Modern government (GURPS terms)

[Pragmatic]

Note this isn't related to a game I'm playing. I'm just curious for what resources I might have available to read.

When did modern centralized government happen (modern bureaucracy, government buildings near the throne, educated workforce, etc.)? Leaving aside the ancient Chinese. :-) (I'm thinking Louis XIV, the Sun King.)

What TL would that be? Would this be discussed in LT Compendiums?

Other question, when did national military academies get started? Is that LT or HT? Would it be in the LT Compendiums, too?

[Anthony]

Depends what you mean by modern centralized governments. The ability to run a centralized bureaucracy effectively is limited by communications and bookkeeping so TL 2 central governments (such as Rome) were highly dependent on regional governors, and that probably remains true up until sometime in TL 5.

[Pragmatic]

I'm mostly remembering my Cities in Civilization class (almost 30 years ago), where would look at maps of cities and be able to hypothesize about the city's history based on features on the map. (E.g., a wide boulevard making a circuit in the center of town could mean the city had been rich enough in the Medieval times to have built a wall, then outgrown it; the old wall was then torn down and a street put in its place).

One feature is the construction of large government buildings near the seat of power, as the balance of power shifts from regional powers to the centralized government.

(Cities in Civilization by Sir Peter Hall, recommended book.)

[ravenfish]

The word bureaucracy ("rule by desks") was coined during the reign of Louis the Fifteenth by Jacques Claude Marie Vincent de Gournay. The thing itself is more or less as old as civilization- a substantial portion of the surviving writing from ancient Mesopotamia would be government paperwork if it wasn't government claywork instead, and scholars were deeply disappointed to learn, on deciphering Linear B, that the surviving corpus of work consists almost entirely of warehouse inventories-, but has of course changed in nature over the centuries.

[Anthony]

Originally Posted by Pragmatic

One feature is the construction of large government buildings near the seat of power, as the balance of power shifts from regional powers to the centralized government.

Well, the Roman Forum is an example, and probably not the oldest, just easy for me to locate.

[Phantasm]

Low-Tech Companion I is the LTC that covers governments.

That said, I'd put the advent of the "modern" centralized government on a large scale somewhere between 1200 and 1500 CE, as increased central authority one of the hallmarks of the "early modern" era. The Ottoman and Eastern Roman/Byzantine Empires had centralized governments from around 1000 CE or possibly even earlier.

It's not often easy to tell when a region went from a decentralized feudal system to a centralized monarchy or republic.


(Ironically, the United States is both a centralized and a decentralized polity, much like the Holy Roman Empire had become before the Napoleonic Wars changed the European political landscape. We have both the federal government (centralized) and fifty semi-independent state governments (essentially decentralized) who don't answer directly to the federal.)

[Apollonian]

Originally Posted by Phantasm

Low-Tech Compendium I is the LTC that covers governments.

That said, I'd put the advent of the "modern" centralized government on a large scale somewhere between 1200 and 1500 CE, as increased central authority one of the hallmarks of the "early modern" era. The Ottoman and Eastern Roman/Byzantine Empires had centralized governments from around 1000 CE or possibly even earlier.

I'm pretty sure you could put some of the Egyptian dynasties into the centralized government bracket, but Egypt with its single line of power (the Nile) is something of a special case.

[RyanW]

Originally Posted by ravenfish

The word bureaucracy ("rule by desks") was coined during the reign of Louis the Fifteenth by Jacques Claude Marie Vincent de Gournay. The thing itself is more or less as old as civilization- a substantial portion of the surviving writing from ancient Mesopotamia would be government paperwork if it wasn't government claywork instead, and scholars were deeply disappointed to learn, on deciphering Linear B, that the surviving corpus of work consists almost entirely of warehouse inventories-, but has of course changed in nature over the centuries.

Writing is a difficult practice, so you dedicate it to the really important stuff. The earliest person known by name is Kushim, the guy in charge of the beer in Uruk, Sumer around 52 centuries ago (assuming Kushim isn't just a lost word for "guy in charge of the beer").

[Michele]

I suppose it's a matter of semantics, too.

First thing, how do you define a "bureaucratic government"? If by that you mean a system in which bureaucrats wield significant/undue decision-making power, as opposed to administrative duties, then already with the Egyptian scribes you have something like that, and with the late-Empire Roman liberti working for the Emperor. That depended on the Pharaoh and Emperor, of course, but they often did not want to deal with "details".

But then, how do you define "modern"? Because, obviously, the two examples above aren't modern.

[The Colonel]

England tends to look towards the Tudors for the rise of professional government: Henry VII started the development of a post feudal army, Henry VIII promoted commoners to become professional holders of the offices of state and the process was continued by his daughter Elizabeth. On the other hand, we have to wait quite a bit longer to establish parliamentary supremacy over the crown.