Eleventh-Century Chinese Bureaucrats: Some Historical Classification and Behavioral Types

Abstract

How to classify bureaucrats or administrators is a common concern today in political science, administrative science, and sociology. The author reports here his studies of this problem in the comparative historical context of eleventh-century bureaucracy in Sung China and draws parallels between his studies and current literature in the social sciences. The article suggests that in the Chinese cultural environment a moralistic basis was more important than a rational-legal basis for classification. It suggests further that moral conduct can be considered objectively as a variable in constructing behavioral types of bureaucrats.' James T. C. Liu is professor of history and co-ordinator of the interdepartmental program on Far Eastern Studies, University of Pittsburgh.