PUBLIC ADMINISTRATION: Colonial origins of contemporary paperwork? India and the professionalization of the British civil service: Agnes Cornell, Ted Svensson

1 INTRODUCTION

An essential attribute of a contemporary paperwork is that civil servants are recruited and promoted based mostly on their expertise and deserves relatively than on the premise of political or different connections (reminiscent of pals or family) (e.g., Dahlström & Lapuente, 2017; Weber, 1978). One of many chief goals of civil service reforms has due to this fact been to alter patterns of recruitment. Whereas a number of attainable causes of benefit reforms have been put ahead—reminiscent of a altering socio-political atmosphere, which entails growing demand from the general public for reforms, particularly the rising center courses (e.g., Vogler, 2019a), in addition to intensified political competitors (e.g., Ruhil & Camões, 2003; Ting et al., 2013) and long-term imperial legacies (e.g., Vogler, 2019b)—the extant literature accommodates a parallel tendency to take care of that the reformers have usually been instantly impressed by previous reforms in different international locations.

For instance, the American reformers that promoted the Pendleton Act (handed in 1883) are claimed to have been impressed by the British benefit reforms that have been initiated three a long time earlier (Johnson & Libecap, 1994), whereas the British themselves are deemed to have been influenced by the introduction of entry examinations within the Indian Civil Service (ICS), the colonial administration in British India (e.g., Bourne, 1986; Cohen, 1941; Davis, 2006; Ellis, 2013; Gladden, 1967; Grindle, 2012; Osborne, 1994; Roach, 1971; Subramaniam, 1957). Within the latter case, the affect is portrayed, on the one hand, as attributable to the non-public experiences of people who have been, first, concerned within the colonial administration of India and, thereafter, key to the initiation of benefit reforms in Britain and, then again, as the end result of a extra basic diffusion of concepts and practices from the ICS to the Residence Civil Service—one which was not essentially tied to people who transformed their private experiences into institutional change. On this article, we disprove the declare that such connections have been decisive. Whereas we discover some proof that company heads’ previous expertise of India correlates with the introduction of open competitors, the general discovering is that the ICS and the Residence Civil Service reforms symbolize two distinct trajectories.

British colonial rule in India went via a elementary change within the 1850s. Not merely have been open examination and benefit launched because the chief norms for recruiting British civil servants to the ICS, sovereign management over British India was transferred from the East India Firm (EIC) to the British Crown, and specifically to the brand new India Workplace and the Secretary of State for India (Kaminsky, 1986), after “the Mutiny” in 1857. In Britain, coeval and equally momentous developments, foremost represented by the suggestions of the 1854 Northcote-Trevelyan Report, passed off in relation to the recruitment of civil servants. Because the benefit reforms in India have been launched in a extra complete, unified and decisive method, many have thought of the ICS because the blueprint and testing floor for the gradual modifications that have been carried out within the Residence Civil Service (e.g., Kenny, 2015; Mueller, 1984, p. 197). The facticity of this argument of “inward diffusion” whereby colonial undertakings are stated to have impacted on the general public administration nationally—that’s, what Ssu-yü Têng as soon as described because the “widespread conviction that the civil service examination was first developed in India after which utilized to the Residence Service” (Têng, 1943, p. 301)—stays, nevertheless, to be correctly examined. It’s, in different phrases, essential to inquire into V. Subramaniam’s assertions that “[i]n a way competitors, graduate recruitment and the executive class are the triple presents of the Indian Empire to Britain” and that the “[triple] superb, tried and located workable in India, was taken again to the mom nation absolutely fledged in 1870, when the Northcote-Trevelyan proposals have been lastly carried out” (Subramaniam, 1957, p. 375, emphasis added).

The argument, if right, implies a type of coverage switch, that’s, “the method by which actors borrow insurance policies developed in a single setting to develop programmes inside one other” (Dolowitz & Marsh, 1996, p. 357). Coverage switch or coverage diffusion1 happens via completely different mechanisms, reminiscent of studying, competitors, socialization, imitation and normative stress and coercion (e.g., Berry & Berry, 2018; Marsh & Sharman, 2009; Shipan & Volden, 2008). Within the explicit case of British benefit reforms, through which coverage studying arguably passed off inside the identical political system (Benson & Jordan, 2011) and through which the imperial core was (supposedly) influenced by the administration of its most prized colony, a number of the mechanisms are evidently much less related. It’s, for example, unlikely that the Residence Civil Service was coerced by British India to implement open competitors, and it’s, furthermore, not affordable to imagine that it was competing with the ICS—past having to recruit from the identical pool of potential candidates. We’re then left with three mechanisms, viz. studying, socialization and imitation.

Studying denotes “a change of beliefs […] within the gentle of the expertise of others” (Meseguer, 2005, p. 72). Berry and Berry (2018, p. 256) stress that the coverage within the different jurisdiction needs to be perceived as efficient: “a coverage diffuses on account of studying when the likelihood that one authorities—say, A—will undertake a coverage is influenced by the perceptions of policymakers in A in regards to the effectiveness of the coverage in jurisdictions which have beforehand adopted”. Studying will not be, nevertheless, essentially based mostly on all obtainable info; coverage makers and implementers take shortcuts and are, due to this fact, more likely to be impressed by proximate experiences (Weyland, 2006). Socialization entails the internalization of preferences (Graham et al., 2013), whereas imitation equals “copying the actions of one other in an effort to appear like that different” (Shipan & Volden, 2008, p. 842).

The significance of shortcuts in studying speaks for diffusion from the Indian expertise. Particularly since there’s a parallel risk that there have been essential coverage entrepreneurs with expertise of the ICS that unfold concepts pertaining to benefit reforms to and inside the Residence Civil Service (Mintrom, 1997). On the identical time, British-ruled India was clearly a really completely different context than that through which the Residence Civil Service operated, which can have made each studying and imitation extremely difficult. There may be additionally the potential of inner determinants impacting on the reforms in each the ICS and the Residence Civil Service. To achieve a deeper understanding of whether or not that is an instance of coverage switch, we hint related diffusion mechanisms within the processes of reform and within the implementation of meritocratic recruitment within the case of the Residence Civil Service.

Whereas there are intuitive causes to anticipate {that a} coverage switch from the ICS to the Residence Civil Service did happen, the prevalent imagery that British benefit reforms had colonial origins has not been scrutinized past anecdotal proof and conjecture. It’s, as well as, not clear whether or not this assumption refers back to the political resolution to reform or applies to its sensible implementation. The current examine, therefore, combines qualitative and quantitative evaluation to reply the next query: have been the modifications to ICS recruitment procedures a key supply of benefit reforms within the Civil Service as an entire? By answering this query, the article examines whether or not the argument in regards to the inward diffusion of benefit reforms is right, and it contributes insights relating to the principal elements behind benefit reforms traditionally and the extent to which a vital component of British state making through the nineteenth century had colonial origins.

We enquire into ICS affect on the reform choices via a wide-ranging and intensive evaluation of archival materials relating, on the one hand, to the Civil Service Fee (CSC)—which was established in 1855 as a direct consequence of the Northcote-Trevelyan Report—and, then again, to the saved data and correspondence of a very powerful reformers, that’s, Charles Trevelyan, Stafford Henry Northcote and William Ewart Gladstone. All of those have been both bureaucrats or incumbent politicians who, via their involvement in deciding on the substance of benefit reforms, probably had a substantial affect on coverage switch.

ICS affect on the sensible implementation is probed, first, by establishing—utilizing a novel knowledge set on examinations to the businesses overlaying the interval 1855–1879—whether or not the noticed patterns affirm that the ICS was the entity through which open competitors was initially launched. If the sequence seems to be correct this may be thought of a primary validation of inward diffusion.2 Second, we statistically discover whether or not company heads’ earlier experiences of being concerned within the colonial administration of India mattered for the implementation of open competitors. In different phrases, have been coverage entrepreneurs with Indian expertise instrumental within the implementation of open competitors within the Residence Civil Service?

These enquiries permit us to affirm or reject the assumption that norms, concepts and practices pertaining to British benefit reforms have been subtle from the ICS via studying, socialization or imitation. Our qualitative and quantitative analyses largely reject the concept of a robust diffusion from the ICS to the Residence Civil Service. Whereas our quantitative analyses present some, albeit combined outcomes when inspecting the connection between having company heads with Indian expertise and the introduction of open and aggressive examinations, no substantive proof of coverage switch was discovered within the qualitative evaluation.

2 REFORMING THE RECRUITMENT OF CIVIL SERVANTS TO INDIA

The recruitment of civil servants to the EIC underwent a complete change within the first half of the 1850s. Open competitors, obtainable to “[a]ny natural-born topic of Her Majesty” being greater than 18 years and fewer than 23 years outdated, was launched in 1855 within the ICS as a direct results of the Constitution Act of 1853 and Lord Macaulay’s 1854 Report on the Indian Civil Service (henceforth “the Macaulay Report”). Work on the latter was initiated in April 1854 and finalized in late November the identical yr. The sooner apply of, via patronage and nomination, educating younger males on the East India Faculty at Haileybury earlier than posting them to India was deserted and changed by a system based mostly totally on open examination and competitors monitored by the CSC. The change meant that the Faculty was closed and that the age of recruits was raised, mainly because of the new ambition to make use of males who had already obtained a college diploma. It additionally, in concept (but not in apply), “gave Indians an equal probability of admission” (Compton, 1967, p. 99).

Candidates have been chosen on the premise of how effectively they carried out in a standardized examination, after which probably the most profitable entered right into a interval of probation throughout which topics deemed to be of explicit relevance for the administration of British India was taught. The interval of probation ended with a second examination, subsequent to which positions within the “covenanted service” of the EIC have been assigned. Additional exams awaited the profitable candidates as soon as they arrived in India.

Further element is required, nevertheless. Whereas the report suggested that the preliminary choice of candidates was to be achieved on the premise of “a superb basic schooling”, together with data of Latin, Greek, the French, the Italian and the German in addition to arithmetic, “some pure sciences which don’t fall underneath the pinnacle of combined arithmetic”, and the ethical sciences, it really helpful that the interval of probation needs to be dedicated to specialised topics solely (for the report, see CSC 2/17, 1853–1894). It’s noteworthy that the importance ascribed to benefit was affirmed on the time of the second examination, because the “seniority” of the profitable candidates was to “be decided in response to the order through which they stand on the listing ensuing from such examination” (Laws framed by the Commissioners for the Affairs of India, January 1855, in CSC 2/17, 1853–1894).

The endeavor to overtake ICS recruitment procedures was, as elucidated beneath, conceived of as distinct from coincident efforts to reform the Residence Civil Service. The separation is foremost manifest within the form of authority that officers of the ICS and the Residence Civil Service have been, respectively, seen to symbolize. The shortage of perceived congruence was, nevertheless, additionally as a result of a widespread propensity to treat “imperial” (together with “colonial”) and “home” issues as unconnected, a rising tendency amongst ICS officers to narrate to Indian topics in a patronizing and indifferent method (Hoover Wilson, 2018) and the absence, within the case of the ICS, of channels or fora via which opposition to the reforms—if voiced by colonial topics—might be registered and have an effect.

As alluded to above, the backdrop to the abandoning of patronage was not solely contemporaneous with the reform. Previous to the promulgation of the Constitution Act of 1853, a scheme of restricted competitors to the ICS already existed; the Constitution Act of 1833 had prescribed that “the administrators [of the EIC] ought to nominate yearly 4 occasions as many candidates as there have been vacancies, from whom one needs to be chosen by aggressive examination” (Chapman, 2004, p. 13). But these dictates have been neither “successfully operated” (ibid.) nor did they equal open competitors, because the nomination of potential recruits remained the prerogative of the Court docket of Administrators (Bowen, 1955, p. 118).

The amended recruitment practices have been, furthermore, carefully related to debates about how India particularly was to be administered. The primary contentions in these debates revolved round whether or not to uphold the patronage system, substitute it with open examination in Britain or to make the administration accessible to everybody regardless of age, together with these already based mostly in India. Of associated concern was the query of the desirability of additional colonizing India within the sense of accelerating the presence of British settlers and the—in that case—concomitant must develop the ICS. Or as Main-Basic George Borlese Tremenheere summarized it in his testimony to the Choose Committee on Colonization and Settlement (India) on April 20, 1858: “The power of the common civil service is simply too small for a rustic of such an enormous extent. They work laborious, and are a most exemplary physique of males; however there’s a restrict to particular person exertion, they usually look to England as their final residence” (1858a, p. 27).

These debates intensified as a consequence of “the Mutiny” in opposition to British rule in 1857, an occasion that generated a substantial amount of apprehension among the many British referring to their bodily safety and the way forward for British presence in and possession of India. Though the standing of the EIC as an imperial energy got here to an abrupt finish with the passing of the Authorities of India Act, 1858 (“An Act for the Higher Authorities of India”), which transferred imperial authority and paramountcy to the British Crown, these sentiments lingered.

The open examinations that have been launched in 1855 have been, consequently, met with skepticism relating to the extent of their openness and inclusivity. Each British settlers in India and Indians have been negatively affected by the truth that the exams have been held in Britain and by the primary take a look at’s emphasis on basic data, relatively than on competence particularly related for the ICS. As P. J. Marshall notes, the British group in India was “dominated by official employment, recruited in Britain and set on returning to Britain” (Marshall, 1990, p. 26). The sense amongst British settlers in India not affiliated with the ICS or the army was that, whilst a part of the brand new system, “gents are appointed magistrates and judges with none regard no matter to their {qualifications} and aptitude in these respects, however merely as a matter of proper, by advantage of them being members of a privileged service” (Joseph Gabriel Waller’s testimony to the Choose Committee on Colonization and Settlement (India), 1858b, p. 169).

A parallel strand of critique involved the foremost rationale for the benefit reforms and whether or not patronage actually was much less advantageous for India than open competitors. In 1858, John Abraham Francis Hawkins, employed within the Examiner’s Workplace on the India Home in London, for example, maintained that “it seems to me that this method of aggressive examination at residence has been framed way more for the good thing about the Universities in England than for the good thing about the folks of India” (ibid., 123; see additionally Vasunia, 2013, p. 203). Hawkins, therefore, urged that issues pertaining to situations particular to Britain relatively than India have been behind the benefit reforms. Nonetheless, it appears extra correct to argue the precise reverse, that’s, that the actions of the ICS, together with these associated to recruitment, have been mainly tied to imperial oversight and colonial rule (e.g., Dewey, 1973). C. J. Dewey has, for instance, maintained that—regardless of that “the state of the house civil service” was thought of “far worse”—the ICS stood out as “extra essential” to make “environment friendly” (ibid., 267). The dominant notion was that “the Indian civil servant exercised an influence for good or evil which no English civil servant – maybe no functionary on the planet – possessed” (ibid., emphasis added; see additionally Prepare dinner, 1987).

In 1853, Macaulay correspondingly described the place of the British civil servant in India as one which needed to “synthesize […] the status of an elite member of the governing race and that paternalistic absorption within the pursuits of native India upon which the I.C.S. prided itself” (see Compton, 1968, p. 267). Charles Wooden, talking as Secretary of State for India, instructed the Home of Commons in June 1861 that “[a]ll expertise teaches us that the place a dominant race guidelines one other, the mildest type of authorities is a despotism” (HC Deb 6 June 1861). These remarks clearly units the ICS reforms other than benefit reforms “at residence”, which makes it tough to concur with the argument that the ICS offered the important thing underpinning of efforts “to determine a standard tradition of officialdom” within the type of “a homogeneous class of specialists with a standard ruling identification” within the Civil Service as an entire (cf. Osborne, 1994, p. 300). Quite the opposite, they affirm that, by the 1850s, the colonial administration in India—as a part of its effort to challenge “an essentializing, objectifying differentiation of ruler and topic”—had come to depend on a pronounced “disengagement from Indian society” (Hoover Wilson, 2018, p. 24, 34).

Thus, we discover no manifest and palpable substantiation of the declare that the ICS functioned as an specific and direct testing floor—that’s, that it represented a web site of trial and error as urged by, amongst others, Subramaniam (1957)—for the following introduction of open competitors within the Residence Civil Service. What we, conversely, discover is that concerns relevant to and strictly germane for the train of British colonial rule in India have been enunciated and prioritized. Whereas not disproving any of the aforementioned mechanisms of coverage switch, it does point out that those that have been concerned within the ICS reforms noticed these as an enterprise that was distinct and separated from extra basic civil service reforms.

3 MID-NINETEENTH CENTURY MERIT REFORMS IN THE BRITISH CIVIL SERVICE

The Northcote-Trevelyan Report (1854), first publicly referred to within the Queen’s speech to Parliament in January 1854 and thus considerably predating the Macaulay Report, proposed the introduction of open and aggressive examinations to positions within the public administration and that these needs to be centrally administered. Nonetheless, the report was not met with unanimous help and the fast results of the report was solely a partial achievement of its proposals (Chapman & Greenaway, 1980; Gladden, 1967; MacDonagh, 1977, p. 207). On 8 March 1854, The Morning Herald even went so far as describing the report as seemingly compiled “by some crochetty pettifogger or tyrannical usher” (CET 48, 1854).

The Whigs got here to energy in 1855 they usually have been in opposition to its implementation. Outstanding Whigs feared that open examinations implied that the decrease courses, deemed to lack the suitable social class and {qualifications}, can be let into the Civil Service (MacDonagh, 1977, p. 207). Within the phrases of Martin Shefter, the report “did not win the help of the entrepreneurial courses and the aristocracy” (Shefter, 1977, p. 436). Its combined reception and initially restricted affect make Thomas Osborne’s view that the report offered the primary impetus for “administration as an autonomous ethos or artwork, separated each from the pull of political patronage and from slim, specialised experience” ring hole (Osborne, 1994, p. 294; cf. Greenaway, 2004). A vital obstacle to reform was, thus, the dearth of political help for reform, specifically, amongst Whig politicians. Additionally it is noteworthy that the Administrative Reform Affiliation, fashioned in 1854, supported administrative reform extra typically, however not essentially the introduction of the kind of examinations that have been advocated within the Northcote-Trevelyan Report (Searle, 1993, pp. 114–120).

Its actual mandate, nevertheless, was imprecise. The minutes from a board assembly on the Treasury in December 1855 comprise the next depiction: “no fastened guidelines have been prescribed as to the character of the proof by which the qualification of the candidates is to be examined, and […] the Commissioners will train a simply discretion in adapting their proceedings to the various circumstances of the completely different instances introduced earlier than them” (ibid.). The CSC didn’t, in different phrases, function in a uniform method throughout its first years of existence. Right here once more the ICS, via its clear laws relating to recruitment and examination, stands out as an outlier relatively than as a mannequin that was learnt from or imitated.

In 1860, the Choose Committee on Civil Service Appointments proposed that “a system of restricted competitors” needs to be adopted by each division; at the very least 5 candidates per emptiness needs to be nominated, in response to its suggestion (Chester, 1981, p. 160; The Choose Committee on Civil Service Appointments, 1860, p. xv). Whereas the Committee addressed the problem of open competitors, it didn’t suggest it as a coverage to be carried out throughout the complete Civil Service. It did, nevertheless, advocate “that the experiment first tried on the India Home [i.e. the India Office] in 1859, be repeated once in a while in different departments” (The Choose Committee on Civil Service Appointments, 1860, p. xv). Some departments started to introduce open examinations within the interval after (Gladden, 1967, p. 21), thus contributing to the incremental relatively than abrupt undermining of “the outdated system of familial authorities” (Matthew, 1982, p. xxx). It was not till 1870 that one other Order in Council was issued that made open and aggressive examinations obligatory extra typically within the Civil Service (albeit with exceptions) (e.g., Fry, 1969, pp. 34–69; MacDonagh, 1977, pp. 197–213; Richards, 1963, p. 53; Silberman, 1993, pp. 350–397). It’s noteworthy that the Order in Council from 1870 states that “whereas the previous Order [from 1855] utilized completely to ‘junior conditions,’ a time period to which it was discovered in apply tough to connect a sufficiently particular signification, the current Order applies to all conditions not in phrases excepted from its operation, whether or not the employment be everlasting or short-term.” (CSC 8/4, 1875, emphasis added).

There are three essential junctures (1854, 1855, and 1870) at which the ICS expertise might have represented coverage switch within the type of studying, socialization or imitation. Within the subsequent sections we, accordingly, look at whether or not the 1854 Northcote-Trevelyan Report, the 1855 Order in Council and the 1870 Order in Council have been grounded in and mirrored ICS benefit reforms.

4 QUALITATIVE ANALYSIS: DOCUMENTARY EVIDENCE OF INWARD DIFFUSION?

On this part, we scrutinize the interdepartmental debates on ICS benefit reforms that passed off through the 1850s and 1860s in an effort to set up whether or not any indicators of inward diffusion are discernible. We have now searched for 2 components particularly: (1) whether or not the ICS benefit reforms have been described as related to a basic reform of the general public administration and (2) whether or not the ICS was known as a precedent and for instance that different workplaces ought to emulate.

It’s, as elaborated upon within the previous sections, not right to take care of that the ICS reforms have been equal to “the fast prototype of an administrative system based mostly on the precept of open, aggressive examination” (cf. Osborne, 1994, p. 302). Quite the opposite, no vital mentioning of the ICS when the Residence Civil Service is substantively mentioned, and vice versa, is made within the CSC data or within the saved writings and correspondence of Charles Trevelyan, Stafford Northcote or William Ewart Gladstone. In relation to the 1854 Northcote-Trevelyan Report it’s noteworthy that this considerably preceded the Macaulay Report, which—as mentioned above—was centered on the ICS, and that it didn’t comprise any references to the EIC, India or its colonial administration. Additionally the preliminary deliberations on the report and its broader reception, together with the 1855 Order in Council, appear to be virtually totally void of direct mentionings and even allusions to the ICS (for just a few exceptions, see beneath).

The identical commentary applies to the 1860 report by the Choose Committee on Civil Service Appointments (see the Choose Committee on Civil Service Appointments, 1860). The report itself mentions “the Civil Service of India” in passing—as one instance of “the gradual extension of” open competitors “on the expense of personal patronage”—and the appended minutes of proof comprise quite a few reflections on the ICS reforms, with a transparent emphasis on sensible elements of administering the exams (e.g., ibid., xiv, 52, 207, 321, 331). But nowhere is a direct or vital connection established between these and the Residence Civil Service. It’s telling that J. G. Maitland, Secretary to the CSC, when first being requested by the committee to touch upon whether or not he has “any objection to use the identical precept [i.e. open competition] to the Civil Service of this nation”—to which he responds “I believe the argument [to apply it] a really sturdy one”—will not be thereafter requested to elaborate additional on this subject (ibid., 53). In response to an earlier query about his basic views on open competitors, Maitland himself accentuates distinction relatively than similarity when evaluating “examinations for” the ICS, the CSC and the India Workplace (ibid., 16).

In gentle of the above, it, contrariwise, seems extra convincing—once we take into account the impetus behind the Northcote-Trevelyan Report and the 1855 Order in Council—to emphasize how “the appointment of the Trevelyan fee to inquire into the civil service [has] an extended historical past” (Hughes, 1942, p. 60). As Edward Hughes observes, “[b]y 1854 experiences on no fewer than eleven departments had been made” (ibid., 61; for particulars on these earlier experiences, see Civil Service Fee, 1860), and Jenifer Hart equally notes that Trevelyan’s saved “letter books affirm the view that it [the Northcote-Trevelyan Report] was the end result of a few years of thought and work […] and never only a flash within the pan” (Hart, 1960, p. 106; see additionally Mueller, 1984, p. 173; Greenaway, 2004, p. 2, 1985, p. 162). The view of an extended historical past can also be higher at accommodating the existence of corresponding steps taken in different elements of the British Empire. Chapman has, for example, drawn consideration to how “[i]n South Africa […] a Fee was established in 1847 to enhance the organisation of and regulate admission to the civil service”, and he mentions comparable efforts to introduce “open aggressive examinations” within the case of Malta (Chapman, 2004, p. 14; see additionally Jeffries, 1938, p. 8). What this speaks in opposition to is an instantaneous coverage switch, within the sense of a borrowing of insurance policies, from the ICS to the Residence Civil Service.

The potential interrelation is, nevertheless, by no means recognized as greater than a mere concurrence.

Thomas Francis Fremantle, Chairman of the Board of Customs, concurred in his commentary on the Northcote-Trevelyan Report. Fremantle asserted that “the case of these officers [i.e. ICS officers] is primarily completely different from that of the unusual civil servants of the Crown on this nation” (Add MS 44585, 1854, emphasis added). These factors don’t cohere with or affirm propositions of a coverage switch formed by studying, socialization or imitation.

The rising sample throughout the three junctures is, conversely, an identical to the one which Alex Middleton detected whereas learning the debates that preceded the Second Reform Act, 1867. In accordance with Middleton, “contemporaries made only a few specific hyperlinks between the act and the empire, and […] these they did articulate have been, for probably the most half, rote and insignificant”, and he particularly asserts that “Indian coverage […] was not seen [during the 1860s] to have any relevance to home reform” (Middleton, 2017, p. 82, 90; see additionally Matthew, 1982, p. xlviii; Kaminsky, 1986, p. 37). The qualitative evaluation, thereby, fails to confirm the imagery of inward diffusion.

5 THE PATTERN OF IMPLEMENTATION OF OPEN COMPETITION

On this part, we look at the implementation of open competitors within the Civil Service, together with the ICS, and we, specifically, assess whether or not the information preclude or permit for the likelihood that different businesses have been influenced by the implementation of open competitors within the ICS. For this objective, we now have coded knowledge on recruitment from CSC’s yearly experiences. Our dataset, The Public Workplace Knowledge Set (v.1), consists of knowledge from 1855 as much as 1879. The CSC took over the accountability for the examinations to the ICS in 1858, however the CSC experiences comprise knowledge on examinations to the ICS additionally previous to that date (Civil Service Fee, 1859).

The information permit us to hint the implementation of examinations, whether or not these have been solely open to individuals that had been nominated, whether or not there was some competitors (i.e., extra candidates for the place than conditions lastly provided), and whether or not there was open competitors (i.e., examinations open for all with no prior nominations). Right here, we deal with the introduction of open competitors, which represents the true watershed, and we set up—by specifying the timing of implementation within the completely different workplaces—whether or not the ICS was certainly the primary company with open competitors. That’s, is the fundamental criterion for the argument in regards to the “exterior” origins of benefit reforms met?

Determine 1 reveals the variety of workplaces that had any examination for a place with open competitors in a given yr in response to the information from the CSC. The information are introduced in two methods, the full variety of workplaces with open competitors in any given yr and the workplaces with open competitors as proportion of all inspecting workplaces in any given yr. The second quantity is, therefore, adjusted to the variety of workplaces.3 In 1855, it was solely the ICS that had open competitors. Thus, the information present that the important situation for inward diffusion appears to carry. Within the first yr of the interval, no different workplace than the ICS had launched open competitors. As Determine 1 demonstrates, it’s not till 1859 that we now have one other workplace with open competitors.4

We are able to additionally conclude that the Order in Council that was decreed in June 1870, which made open competitors obligatory, was essential as a catalyst for its implementation. The information present, as anticipated, that open competitors elevated considerably after 1870. The Order in Council of 1870 features a listing that particulars the businesses that have been stipulated to implement open competitors (de jure) (Civil Service Fee, 1870). It needs to be famous that The Public Workplace Knowledge Set signifies when businesses really had examinations with open competitors (de facto). It’s, nonetheless, attention-grabbing to notice that many current businesses weren’t listed and that, in response to our knowledge, a number of of the listed businesses had not held any examination with open competitors by the top of the interval lined by it; in different phrases, 9 entire years after the Order in Council stipulated open competitors. In complete 54 businesses (out of 311) launched open competitors through the interval. The second workplace to introduce open competitors to any place was the India Workplace—arrange as a authorities division in 1858 as a consequence of the dismantling of the EIC’s administration of India (Kaminsky, 1986; Williams, 1966)—which could be indicative of similarities between workplaces being of significance.5

In sum, the ICS equals the primary company to implement open competitors and it was not till a number of years later that different workplaces started to do the identical. The truth that the ICS was first means that it was probably—regardless of the findings of our qualitative evaluation—additionally a supply of inspiration for different businesses. Nonetheless, it’s also evident that the Order in Council of 1870 was an essential stimulus for the implementation of open competitors.

6 AGENCY HEADS’ PERSONAL EXPERIENCE

Although the evaluation, to date, doesn’t substantiate the declare that the ICS functioned as a direct precursor to and mannequin for benefit reforms in different elements of the Civil Service, it’s, nonetheless, attainable that the (by others) posited diffusion was channeled via people that staffed numerous businesses. The private expertise of getting been concerned within the colonial administration of India could have been an essential issue within the transference of concepts and practices related to benefit reforms from the ICS to the Residence Civil Service. To look at how private trajectories might need impacted on the irregular, but incremental, implementation of open competitors, we now have collected knowledge on company heads from 47 businesses (see Appendix, Desk A1) for which we now have sufficient info and that didn’t deal instantly with issues referring to India. We have now excluded the ICS, Royal Indian Engineering Faculty, India Board/Workplace, and India Forest Division since these businesses have been instantly related to India.

We distinguish between Heads of Division (HOD) and Ministerial Workplace Holders (MOH). Some businesses are managed by each varieties, whereas different businesses are managed solely by considered one of them. The HODs have the chief energy of the company and are closest to the precise operations, whereas the MOHs have the very best place and are politically appointed (however not at all times members of the Cupboard). Each varieties are, thus, essential for choices referring to the introduction of benefit reforms.

We needed to determine positions that might be seen as equal to the designations HOD or MOH since these fluctuate between businesses relying on their character. We used Chris Prepare dinner and Brendan Keith (Prepare dinner & Keith, 1975) as the first supply for deciding which positions to code and for the names of company heads. To find out whether or not an individual had Indian expertise, we primarily used the Oxford Dictionary of Nationwide Biography, which supplies entries with biographical details for most of the company heads. Further info was collected from different sources, such because the Nationwide Archives’ web site, the businesses’ personal web sites, and Wikipedia. The documentation of all sources is out there upon request.

Connections to India might be of various types. We have now opted for a broad definition that encompasses any prior expertise of getting been to India or of being concerned within the colonial administration of India. There are, for example, company heads which have served the EIC in a civil or army capability, whereas others have previous expertise of being members of the Board of Management (also referred to as the India Board) or of being assigned the position as Secretary of State for India. We have now coded whether or not an individual had a connection to India previous to taking over the place and documented what kind of connection it was. We additionally code whether or not heads had expertise of British India earlier than or after the reforms of the ICS.

We then used the information on open competitors introduced above to look at whether or not there’s any relationship between having an company head with an earlier connection to India and the introduction of open competitors. We additionally look at whether or not the outcomes are completely different prior and subsequent to the 1870 Order in Council.

We first make a easy cross desk, through which we embrace all 1017 observations (company yr), that’s, 25 years (fewer years for these businesses that didn’t exist throughout the complete interval 1855–1879) on the 47 businesses. The outcomes (see Desk 1) point out that there was the next likelihood for these businesses that have been led by heads with India connections to make use of examinations with open competitors—18.52% in comparison with 8.99% in instances with out a head with India connections—and the distinction between the teams is critical.6 The outcomes are comparable for cross tables with solely early or solely late expertise of India and for the interval after 1870, however the distinction between the teams will not be vital for the pre-1870 interval cross desk, through which there are solely eight cases of open competitors.7

Nonetheless, if we solely consider the HODs, the importance degree is barely p 8

Whereas the earlier evaluation examined whether or not there was a distinction between these company years that had a head with India expertise versus these with out such a head in any yr no matter whether or not there had been open competitors earlier than, the following set of analyses look at whether or not India expertise makes a distinction for the primary introduction of open competitors. We make use of Cox-survival evaluation for this objective. Determine 2 reveals the outcomes from the evaluation with any India expertise from any company for the entire interval (full output in Desk A2). The survival fee is decrease for these businesses that had a head with India expertise (at t − 1). Solely 20% of the instances, with a head with India expertise, are estimated to outlive, that’s, not having launched open competitors for the complete interval. 50% of the instances, with out India expertise, are estimated to outlive, that’s, not having launched open competitors. This implies that having a head with India expertise could have elevated the probability of introducing open competitors.

Nonetheless, if we separate heads’ early and late experiences of India (pre- and post-reform of the ICS) the outcomes present that it was solely early experiences that elevated the prospect of introducing open competitors (Desk A2, fashions 3–4). Furthermore, once we divide the pattern in a post-1870 and pre-1870 pattern, the outcomes usually are not vital for the post-1870 pattern (Desk A2, fashions 5–6). This suggests that Indian expertise solely had an affect on the primary introduction of open competitors within the interval earlier than the 1870 Order in Council; nevertheless solely 5 businesses on this mannequin’s pattern launched open competitors on this interval. This result’s, thus, completely different from the results of the cross tables, through which we embrace all cases of open competitors. Furthermore, the analyses with solely HODs or solely MOHs don’t present vital outcomes.9

In sum, the bivariate analyses present some help, albeit not very sturdy, for a relationship between India expertise and open competitors. The outcomes point out that these results are primarily pushed by early India expertise, that’s, expertise of India previous to the ICS reforms. This suggests that, if something, these outcomes usually are not as a result of socialization of norms from the Indian expertise of open competitors. Nonetheless, these heads with an early expertise of India should be extra open to influences from British India as a result of their India expertise. As well as, the evaluation demonstrates that the potential significance of India expertise is expounded to these only a few cases of implementation that have been made on a extra voluntarily foundation, that’s earlier than the Order in Council 1870. The analyses are, moreover, delicate as to if all heads are included or just one kind of heads. Furthermore, these analyses haven’t accounted for potential various explanations.

7 CONCLUSION

The article has examined whether it is legitimate to conceive of the benefit reforms of the ICS because the supply of ensuing modifications within the Residence Civil Service. The conclusion is that there’s not a lot help for the view that benefit reforms within the ICS considerably influenced reforms within the Residence Civil Service, and that it’s consequently inaccurate to conceive of the latter as an impact of coverage switch from the colonial administration of India to the general public administration “at residence”.

Although the information on the introduction of open competitors evince that it was carried out earlier within the ICS than within the public workplaces of the Residence Civil Service, the qualitative evaluation doesn’t present proof for a decisive affect of the ICS. Whereas we now have included an enormous archival materials in our scrutiny, there’s evidently extra materials—reminiscent of inner debates inside political events—that would have been thought of. Our materials, nevertheless, undoubtedly contains a very powerful brokers of benefit reforms in mid-nineteenth century Britain, and there’s nothing that hitherto signifies that others performed a extra outstanding or influential position within the reform course of. Our associated try and quantitatively assess the connection between expertise of India amongst company heads and open competitors reveals some, albeit not very sturdy help for such a relationship. Thus, total we don’t discover convincing proof for inward diffusion and for the declare that British benefit reforms had colonial origins. Slightly, it appears as if the 2 processes—whereas partly working parallel to one another—have been each knowledgeable by separate units of calls for and goals and gave these primarily affected by the reforms markedly completely different prospects to lift efficient objections.

In the long run, this won’t be as shocking at it appears, particularly if we return to studying, socialization and imitation as key diffusion mechanisms. The ICS as an establishment was mainly dedicated to a despotic train of colonial rule, which neither sought to facilitate the emergence of “a unitary, centralized state” nor to answer the desires and needs of colonial topics (cf. Man-Cheong, 2004, p. 1f). For the CSC, and different influential actors, to acknowledge the ICS as a precursor would have entailed the twin threat of getting to confess to its lower than noble position in India and to the methods through which the Residence Civil Service equally was indifferent from the issues of most people. The implementation of open competitors within the Civil Service as an entire is, we conclude, foremost attributable to different elements.

1 INTRODUCTION

An essential attribute of a contemporary paperwork is that civil servants are recruited and promoted based mostly on their expertise and deserves relatively than on the premise of political or different connections (reminiscent of pals or family) (e.g., Dahlström & Lapuente, 2017; Weber, 1978). One of many chief goals of civil service reforms has due to this fact been to alter patterns of recruitment. Whereas a number of attainable causes of benefit reforms have been put ahead—reminiscent of a altering socio-political atmosphere, which entails growing demand from the general public for reforms, particularly the rising center courses (e.g., Vogler, 2019a), in addition to intensified political competitors (e.g., Ruhil & Camões, 2003; Ting et al., 2013) and long-term imperial legacies (e.g., Vogler, 2019b)—the extant literature accommodates a parallel tendency to take care of that the reformers have usually been instantly impressed by previous reforms in different international locations.

For instance, the American reformers that promoted the Pendleton Act (handed in 1883) are claimed to have been impressed by the British benefit reforms that have been initiated three a long time earlier (Johnson & Libecap, 1994), whereas the British themselves are deemed to have been influenced by the introduction of entry examinations within the Indian Civil Service (ICS), the colonial administration in British India (e.g., Bourne, 1986; Cohen, 1941; Davis, 2006; Ellis, 2013; Gladden, 1967; Grindle, 2012; Osborne, 1994; Roach, 1971; Subramaniam, 1957). Within the latter case, the affect is portrayed, on the one hand, as attributable to the non-public experiences of people who have been, first, concerned within the colonial administration of India and, thereafter, key to the initiation of benefit reforms in Britain and, then again, as the end result of a extra basic diffusion of concepts and practices from the ICS to the Residence Civil Service—one which was not essentially tied to people who transformed their private experiences into institutional change. On this article, we disprove the declare that such connections have been decisive. Whereas we discover some proof that company heads’ previous expertise of India correlates with the introduction of open competitors, the general discovering is that the ICS and the Residence Civil Service reforms symbolize two distinct trajectories.

British colonial rule in India went via a elementary change within the 1850s. Not merely have been open examination and benefit launched because the chief norms for recruiting British civil servants to the ICS, sovereign management over British India was transferred from the East India Firm (EIC) to the British Crown, and specifically to the brand new India Workplace and the Secretary of State for India (Kaminsky, 1986), after “the Mutiny” in 1857. In Britain, coeval and equally momentous developments, foremost represented by the suggestions of the 1854 Northcote-Trevelyan Report, passed off in relation to the recruitment of civil servants. Because the benefit reforms in India have been launched in a extra complete, unified and decisive method, many have thought of the ICS because the blueprint and testing floor for the gradual modifications that have been carried out within the Residence Civil Service (e.g., Kenny, 2015; Mueller, 1984, p. 197). The facticity of this argument of “inward diffusion” whereby colonial undertakings are stated to have impacted on the general public administration nationally—that’s, what Ssu-yü Têng as soon as described because the “widespread conviction that the civil service examination was first developed in India after which utilized to the Residence Service” (Têng, 1943, p. 301)—stays, nevertheless, to be correctly examined. It’s, in different phrases, essential to inquire into V. Subramaniam’s assertions that “[i]n a way competitors, graduate recruitment and the executive class are the triple presents of the Indian Empire to Britain” and that the “[triple] superb, tried and located workable in India, was taken again to the mom nation absolutely fledged in 1870, when the Northcote-Trevelyan proposals have been lastly carried out” (Subramaniam, 1957, p. 375, emphasis added).

The argument, if right, implies a type of coverage switch, that’s, “the method by which actors borrow insurance policies developed in a single setting to develop programmes inside one other” (Dolowitz & Marsh, 1996, p. 357). Coverage switch or coverage diffusion1 happens via completely different mechanisms, reminiscent of studying, competitors, socialization, imitation and normative stress and coercion (e.g., Berry & Berry, 2018; Marsh & Sharman, 2009; Shipan & Volden, 2008). Within the explicit case of British benefit reforms, through which coverage studying arguably passed off inside the identical political system (Benson & Jordan, 2011) and through which the imperial core was (supposedly) influenced by the administration of its most prized colony, a number of the mechanisms are evidently much less related. It’s, for example, unlikely that the Residence Civil Service was coerced by British India to implement open competitors, and it’s, furthermore, not affordable to imagine that it was competing with the ICS—past having to recruit from the identical pool of potential candidates. We’re then left with three mechanisms, viz. studying, socialization and imitation.

Studying denotes “a change of beliefs […] within the gentle of the expertise of others” (Meseguer, 2005, p. 72). Berry and Berry (2018, p. 256) stress that the coverage within the different jurisdiction needs to be perceived as efficient: “a coverage diffuses on account of studying when the likelihood that one authorities—say, A—will undertake a coverage is influenced by the perceptions of policymakers in A in regards to the effectiveness of the coverage in jurisdictions which have beforehand adopted”. Studying will not be, nevertheless, essentially based mostly on all obtainable info; coverage makers and implementers take shortcuts and are, due to this fact, more likely to be impressed by proximate experiences (Weyland, 2006). Socialization entails the internalization of preferences (Graham et al., 2013), whereas imitation equals “copying the actions of one other in an effort to appear like that different” (Shipan & Volden, 2008, p. 842).

The significance of shortcuts in studying speaks for diffusion from the Indian expertise. Particularly since there’s a parallel risk that there have been essential coverage entrepreneurs with expertise of the ICS that unfold concepts pertaining to benefit reforms to and inside the Residence Civil Service (Mintrom, 1997). On the identical time, British-ruled India was clearly a really completely different context than that through which the Residence Civil Service operated, which can have made each studying and imitation extremely difficult. There may be additionally the potential of inner determinants impacting on the reforms in each the ICS and the Residence Civil Service. To achieve a deeper understanding of whether or not that is an instance of coverage switch, we hint related diffusion mechanisms within the processes of reform and within the implementation of meritocratic recruitment within the case of the Residence Civil Service.

Whereas there are intuitive causes to anticipate {that a} coverage switch from the ICS to the Residence Civil Service did happen, the prevalent imagery that British benefit reforms had colonial origins has not been scrutinized past anecdotal proof and conjecture. It’s, as well as, not clear whether or not this assumption refers back to the political resolution to reform or applies to its sensible implementation. The current examine, therefore, combines qualitative and quantitative evaluation to reply the next query: have been the modifications to ICS recruitment procedures a key supply of benefit reforms within the Civil Service as an entire? By answering this query, the article examines whether or not the argument in regards to the inward diffusion of benefit reforms is right, and it contributes insights relating to the principal elements behind benefit reforms traditionally and the extent to which a vital component of British state making through the nineteenth century had colonial origins.

We enquire into ICS affect on the reform choices via a wide-ranging and intensive evaluation of archival materials relating, on the one hand, to the Civil Service Fee (CSC)—which was established in 1855 as a direct consequence of the Northcote-Trevelyan Report—and, then again, to the saved data and correspondence of a very powerful reformers, that’s, Charles Trevelyan, Stafford Henry Northcote and William Ewart Gladstone. All of those have been both bureaucrats or incumbent politicians who, via their involvement in deciding on the substance of benefit reforms, probably had a substantial affect on coverage switch.

ICS affect on the sensible implementation is probed, first, by establishing—utilizing a novel knowledge set on examinations to the businesses overlaying the interval 1855–1879—whether or not the noticed patterns affirm that the ICS was the entity through which open competitors was initially launched. If the sequence seems to be correct this may be thought of a primary validation of inward diffusion.2 Second, we statistically discover whether or not company heads’ earlier experiences of being concerned within the colonial administration of India mattered for the implementation of open competitors. In different phrases, have been coverage entrepreneurs with Indian expertise instrumental within the implementation of open competitors within the Residence Civil Service?

These enquiries permit us to affirm or reject the assumption that norms, concepts and practices pertaining to British benefit reforms have been subtle from the ICS via studying, socialization or imitation. Our qualitative and quantitative analyses largely reject the concept of a robust diffusion from the ICS to the Residence Civil Service. Whereas our quantitative analyses present some, albeit combined outcomes when inspecting the connection between having company heads with Indian expertise and the introduction of open and aggressive examinations, no substantive proof of coverage switch was discovered within the qualitative evaluation.

2 REFORMING THE RECRUITMENT OF CIVIL SERVANTS TO INDIA

The recruitment of civil servants to the EIC underwent a complete change within the first half of the 1850s. Open competitors, obtainable to “[a]ny natural-born topic of Her Majesty” being greater than 18 years and fewer than 23 years outdated, was launched in 1855 within the ICS as a direct results of the Constitution Act of 1853 and Lord Macaulay’s 1854 Report on the Indian Civil Service (henceforth “the Macaulay Report”). Work on the latter was initiated in April 1854 and finalized in late November the identical yr. The sooner apply of, via patronage and nomination, educating younger males on the East India Faculty at Haileybury earlier than posting them to India was deserted and changed by a system based mostly totally on open examination and competitors monitored by the CSC. The change meant that the Faculty was closed and that the age of recruits was raised, mainly because of the new ambition to make use of males who had already obtained a college diploma. It additionally, in concept (but not in apply), “gave Indians an equal probability of admission” (Compton, 1967, p. 99).

Candidates have been chosen on the premise of how effectively they carried out in a standardized examination, after which probably the most profitable entered right into a interval of probation throughout which topics deemed to be of explicit relevance for the administration of British India was taught. The interval of probation ended with a second examination, subsequent to which positions within the “covenanted service” of the EIC have been assigned. Additional exams awaited the profitable candidates as soon as they arrived in India.

Further element is required, nevertheless. Whereas the report suggested that the preliminary choice of candidates was to be achieved on the premise of “a superb basic schooling”, together with data of Latin, Greek, the French, the Italian and the German in addition to arithmetic, “some pure sciences which don’t fall underneath the pinnacle of combined arithmetic”, and the ethical sciences, it really helpful that the interval of probation needs to be dedicated to specialised topics solely (for the report, see CSC 2/17, 1853–1894). It’s noteworthy that the importance ascribed to benefit was affirmed on the time of the second examination, because the “seniority” of the profitable candidates was to “be decided in response to the order through which they stand on the listing ensuing from such examination” (Laws framed by the Commissioners for the Affairs of India, January 1855, in CSC 2/17, 1853–1894).

The endeavor to overtake ICS recruitment procedures was, as elucidated beneath, conceived of as distinct from coincident efforts to reform the Residence Civil Service. The separation is foremost manifest within the form of authority that officers of the ICS and the Residence Civil Service have been, respectively, seen to symbolize. The shortage of perceived congruence was, nevertheless, additionally as a result of a widespread propensity to treat “imperial” (together with “colonial”) and “home” issues as unconnected, a rising tendency amongst ICS officers to narrate to Indian topics in a patronizing and indifferent method (Hoover Wilson, 2018) and the absence, within the case of the ICS, of channels or fora via which opposition to the reforms—if voiced by colonial topics—might be registered and have an effect.

As alluded to above, the backdrop to the abandoning of patronage was not solely contemporaneous with the reform. Previous to the promulgation of the Constitution Act of 1853, a scheme of restricted competitors to the ICS already existed; the Constitution Act of 1833 had prescribed that “the administrators [of the EIC] ought to nominate yearly 4 occasions as many candidates as there have been vacancies, from whom one needs to be chosen by aggressive examination” (Chapman, 2004, p. 13). But these dictates have been neither “successfully operated” (ibid.) nor did they equal open competitors, because the nomination of potential recruits remained the prerogative of the Court docket of Administrators (Bowen, 1955, p. 118).

The amended recruitment practices have been, furthermore, carefully related to debates about how India particularly was to be administered. The primary contentions in these debates revolved round whether or not to uphold the patronage system, substitute it with open examination in Britain or to make the administration accessible to everybody regardless of age, together with these already based mostly in India. Of associated concern was the query of the desirability of additional colonizing India within the sense of accelerating the presence of British settlers and the—in that case—concomitant must develop the ICS. Or as Main-Basic George Borlese Tremenheere summarized it in his testimony to the Choose Committee on Colonization and Settlement (India) on April 20, 1858: “The power of the common civil service is simply too small for a rustic of such an enormous extent. They work laborious, and are a most exemplary physique of males; however there’s a restrict to particular person exertion, they usually look to England as their final residence” (1858a, p. 27).

These debates intensified as a consequence of “the Mutiny” in opposition to British rule in 1857, an occasion that generated a substantial amount of apprehension among the many British referring to their bodily safety and the way forward for British presence in and possession of India. Though the standing of the EIC as an imperial energy got here to an abrupt finish with the passing of the Authorities of India Act, 1858 (“An Act for the Higher Authorities of India”), which transferred imperial authority and paramountcy to the British Crown, these sentiments lingered.

The open examinations that have been launched in 1855 have been, consequently, met with skepticism relating to the extent of their openness and inclusivity. Each British settlers in India and Indians have been negatively affected by the truth that the exams have been held in Britain and by the primary take a look at’s emphasis on basic data, relatively than on competence particularly related for the ICS. As P. J. Marshall notes, the British group in India was “dominated by official employment, recruited in Britain and set on returning to Britain” (Marshall, 1990, p. 26). The sense amongst British settlers in India not affiliated with the ICS or the army was that, whilst a part of the brand new system, “gents are appointed magistrates and judges with none regard no matter to their {qualifications} and aptitude in these respects, however merely as a matter of proper, by advantage of them being members of a privileged service” (Joseph Gabriel Waller’s testimony to the Choose Committee on Colonization and Settlement (India), 1858b, p. 169).

A parallel strand of critique involved the foremost rationale for the benefit reforms and whether or not patronage actually was much less advantageous for India than open competitors. In 1858, John Abraham Francis Hawkins, employed within the Examiner’s Workplace on the India Home in London, for example, maintained that “it seems to me that this method of aggressive examination at residence has been framed way more for the good thing about the Universities in England than for the good thing about the folks of India” (ibid., 123; see additionally Vasunia, 2013, p. 203). Hawkins, therefore, urged that issues pertaining to situations particular to Britain relatively than India have been behind the benefit reforms. Nonetheless, it appears extra correct to argue the precise reverse, that’s, that the actions of the ICS, together with these associated to recruitment, have been mainly tied to imperial oversight and colonial rule (e.g., Dewey, 1973). C. J. Dewey has, for instance, maintained that—regardless of that “the state of the house civil service” was thought of “far worse”—the ICS stood out as “extra essential” to make “environment friendly” (ibid., 267). The dominant notion was that “the Indian civil servant exercised an influence for good or evil which no English civil servant – maybe no functionary on the planet – possessed” (ibid., emphasis added; see additionally Prepare dinner, 1987).

In 1853, Macaulay correspondingly described the place of the British civil servant in India as one which needed to “synthesize […] the status of an elite member of the governing race and that paternalistic absorption within the pursuits of native India upon which the I.C.S. prided itself” (see Compton, 1968, p. 267). Charles Wooden, talking as Secretary of State for India, instructed the Home of Commons in June 1861 that “[a]ll expertise teaches us that the place a dominant race guidelines one other, the mildest type of authorities is a despotism” (HC Deb 6 June 1861). These remarks clearly units the ICS reforms other than benefit reforms “at residence”, which makes it tough to concur with the argument that the ICS offered the important thing underpinning of efforts “to determine a standard tradition of officialdom” within the type of “a homogeneous class of specialists with a standard ruling identification” within the Civil Service as an entire (cf. Osborne, 1994, p. 300). Quite the opposite, they affirm that, by the 1850s, the colonial administration in India—as a part of its effort to challenge “an essentializing, objectifying differentiation of ruler and topic”—had come to depend on a pronounced “disengagement from Indian society” (Hoover Wilson, 2018, p. 24, 34).

Thus, we discover no manifest and palpable substantiation of the declare that the ICS functioned as an specific and direct testing floor—that’s, that it represented a web site of trial and error as urged by, amongst others, Subramaniam (1957)—for the following introduction of open competitors within the Residence Civil Service. What we, conversely, discover is that concerns relevant to and strictly germane for the train of British colonial rule in India have been enunciated and prioritized. Whereas not disproving any of the aforementioned mechanisms of coverage switch, it does point out that those that have been concerned within the ICS reforms noticed these as an enterprise that was distinct and separated from extra basic civil service reforms.

3 MID-NINETEENTH CENTURY MERIT REFORMS IN THE BRITISH CIVIL SERVICE

The Northcote-Trevelyan Report (1854), first publicly referred to within the Queen’s speech to Parliament in January 1854 and thus considerably predating the Macaulay Report, proposed the introduction of open and aggressive examinations to positions within the public administration and that these needs to be centrally administered. Nonetheless, the report was not met with unanimous help and the fast results of the report was solely a partial achievement of its proposals (Chapman & Greenaway, 1980; Gladden, 1967; MacDonagh, 1977, p. 207). On 8 March 1854, The Morning Herald even went so far as describing the report as seemingly compiled “by some crochetty pettifogger or tyrannical usher” (CET 48, 1854).

The Whigs got here to energy in 1855 they usually have been in opposition to its implementation. Outstanding Whigs feared that open examinations implied that the decrease courses, deemed to lack the suitable social class and {qualifications}, can be let into the Civil Service (MacDonagh, 1977, p. 207). Within the phrases of Martin Shefter, the report “did not win the help of the entrepreneurial courses and the aristocracy” (Shefter, 1977, p. 436). Its combined reception and initially restricted affect make Thomas Osborne’s view that the report offered the primary impetus for “administration as an autonomous ethos or artwork, separated each from the pull of political patronage and from slim, specialised experience” ring hole (Osborne, 1994, p. 294; cf. Greenaway, 2004). A vital obstacle to reform was, thus, the dearth of political help for reform, specifically, amongst Whig politicians. Additionally it is noteworthy that the Administrative Reform Affiliation, fashioned in 1854, supported administrative reform extra typically, however not essentially the introduction of the kind of examinations that have been advocated within the Northcote-Trevelyan Report (Searle, 1993, pp. 114–120).

Its actual mandate, nevertheless, was imprecise. The minutes from a board assembly on the Treasury in December 1855 comprise the next depiction: “no fastened guidelines have been prescribed as to the character of the proof by which the qualification of the candidates is to be examined, and […] the Commissioners will train a simply discretion in adapting their proceedings to the various circumstances of the completely different instances introduced earlier than them” (ibid.). The CSC didn’t, in different phrases, function in a uniform method throughout its first years of existence. Right here once more the ICS, via its clear laws relating to recruitment and examination, stands out as an outlier relatively than as a mannequin that was learnt from or imitated.

In 1860, the Choose Committee on Civil Service Appointments proposed that “a system of restricted competitors” needs to be adopted by each division; at the very least 5 candidates per emptiness needs to be nominated, in response to its suggestion (Chester, 1981, p. 160; The Choose Committee on Civil Service Appointments, 1860, p. xv). Whereas the Committee addressed the problem of open competitors, it didn’t suggest it as a coverage to be carried out throughout the complete Civil Service. It did, nevertheless, advocate “that the experiment first tried on the India Home [i.e. the India Office] in 1859, be repeated once in a while in different departments” (The Choose Committee on Civil Service Appointments, 1860, p. xv). Some departments started to introduce open examinations within the interval after (Gladden, 1967, p. 21), thus contributing to the incremental relatively than abrupt undermining of “the outdated system of familial authorities” (Matthew, 1982, p. xxx). It was not till 1870 that one other Order in Council was issued that made open and aggressive examinations obligatory extra typically within the Civil Service (albeit with exceptions) (e.g., Fry, 1969, pp. 34–69; MacDonagh, 1977, pp. 197–213; Richards, 1963, p. 53; Silberman, 1993, pp. 350–397). It’s noteworthy that the Order in Council from 1870 states that “whereas the previous Order [from 1855] utilized completely to ‘junior conditions,’ a time period to which it was discovered in apply tough to connect a sufficiently particular signification, the current Order applies to all conditions not in phrases excepted from its operation, whether or not the employment be everlasting or short-term.” (CSC 8/4, 1875, emphasis added).

There are three essential junctures (1854, 1855, and 1870) at which the ICS expertise might have represented coverage switch within the type of studying, socialization or imitation. Within the subsequent sections we, accordingly, look at whether or not the 1854 Northcote-Trevelyan Report, the 1855 Order in Council and the 1870 Order in Council have been grounded in and mirrored ICS benefit reforms.

4 QUALITATIVE ANALYSIS: DOCUMENTARY EVIDENCE OF INWARD DIFFUSION?

On this part, we scrutinize the interdepartmental debates on ICS benefit reforms that passed off through the 1850s and 1860s in an effort to set up whether or not any indicators of inward diffusion are discernible. We have now searched for 2 components particularly: (1) whether or not the ICS benefit reforms have been described as related to a basic reform of the general public administration and (2) whether or not the ICS was known as a precedent and for instance that different workplaces ought to emulate.

It’s, as elaborated upon within the previous sections, not right to take care of that the ICS reforms have been equal to “the fast prototype of an administrative system based mostly on the precept of open, aggressive examination” (cf. Osborne, 1994, p. 302). Quite the opposite, no vital mentioning of the ICS when the Residence Civil Service is substantively mentioned, and vice versa, is made within the CSC data or within the saved writings and correspondence of Charles Trevelyan, Stafford Northcote or William Ewart Gladstone. In relation to the 1854 Northcote-Trevelyan Report it’s noteworthy that this considerably preceded the Macaulay Report, which—as mentioned above—was centered on the ICS, and that it didn’t comprise any references to the EIC, India or its colonial administration. Additionally the preliminary deliberations on the report and its broader reception, together with the 1855 Order in Council, appear to be virtually totally void of direct mentionings and even allusions to the ICS (for just a few exceptions, see beneath).

The identical commentary applies to the 1860 report by the Choose Committee on Civil Service Appointments (see the Choose Committee on Civil Service Appointments, 1860). The report itself mentions “the Civil Service of India” in passing—as one instance of “the gradual extension of” open competitors “on the expense of personal patronage”—and the appended minutes of proof comprise quite a few reflections on the ICS reforms, with a transparent emphasis on sensible elements of administering the exams (e.g., ibid., xiv, 52, 207, 321, 331). But nowhere is a direct or vital connection established between these and the Residence Civil Service. It’s telling that J. G. Maitland, Secretary to the CSC, when first being requested by the committee to touch upon whether or not he has “any objection to use the identical precept [i.e. open competition] to the Civil Service of this nation”—to which he responds “I believe the argument [to apply it] a really sturdy one”—will not be thereafter requested to elaborate additional on this subject (ibid., 53). In response to an earlier query about his basic views on open competitors, Maitland himself accentuates distinction relatively than similarity when evaluating “examinations for” the ICS, the CSC and the India Workplace (ibid., 16).

In gentle of the above, it, contrariwise, seems extra convincing—once we take into account the impetus behind the Northcote-Trevelyan Report and the 1855 Order in Council—to emphasize how “the appointment of the Trevelyan fee to inquire into the civil service [has] an extended historical past” (Hughes, 1942, p. 60). As Edward Hughes observes, “[b]y 1854 experiences on no fewer than eleven departments had been made” (ibid., 61; for particulars on these earlier experiences, see Civil Service Fee, 1860), and Jenifer Hart equally notes that Trevelyan’s saved “letter books affirm the view that it [the Northcote-Trevelyan Report] was the end result of a few years of thought and work […] and never only a flash within the pan” (Hart, 1960, p. 106; see additionally Mueller, 1984, p. 173; Greenaway, 2004, p. 2, 1985, p. 162). The view of an extended historical past can also be higher at accommodating the existence of corresponding steps taken in different elements of the British Empire. Chapman has, for example, drawn consideration to how “[i]n South Africa […] a Fee was established in 1847 to enhance the organisation of and regulate admission to the civil service”, and he mentions comparable efforts to introduce “open aggressive examinations” within the case of Malta (Chapman, 2004, p. 14; see additionally Jeffries, 1938, p. 8). What this speaks in opposition to is an instantaneous coverage switch, within the sense of a borrowing of insurance policies, from the ICS to the Residence Civil Service.

The potential interrelation is, nevertheless, by no means recognized as greater than a mere concurrence.

Thomas Francis Fremantle, Chairman of the Board of Customs, concurred in his commentary on the Northcote-Trevelyan Report. Fremantle asserted that “the case of these officers [i.e. ICS officers] is primarily completely different from that of the unusual civil servants of the Crown on this nation” (Add MS 44585, 1854, emphasis added). These factors don’t cohere with or affirm propositions of a coverage switch formed by studying, socialization or imitation.

The rising sample throughout the three junctures is, conversely, an identical to the one which Alex Middleton detected whereas learning the debates that preceded the Second Reform Act, 1867. In accordance with Middleton, “contemporaries made only a few specific hyperlinks between the act and the empire, and […] these they did articulate have been, for probably the most half, rote and insignificant”, and he particularly asserts that “Indian coverage […] was not seen [during the 1860s] to have any relevance to home reform” (Middleton, 2017, p. 82, 90; see additionally Matthew, 1982, p. xlviii; Kaminsky, 1986, p. 37). The qualitative evaluation, thereby, fails to confirm the imagery of inward diffusion.

5 THE PATTERN OF IMPLEMENTATION OF OPEN COMPETITION

On this part, we look at the implementation of open competitors within the Civil Service, together with the ICS, and we, specifically, assess whether or not the information preclude or permit for the likelihood that different businesses have been influenced by the implementation of open competitors within the ICS. For this objective, we now have coded knowledge on recruitment from CSC’s yearly experiences. Our dataset, The Public Workplace Knowledge Set (v.1), consists of knowledge from 1855 as much as 1879. The CSC took over the accountability for the examinations to the ICS in 1858, however the CSC experiences comprise knowledge on examinations to the ICS additionally previous to that date (Civil Service Fee, 1859).

The information permit us to hint the implementation of examinations, whether or not these have been solely open to individuals that had been nominated, whether or not there was some competitors (i.e., extra candidates for the place than conditions lastly provided), and whether or not there was open competitors (i.e., examinations open for all with no prior nominations). Right here, we deal with the introduction of open competitors, which represents the true watershed, and we set up—by specifying the timing of implementation within the completely different workplaces—whether or not the ICS was certainly the primary company with open competitors. That’s, is the fundamental criterion for the argument in regards to the “exterior” origins of benefit reforms met?

Determine 1 reveals the variety of workplaces that had any examination for a place with open competitors in a given yr in response to the information from the CSC. The information are introduced in two methods, the full variety of workplaces with open competitors in any given yr and the workplaces with open competitors as proportion of all inspecting workplaces in any given yr. The second quantity is, therefore, adjusted to the variety of workplaces.3 In 1855, it was solely the ICS that had open competitors. Thus, the information present that the important situation for inward diffusion appears to carry. Within the first yr of the interval, no different workplace than the ICS had launched open competitors. As Determine 1 demonstrates, it’s not till 1859 that we now have one other workplace with open competitors.4

We are able to additionally conclude that the Order in Council that was decreed in June 1870, which made open competitors obligatory, was essential as a catalyst for its implementation. The information present, as anticipated, that open competitors elevated considerably after 1870. The Order in Council of 1870 features a listing that particulars the businesses that have been stipulated to implement open competitors (de jure) (Civil Service Fee, 1870). It needs to be famous that The Public Workplace Knowledge Set signifies when businesses really had examinations with open competitors (de facto). It’s, nonetheless, attention-grabbing to notice that many current businesses weren’t listed and that, in response to our knowledge, a number of of the listed businesses had not held any examination with open competitors by the top of the interval lined by it; in different phrases, 9 entire years after the Order in Council stipulated open competitors. In complete 54 businesses (out of 311) launched open competitors through the interval. The second workplace to introduce open competitors to any place was the India Workplace—arrange as a authorities division in 1858 as a consequence of the dismantling of the EIC’s administration of India (Kaminsky, 1986; Williams, 1966)—which could be indicative of similarities between workplaces being of significance.5

In sum, the ICS equals the primary company to implement open competitors and it was not till a number of years later that different workplaces started to do the identical. The truth that the ICS was first means that it was probably—regardless of the findings of our qualitative evaluation—additionally a supply of inspiration for different businesses. Nonetheless, it’s also evident that the Order in Council of 1870 was an essential stimulus for the implementation of open competitors.

6 AGENCY HEADS’ PERSONAL EXPERIENCE

Although the evaluation, to date, doesn’t substantiate the declare that the ICS functioned as a direct precursor to and mannequin for benefit reforms in different elements of the Civil Service, it’s, nonetheless, attainable that the (by others) posited diffusion was channeled via people that staffed numerous businesses. The private expertise of getting been concerned within the colonial administration of India could have been an essential issue within the transference of concepts and practices related to benefit reforms from the ICS to the Residence Civil Service. To look at how private trajectories might need impacted on the irregular, but incremental, implementation of open competitors, we now have collected knowledge on company heads from 47 businesses (see Appendix, Desk A1) for which we now have sufficient info and that didn’t deal instantly with issues referring to India. We have now excluded the ICS, Royal Indian Engineering Faculty, India Board/Workplace, and India Forest Division since these businesses have been instantly related to India.

We distinguish between Heads of Division (HOD) and Ministerial Workplace Holders (MOH). Some businesses are managed by each varieties, whereas different businesses are managed solely by considered one of them. The HODs have the chief energy of the company and are closest to the precise operations, whereas the MOHs have the very best place and are politically appointed (however not at all times members of the Cupboard). Each varieties are, thus, essential for choices referring to the introduction of benefit reforms.

We needed to determine positions that might be seen as equal to the designations HOD or MOH since these fluctuate between businesses relying on their character. We used Chris Prepare dinner and Brendan Keith (Prepare dinner & Keith, 1975) as the first supply for deciding which positions to code and for the names of company heads. To find out whether or not an individual had Indian expertise, we primarily used the Oxford Dictionary of Nationwide Biography, which supplies entries with biographical details for most of the company heads. Further info was collected from different sources, such because the Nationwide Archives’ web site, the businesses’ personal web sites, and Wikipedia. The documentation of all sources is out there upon request.

Connections to India might be of various types. We have now opted for a broad definition that encompasses any prior expertise of getting been to India or of being concerned within the colonial administration of India. There are, for example, company heads which have served the EIC in a civil or army capability, whereas others have previous expertise of being members of the Board of Management (also referred to as the India Board) or of being assigned the position as Secretary of State for India. We have now coded whether or not an individual had a connection to India previous to taking over the place and documented what kind of connection it was. We additionally code whether or not heads had expertise of British India earlier than or after the reforms of the ICS.

We then used the information on open competitors introduced above to look at whether or not there’s any relationship between having an company head with an earlier connection to India and the introduction of open competitors. We additionally look at whether or not the outcomes are completely different prior and subsequent to the 1870 Order in Council.

We first make a easy cross desk, through which we embrace all 1017 observations (company yr), that’s, 25 years (fewer years for these businesses that didn’t exist throughout the complete interval 1855–1879) on the 47 businesses. The outcomes (see Desk 1) point out that there was the next likelihood for these businesses that have been led by heads with India connections to make use of examinations with open competitors—18.52% in comparison with 8.99% in instances with out a head with India connections—and the distinction between the teams is critical.6 The outcomes are comparable for cross tables with solely early or solely late expertise of India and for the interval after 1870, however the distinction between the teams will not be vital for the pre-1870 interval cross desk, through which there are solely eight cases of open competitors.7

Nonetheless, if we solely consider the HODs, the importance degree is barely p 8

Whereas the earlier evaluation examined whether or not there was a distinction between these company years that had a head with India expertise versus these with out such a head in any yr no matter whether or not there had been open competitors earlier than, the following set of analyses look at whether or not India expertise makes a distinction for the primary introduction of open competitors. We make use of Cox-survival evaluation for this objective. Determine 2 reveals the outcomes from the evaluation with any India expertise from any company for the entire interval (full output in Desk A2). The survival fee is decrease for these businesses that had a head with India expertise (at t − 1). Solely 20% of the instances, with a head with India expertise, are estimated to outlive, that’s, not having launched open competitors for the complete interval. 50% of the instances, with out India expertise, are estimated to outlive, that’s, not having launched open competitors. This implies that having a head with India expertise could have elevated the probability of introducing open competitors.

Nonetheless, if we separate heads’ early and late experiences of India (pre- and post-reform of the ICS) the outcomes present that it was solely early experiences that elevated the prospect of introducing open competitors (Desk A2, fashions 3–4). Furthermore, once we divide the pattern in a post-1870 and pre-1870 pattern, the outcomes usually are not vital for the post-1870 pattern (Desk A2, fashions 5–6). This suggests that Indian expertise solely had an affect on the primary introduction of open competitors within the interval earlier than the 1870 Order in Council; nevertheless solely 5 businesses on this mannequin’s pattern launched open competitors on this interval. This result’s, thus, completely different from the results of the cross tables, through which we embrace all cases of open competitors. Furthermore, the analyses with solely HODs or solely MOHs don’t present vital outcomes.9

In sum, the bivariate analyses present some help, albeit not very sturdy, for a relationship between India expertise and open competitors. The outcomes point out that these results are primarily pushed by early India expertise, that’s, expertise of India previous to the ICS reforms. This suggests that, if something, these outcomes usually are not as a result of socialization of norms from the Indian expertise of open competitors. Nonetheless, these heads with an early expertise of India should be extra open to influences from British India as a result of their India expertise. As well as, the evaluation demonstrates that the potential significance of India expertise is expounded to these only a few cases of implementation that have been made on a extra voluntarily foundation, that’s earlier than the Order in Council 1870. The analyses are, moreover, delicate as to if all heads are included or just one kind of heads. Furthermore, these analyses haven’t accounted for potential various explanations.

7 CONCLUSION

The article has examined whether it is legitimate to conceive of the benefit reforms of the ICS because the supply of ensuing modifications within the Residence Civil Service. The conclusion is that there’s not a lot help for the view that benefit reforms within the ICS considerably influenced reforms within the Residence Civil Service, and that it’s consequently inaccurate to conceive of the latter as an impact of coverage switch from the colonial administration of India to the general public administration “at residence”.

Although the information on the introduction of open competitors evince that it was carried out earlier within the ICS than within the public workplaces of the Residence Civil Service, the qualitative evaluation doesn’t present proof for a decisive affect of the ICS. Whereas we now have included an enormous archival materials in our scrutiny, there’s evidently extra materials—reminiscent of inner debates inside political events—that would have been thought of. Our materials, nevertheless, undoubtedly contains a very powerful brokers of benefit reforms in mid-nineteenth century Britain, and there’s nothing that hitherto signifies that others performed a extra outstanding or influential position within the reform course of. Our associated try and quantitatively assess the connection between expertise of India amongst company heads and open competitors reveals some, albeit not very sturdy help for such a relationship. Thus, total we don’t discover convincing proof for inward diffusion and for the declare that British benefit reforms had colonial origins. Slightly, it appears as if the 2 processes—whereas partly working parallel to one another—have been each knowledgeable by separate units of calls for and goals and gave these primarily affected by the reforms markedly completely different prospects to lift efficient objections.

In the long run, this won’t be as shocking at it appears, particularly if we return to studying, socialization and imitation as key diffusion mechanisms. The ICS as an establishment was mainly dedicated to a despotic train of colonial rule, which neither sought to facilitate the emergence of “a unitary, centralized state” nor to answer the desires and needs of colonial topics (cf. Man-Cheong, 2004, p. 1f). For the CSC, and different influential actors, to acknowledge the ICS as a precursor would have entailed the twin threat of getting to confess to its lower than noble position in India and to the methods through which the Residence Civil Service equally was indifferent from the issues of most people. The implementation of open competitors within the Civil Service as an entire is, we conclude, foremost attributable to different elements.