Handbook of administrative history

the long version

In this volume, Jos C. N. Raadschelders demonstrates that public administration has, in fact, a long-standing tradition, both in practice and in writing; administration has been an issue ever since human beings recognized the need to organize themselves in order to organize the environment in which they lived. This history, in turn, underlines the need for administrators to be aware of the importance and contemporary impact of past decisions and old traditions. Raadschelders begins by laying out the scope of administrative history as a field of study. The first three chapters of part 1 provide a general introduction to the discipline, its scholarly literature, and problems and methods of research. Chapter 4 explores existing theories of the development of administration against the background of evolutionary theories in the social sciences. Focusing mainly on the Western world, parts 2 and 3 cover what the author terms administrative history proper and administrative history in a broader sense. The first of these deals with administration itself: actors, tasks, organization, and functioning. The second provides the wider background against which administrative developments need to be understood: the relationship between citizen and government, the process of state building, and changes in international relations. A concluding chapter considers the potential contributions of administrative history in meeting the complexities of contemporary and future challenges. The work provides a comprehensive country-by-country bibliography of administrative history throughout all regions of the world. Handbook of Administrative History will be essential reading for students of administration, sociologists, political scientists, and historians.