Javanese Public Administration - Javanese Administration

Javanese Administration

Javanese administration can be characterized as authoritarian, self-sufficient, and law-abiding. Its authoritarian nature meant that stability of the realm was dependent upon the abilities of its whomever was in charge. Whether it was the raja, susuhunan, or sultan, he was somewhat of a semi-deified figure, and the administrative chain-of command led directly to him as master (gusti). All others, including the realm's highest officials, were his servants (kawula). The only exception was the royal family (sentana), whose more prominent members became the forerunners of an administrative system.

In theory, this was supposed to be a highly centralized form of administration, but it's dark weakness was that it was very unstable. Without a delegation of authority, the officials could only act as occasional substitutes for the king, rather than as authoritative stand-ins with well-defined duties and responsibilities. One part of this problem was the officials' lack of functional specialization: administrative self-sufficiency applied to everyone. As decreed by the king, local administration was to function with as little as possible input from the head. While the authority wielded by individual territorial rulers was recognized, in reality they were bound to the ruler by grants of titles (although only for the life-time of the holder) and marriage alliances, which raised the individual's status to that of the royal family. In other words, the local rulers from each territory had authority of their own, but because of certain decrees, they were essentially made to be part of the royal family, regardless of their "peasant" or "common" origin.

Local administrators collected taxes and received payment directly before the remainder was passed to the capital as the king's dues. Everyone in the realm was subjected to Javanese law. In practice this meant that traditions from the past would continue to be practiced in the present. As the head of the administration the king was the instrument of law, not its initiator, and therefore subjected to its contents.