Showing papers by "Lewis A. Coser published in 1964"
98 citations
TL;DR: In the great oriental empires the head of the state mobilized the country's resources with the aid of a centralized bureaucracy which helped counteract centrifugal and feudal tendencies as discussed by the authors, but the danger that the ruler would become only the primus inter pares among the top office holders, a servant of the apparatus rather than its master.
Abstract: In the great oriental empires the head of the state mobilized the country's resources with the aid of a centralized bureaucracy which helped counteract centrifugal and feudal tendencies. Yet the bureaucratic forms of administration also involved the danger that the ruler would become only the primus inter pares among the top office holders, a servant of the apparatus rather than its master. Recourse to political eunuchism hence was one device by which the ruler assured himself of a body of personally loyal instruments who could be used against bureaucrats and feudal opponents alike. Rootless men could be used to great advantage wherever a ruler needed to defend himself against recalcitrance or opposition from men entrenched in rationalized bureaucratic positions, or in territorial and kinship groups.
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