Suchergebnisse

This book addresses major theoretical issues in the fields of public administration and comparative politics. It discusses the role which ideology played as a unifying force for at least parts of the German state bureaucracy in Wilhelmine Germany . The examination of a modernizing ideology in the German case is useful for an understanding of the political dynamics of state-led modernization and industrial strategy in many contemporary societies and the author explains political behaviour and relations in Germany in general terms that are universally relevant.

Despite increased interest in the political role of the state, attention is currently shifting away from the state's contribution to political development in Wilhelmine Germany. There are, however, a number of unresolved questions concerning the Wilhelmine state bureaucracy's role in German politics that make the abandonment of political analyses of the state premature. Earlier approaches to the Wilhelmine administration have argued that it was either insulated from society or subordinate to dominant social classes. Such monolithic analyses are unable to account for bureaucratic commitments to competing, substantive interests and goals as well as for administrative conflict over such commitments. This problem can be avoided through hypotheses that explain bureaucratic political behavior in terms of class, administrative structure, or ideology. These hypotheses may be of general use for future research on administrative politics in other societies as well as in Wilhelmine Germany.