Reforms of Local Administration in the Petrine Epoch: The Paradoxes of Centralisation

Authors

  • Dmitry Redin Ural Federal University, Institute of History and Archaeology

DOI:

https://doi.org/10.15826/qr.2016.3.183

Abstract

The article attempts to resolve the question of the efficiacy of the local administrative system that arose in the course of Peter the Great’s reforms. In the opinion of the author, two administrative systems existed in Russia in the first quarter of the 18th century: institutions created under the influence of Western models that were supposed to deal with everyday issues of governance and establishments that were targeted at problems which arose suddenly. The former type might be dubbed ‘ordinary institutions’ and the latter ‘extraordinary institutions’. In the complex conditions of the first quarter of the 18th century, the ordinary institutions of local administration demonstrated low levels of efficiacy. The system of military chancelleries that preceded them had performed more optimally. The full mobilisation of the state’s resources could only be accomplished via a network of extraordinary institutions. These controlled their ordinary counterparts, stimulating them via intense administrative pressure: however, they simultaneously made work more difficult, since they interfered regularly in their spheres of competence. In practice, this complicated administrative conglometrate destroyed the ideal model of ‘correct’ administration that lay at the basis of the Polizeistaat created by Peter, although it did achieve some short-term successes. In the final years of Peter’s reign, the contradictions between the ordinary and extraordinary institutions, between cameralist ideals and the practice of ‘manual control’, caused the administrative machinery to clatter to a standstill. Peter’s immediate successors demolished his bureaucratic agglomerate quickly and without any particular regret: they soon strove to build a new, simpler administrative system that united within it both the traditions of the military chancelleries and collegial innovations.

Author Biography

Dmitry Redin, Ural Federal University, Institute of History and Archaeology

Dr. Hab. (History), Professor

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Published

2016-09-30

How to Cite

Redin, D. (2016). Reforms of Local Administration in the Petrine Epoch: The Paradoxes of Centralisation. Quaestio Rossica, 4(3), 190–216. https://doi.org/10.15826/qr.2016.3.183

Issue

Section

Vox redactoris