Rule of the administration? Public servants and political power in contemporary political theory and the political thought of the German-speaking Staatstheorie (ca. 1800-1850)

This paper focuses on public servants as relevant political actors in both contemporary political theory and from a history of ideas point of view. It points out the contemporary problematization regarding the political power of public servants and provides a case study on how the early 19th century German-speaking political theory (Staatstheorie) dealt with this challenge at the time. The paper strives to connect historical analysis to contemporary debates. By doing so, the paper denotes a salient tension inherent to modern statehood: that the public servant is either an efficient supplement or a potential threat to the primary political actors (head of state, government leaders, parliament) which should be considered in any approach towards a European administrative identity. Thus the paper poses the question whether the administration is ruling or should rule and considers it in three steps: First, it asks how contemporary political theory perceives public servants’ involvement in the formulation and implementation of policies, how their interaction with the primary political actors is institutionalized, and for which reasons this distinction is presented as either problematic or efficient. Second, it examines how political thinkers, legal theorists, and administrative practitioners dealt with those aspects when public administration initially became a decisive political influence in early 19th century. Third, it identifies those findings in the history of ideas which could enrich contemporary political theory. In so doing, the paper points out a spectrum of conceptualizing politically influential public servants: whether the political power of public servants should be as large or as restricted as possible. The paper ultimately argues for a middle ground, which embraces both the necessity of partially autonomous and politically powerful public servants and the need for a constitutional enclosure of administrative power.