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1 avril 2014
- handle: 10670/1.6gvlre
- hal: hal-03460327
- SCIENCESPO: 2441/7o52iohb7k6srk09n24rn0e43
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Jean Beuve et al., « Bureaucracy, Collegiality and Public Decision Making: the Case of Eighteenth Century France », HAL-SHS : économie et finance, ID : 10670/1.6gvlre
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Résumé
One of the most debated questions in the literature on modern bureaucracies is whether their formal,impersonal rules of decision endow them (rightly or not) with a specific autonomy vis‐à‐vis specialinterests. We study the case of the Bureau de Commerce, a small, modernizing agency within theilliberal Ancien Régime French monarchy, in charge i.a. of supporting private entrepreneurs. Decisionmaking was founded on the articulation between a vertical administrative organization aimed atcollecting information and consulting stakeholders, and two colleges of experts, which discussedcases on a consensual, peers’ basis. We ask whether the relative openness of this procedure led tooutright capture by outside rent‐seeking interests, or whether the Bureau could balance them andreach relatively autonomous and consistent decisions. We analyzed how it handled and decided 246submissions for privileges, or rents, made between 1724 and 1740. We show that the decision toreject, accept entirely or curtail individual submissions was shaped within the administrativeprocedure – rather than by cliques and clienteles. Each main and competing voice had a significantthough differentiated impact on outcomes; and substantive arguments, for or against eachapplication, also had a specific impact.