Colonial Origins of Modern Bureaucracy? India and the Professionalization of the British Civil Service

This article examines the diffusion of meritocratic practices as a potential instance of policy transfer by scrutinizing the introduction of open and competitive examinations during the mid-nineteenth century in the British Civil Service. Scholars have argued that British reformers were inspired by meritocratic practices in British-ruled India. In order to assess this claim, we combine qualitative analysis of archival material documenting the interdepartmental debates on meritocratic reforms in the British Home Civil Service as well as in the Indian Civil Service with quantitative analyses of unique data on the implementation of examinations with open competition in British public offices and the India experience of Heads of Departments. Our qualitative and quantitative analyses largely reject the idea that the Indian Civil Service was a key source of inspiration for British merit reforms. While our quantitative analyses show some, albeit weak, evidence, no such evidence was found in the qualitative analysis.