Late 19th century administrative reform in America: re-articulating Hamiltonian thought

Abstract

In this article, the intellectual thought of a group of key late 19th century national administrative reformers is isolated and analyzed. These reformers were interested in reforming the civil, military and business administrative functions of the executive branch to provide for greater elite administrative supervision over and intervention in the national society and economy. The reformers often articulated their reform purposes, motives and goals in the Hamiltonian language of administrative authority and popular deference to executive administrative counsels. An important key to understanding this article is recognizing that while environmental social and economic conditions had changed significantly for the Gilded Age reformers since the American constitutional founding, many elements of the Hamiltonian tradition still resonated with the reformers a full century later. In this way, the historically transmitted ideology and rhetoric of Hamiltonian thought can be seen as having an independent, causative impact on the administrative reformers' purposes, motives and goals related to executive administrative reform. Points for practitioners This article explores an era of American administrative reform that should be of interest to practitioners of administration in other countries. The article's narrative displays a route to reform that is distinct from the more conventionally studied pathways of bureaucratic efficiency and administrative legal mechanisms applied to administrative organizations. The particular American ideas and thinkers examined in this article give a glimpse of a pathway to reform that is absent in many other societies.