Creon's secretaries: Theories of bureaucracy and social order in 18th and early 19th century Prussia.

摘要

This dissertation argues for conceptualizations of bureaucracies not merely as tools of policy implementation but also as a locus of state legitimacy creation. In arguing this point, this dissertation does three things: (1) it anatomizes the historical forces and conceptual commitments in 18th and early 19th century Prussia that undergird the configuration of modern bureaucracies; (2) it explains the normative roots of opposition to modern bureaucracies and the conceptual vocabulary employed to resist the bureaucratization of state and society as illustrated by the German Romantics; and (3) it explores ways to overcome this opposition by advocating for an understanding of state legitimacy that relies on bureaucratic legitimacy as furthered by incorporating properly situated citizens into the state's administrative structure to empower them within the state, against the state.