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John Stuart Mill on Civil Service Recruitment and the Relation between Bureaucracy and Democracy

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  12 February 2016

Betto van Waarden
Betto van Waarden*
Affiliation:
University of Leuven
*
Faculty of Arts, University of Leuven, Blijde-Inkomststraat 21, box 3307, 3000 Leuven, Belgium, Email: betto.vanwaarden@kuleuven.be
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Abstract

As a civil servant in the East India Company and witness to government expansion and reorganization in the mid-nineteenth century, John Stuart Mill developed an interest in civil service reform. In an essay supporting the 1854 Northcote-Trevelyan Report and his later political treatises, Mill argued for competitive civil service recruitment. These writings have been relatively neglected by Mill scholars, but I posit that they elucidate a contested aspect of his theory. Mill advocated democracy and expert bureaucracy and, although researchers see tension between these systems, I argue that Mill saw them as compatible. Consequently, Mill's theory might be more consistent and complete than many believe, and the public administration debate should perhaps no longer be seen in terms of an opposition between expertise and democracy.

Résumé

En tant que fonctionnaire à la Compagnie des Indes orientales et comme témoin de l'expansion et de la réorganisation du gouvernement au milieu du XIXe siècle, John Stuart Mill a développé un intérêt pour la réforme de la fonction publique. Dans un essai soutenant le rapport Northcote-Trevelyan de 1854 et ses traités politiques ultérieurs, Mill a plaidé pour le recrutement concurrentiel de la fonction publique. Ces écrits ont été relativement négligés par les chercheurs, mais, selon moi, ils clarifient un aspect contesté de sa théorie. Mill a préconisé la démocratie et la bureaucratie d'experts et, bien que les chercheurs relèvent une contradiction entre ces systèmes, je soutiens que Mill les considérait comme compatibles. Par conséquent, la théorie de Mill pourrait être plus cohérente et plus complète que d'aucuns le croient, et le débat sur l'administration publique ne devrait peut-être plus être vu comme une opposition entre l'expertise et la démocratie.

Type
Research Article
Information
Canadian Journal of Political Science/Revue canadienne de science politique , Volume 48 , Issue 3 , September 2015 , pp. 625 - 645
Copyright
Copyright © Canadian Political Science Association (l'Association canadienne de science politique) and/et la Société québécoise de science politique 2016 

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