What Is Taoism?, 94
* Creel, 1974 p.4, 119 Shen Pu-hai: A Chinese Political Philosopher of the Fourth Century B.C.
* Creel 1964: 155–6
* Herrlee G. Creel, 1974 p.119. Shen Pu-Hai: A Secular Philosopher of Administration, Journal of Chinese Philosophy Volume 1.
* Paul R. Goldin, p.16 Persistent Misconceptions about Chinese Legalism. https://www.academia.edu/24999390/Persistent_Misconceptions_about_Chinese_Legalism_</ref>

==== Europe in the 18th century ====
In the 18th century, [[Frederick William I of Prussia|King Frederick William I of Prussia]] created professoriates in [[Kameralism|Cameralism]] in order to train a new class of public administrators. The universities of [[Frankfurt an der Oder]] and the [[University of Halle]] were [[Prussia]]n institutions emphasizing economic and social disciplines, with the goal of societal reform. [[Johann Heinrich Gottlob Justi]] was a well-known professor of [[Cameralism]].

[[Lorenz von Stein]], an 1855 German professor from Vienna, is considered the founder of the science of public administration in many parts of the world. {{citation needed|date=August 2024}}In the time of Von Stein, public administration was considered a form of administrative law, but Von Stein believed this concept was too restrictive. Von Stein taught that public administration relies on many pre-established disciplines such as [[sociology]], political science, [[administrative law]], and [[public finance]]. He called public administration an integrating science and stated that public administrators should be concerned with both theory and practice. He argued that public administration is a science because knowledge is generated and evaluated according to the scientific method.{{citation needed|date=August 2024}}