Some Aspects of the Austrian State Administration and the Austrian Public Service

Abstract

The article gives a short overview of the Austrian public sector, its history, structure and and explains some features of its current situation.
The Austrian public administration and the Austrian public service in the sense of a modern bureaucracy developed in the 18th century. In the middle ages local magistrates on behalf of the feudal rulers existed of course, but there was no central public administration beyond some advisers of the king and the military of course. Tax collecting was not very efficient and as standing armies were very expensive, they were kept rather small and the feudal system, during which the knights and their constituency were called up in the case of a war and levied taxes on a local level, went well into the late middle age.