This study offers an unprecedented examination of the state, politics, and bureaucracy from a historical and comparative perspective. Case histories of a wide variety of bureaucratic traditions are provided in an effort to text a new theoretical approach in which the theory of the state and the theory of bureaucracy, both of which have so far developed without systematic interaction, are merged. Beginning with a chapter elucidating the editor's theoretical framework, the volume proceeds to compare state tradition and bureaucratic structures in both developed countries. Essays are included on nonstate societies--the United States and Great Britain--as well as classical state societies such as France and Germany.