Site Description

Web site dedicated to the great, progressive French thinker, theorist, and framer of the modern discipline of Public Administration. Bonnin (October 4, 1772 - † ? October 1846) was born in Paris, in a family with roots in Burgundy. He conducted his studies at the Four Nations College. Afterward he served the French administration as an official in the Seine department. His parents had planned for him a career as medical doctor, project frustrated by the events of the French Revolution, a fact that inspired in Charles-Jean Bonnin a deep interest for political issues. His true vocation born early during his youth, thanks to the works of Montesquieu, Mably, Bacon, Fenelon and Cornelius, to whom he professed great admiration From Bonnin’s written work a great political and intellectual activity is clear.

His academic works credit him as a forerunner of public, constitutional and administrative law. Actually, his ‘Social Doctrine’ situates him amongst the initiators of the science later known as Sociology. He also practiced parliamentary review and was interested in educational problems. Auguste Compte described Bonnin as a “mature and energetic man, a person with a spontaneous deep kinship for positivism and in whom we can find the true spirit of the Revolution” (Letter to monsieur Barbot, 29 October 1846).