Administrative Reform in Late Eighteenth-Century Britain and Its Empire

A System of Economy
Erscheinungsjahr 2025
ISBN: 978-1-83765-098-9
Verlag: Boydell & Brewer

Buch, Englisch, Band 14, 324 Seiten, Print PDF, Format (B × H): 156 mm x 234 mm, Gewicht: 630 g

Reihe: Studies in the Eighteenth Century

Indispensable for understanding the historical forces that shaped modern governance.

How did Enlightenment philosophy shape the modern bureaucratic state? While thinkers like Adam Smith and David Hume are celebrated for their contributions to political economy, the crucial work of administrative reformers has largely been forgotten-until now. Here, this question is explored through the untold story of the specialists of public administration, such as the Commissioners for Examining the Public Accounts, whose pioneering efforts to translate political economy into practice laid the foundation for contemporary public administration.

This methodologically refined study re-evaluates Britain's administrative reforms of the late eighteenth century. It traces how systematic, resource-oriented administrative rationality replaced patrimonial notions of office, which treated public offices as royal privileges similar to titles of nobility. Sebastian Meurer relates the British reforms to contemporary administrative reform processes in British India and Ireland and reveals their manifold interconnections. Furthermore, the book offers an analysis of the very process, in which new notions pervaded public administration and traces the interrelations of different perspectives and their gradual shift of credibility.

By connecting the rise of public administration with the early social sciences, this monograph illuminates how ideas once confined to philosophical discourse were adapted into the practical realities of governance, reform, and statecraft across the British Empire.

Autoren/Hrsg.

Meurer, Sebastian

Fachgebiete

• Geisteswissenschaften Geschichtswissenschaft Weltgeschichte & Geschichte einzelner Länder und Gebietsräume Weltgeschichte
• Wirtschaftswissenschaften Wirtschaftswissenschaften Wirtschaftsgeschichte
• Geisteswissenschaften Geschichtswissenschaft Weltgeschichte & Geschichte einzelner Länder und Gebietsräume Europäische Geschichte

Inhaltsverzeichnis

Acknowledgements
List of Abbreviations

Introduction

PART I: CONCEPTUALISING ECONOMICAL ADMINISTRATION

1. Science and the State

2. Corruption, Crown Influence, and Reform

3. A System of Economy

PART II: PRACTICING ECONOMICAL REFORM

4. Great Britain I: Initiating Reform

5. British India: Enforcing Reform

6. Great Britain II: Assessing Reform

7. Ireland: Struggling with Reform

Conclusion

Bibliography

Index

Über Autor(innen)

Meurer, Sebastian
SEBASTIAN MEURER is Managing Director of the Centre for Global Cooperation Research at the University of Duisburg-Essen, Germany.