Editing Public administration (section)

==== 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>