The Vietnamese Infrabureaucracy in Bac Ky (Tonkin) from Independence to Protectorate

The employees in the mandarin offices in the north of Vietnam have been relegated to the status of « poor relation » in historiographies fascinated by the majestic figure of the mandarin. The present article aims to assess the importance of this infrabureaucracy situated between the mandarin and the village notables. Nevertheless, a study of the role of this infrabureaucracy leads to a consideration of its dysfunctioning, the latter being the consequence of the ambivalent position of the employees: at one and the same time indispensable relays of the power of the mandarinate, and sociologically very close to the village notables.