Characterization of Bureaucracy in the Outlines of the Philosophy of Right by G.W.F. Hegel: the Beginning of the Philosophical Reflection on Public Administration

Abstract

This paper presents summarily the theory of state bureaucracy developed by Hegel in the Outlines of the Philosophy of Right, by pointing out its social, political, “ethical” (as a dialectical mediation of Sittlichkeit), organic (because of the public service it carries out) and professional (i. e., its conditions of joining, starting and continuance in the public office) features. After this presentation the main contributions of this theory to the development of the studies on public administration are considered. Among them stand out: 1) the pioneering nature of Hegel’s research on the matter, that has as a main result the highlighting of the centrality which bureaucracy has in the structure of modern states; 2) the discovery of bureaucracy as a socio-political mediation whose main goal would be the minimization of social conflict and the gap between civil society and the state powers; 3) the Hegelian conception of bureaucracy could be perceived as a distant antecedent of contemporary theories of public administration that see it as, rather than an instrument of the dominant class, a class in itself.