"Colonial Bureaucracy and Contemporary Citizenship examines how the legacies of colonial bureaucracy continue to shape political life after empire. Focusing on the former British colonies of India, Cyprus, and Israel/Palestine, the book explores how post-colonial states use their inherited administrative legacies to classify and distinguish between loyal and suspicious subjects and manage the movement of populations, thus shaping the practical meaning of citizenship and belonging within their new boundaries. The book offers a novel institutional theory of "hybrid bureaucracy" to explain how racialized bureaucratic practices were used by powerful administrators in state organizations to shape the making of political identity and belonging in the new states. Combining sociology and anthropology of the state with the study of institutions, this book offers new knowledge to overturn conventional understandings of bureaucracy, demonstrating that routine bureaucratic practices and persistent colonial logics continue to shape unequal political status to this day"--

This book attempts to understand the nature and course of change and reform in the bureaucracies of the six colonies in Australia following the launching of responsible government in the 1850s. The trends in the development of the six colonial bureaucracies are examined to illustrate the similarity in the politics involved and problems encountered from colony to colony in initiating and managing change in colonial administration. Between 1856 and 1905, 15 inquiries encompassing the entire public service structure were undertaken in the six Australian colonies. By using a set of seven variables (context, objectives, the degree of political commitment, membership, methods and problems, nature of recommendations, and the extent of adoption/implementation of reports of commissions), each of these inquiries is analysed independently to highlight the peculiarities of its working and the implications of its results for the bureaucracy. Cross-inquiry and cross-colony comparisons are made, and judgments offered which to some degree challenged existing assumptions about the process of change in nineteenth century Australian public administration. The major issues that emerged in each colony during the first three decades of responsible government were political influence in personnel administration, the effects of 'departmentalism', the development of career principles, economy and efficiency. By the early 1880s administrative reform began to take a different course; most colonies had either accepted or began to accept new ideas---independent non-political control of the public service, open competition in the staffing process, recognition of merit and ability, and classification of positions according to value of work. Taken as a whole, the commissions of inquiry made substantial contribution to these reforms. Some were successful in terms of implementation of their recommendations; others were notable for the intrinsic value of their reports; some, admittedly, were undertaken to postpone reform while others were instituted merely to validate predetermined governmental policies. Only a few had no apparent political overtones behind their establishment. However, generally, speaking, most inquiries did make significant contribution to the administrative reform process in nineteenth century Australia and they compared favorably with similar efforts overseas.

This book looks at how the fledgling British East India Company state of the 1760s developed into the mature Anglo-Indian empire of the 19th century. It investigates the bureaucratic culture of early Company administrators, primarily at the district level, and the influence of that culture on the nature and scope of colonial government in India. Drawing on a host of archival material and secondary sources, James Lees details the power relationship between local officials and their superiors at Fort William in Calcutta, and examines the wider implications of that relationship for Indian society. The book brings to the fore the manner in which the Company’s roots in India were established despite its limited military resources and lack of governmental experience. It underlines how the early colonial polity was shaped by European administrators’ attitudes towards personal and corporate reputation, financial gain, and military governance. A thoughtful intervention in understanding the impact of the Company’s government on Indian society, this volume will be of interest to researchers working within South Asian studies, British studies, administrative history, military history, and the history of colonialism.

“Drawing inspiration from actor-network theory, science studies, and semiotics, this brilliant book makes us completely rethink the workings of bureaucracy as analyzed by Max Weber and James Scott. Matthew Hull demonstrates convincingly how the materiality of signs truly matters for understanding the projects of ‘the state.’” - Katherine Verdery, author of What was Socialism, and What Comes Next? “We are used to studies of roads and rails as central material infrastructure for the making of modern states. But what of records, the reams and reams of paper that inscribe the state-in-making? This brilliant book inquires into the materiality of information in colonial and postcolonial Pakistan. This is a work of signal importance for our understanding of the everyday graphic artifacts of authority.” - Bill Maurer, author of Mutual Life, Limited: Islamic Banking, Alternative Currencies, Lateral Reason "This is an excellent and truly exceptional ethnography. Hull presents a theoretically sophisticated and empirically rich reading that will be an invaluable resource to scholars in the field of Anthropology and South Asian studies. The author’s focus on bureaucracy, “corruption," writing systems and urban studies (Islamabad) in a post-colonial context makes for a unique ethnographic engagement with contemporary Pakistan. In addition, Hull’s study is a refreshing voice that breaks the mold of current representation of Pakistan through the security studies paradigm." - Kamran Asdar Ali, Director, South Asia Institute, University of Texas

Administrative rule is a type of rule centered on devising and implementing regulations governing how we live and how we conduct ourselves economically and politically, and sometimes culturally. The principle feature of this type of rule is the important question about how things should be arranged and for what purpose becomes a bureaucratic matter. Histories of the global south are rarely used to explain contemporary political structures or phenomena. This book uses histories of colonial power and colonial state-making to shed light on administrative government as a form of rule. Prem Kumar Rajaram eloquently presents how administrative power is a social process and the authority and terms of rule derived are tenuous, dependent on producing unitary meaning and direction to diverse political, social and economic relationships and practices.