Well, unfortunately, we don't have much solid information, and whatever hypotheses we come up with have to allow the examples we see to fit somewhere. Arthur says Harry's trial is unusual, not that it's procedurally incorrect, for instance, so however the government is structured, it must allow for the Minister to preside over the Wizengamot to prosecute a teenager for performing magic in a Muggle area and for the DMLE head to try him one-on-one in her office.
According to Hagrid, the Ministry "mostly" spends their time keeping magic secret from Muggles. This is Hagrid, so we should allow for some exaggeration. We also know that Arthur's office--which you would think would be important under that mission statement--is staffed by only two people and treated as a joke. They also have offices for internal wizarding-world things, like the Floo network and the Department of Mysteries. So it's hard to say exactly how much they focus on hiding magic vs. other governmental tasks. A very important task being simply to keep existing, if parallels to real governments help. I can see one goal being "employ witches and wizards who might otherwise not have jobs in our screwy closed economy," which might explain the Ministry's size, but not necessarily its organization.
According to Pottermore, the Ministry was founded in 1707, and was derived from the earlier Wizards' Council, which may or may not have also been called the Wizengamot. If not, then there was a Wizards' Council and a Wizengamot simultaneously for some time, and we're not sure what distinguished them. It looks like they kept the Wizengamot in some fashion and spun off some of their authority into the Ministry departments in 1707. Maybe.
I'm not sure how helpful looking at Muggle governments would be. I'm pretty sure that random mid-level employees in the British Ministry of Defense, for example, can't waltz into Parliament and propose legislation, and that this isn't a new development. Parliament has been bicameral since the 14th century or so. Evidently they could act as the highest court of appeal until recently--but none of the trials that we see are appeals, as far as we know. Harry's wasn't. The Privy Council was not several times larger than Parliament, nor was the Star Chamber, as I recall. (Though the Star Chamber looks like it has some potential here.) We don't know of any ecclesiastical authorities in the Wizengamot, unlike Parliament. I don't know how close a parallel you can find, really. Maybe someone more familiar with the ins and outs of English political history over the last thousand years can help?
You might be able to make something fit by picking the way bits of English government worked in different time periods and sticking them together, but that doesn't help us guess which bits to pick. And then grafting that to a modern Ministry setup with departments, divisions, and offices which send out memos makes you think you should be looking later in history, not earlier.
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timeasmymeasure
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Date: 2019-06-15 09:51 pm (UTC)According to Hagrid, the Ministry "mostly" spends their time keeping magic secret from Muggles. This is Hagrid, so we should allow for some exaggeration. We also know that Arthur's office--which you would think would be important under that mission statement--is staffed by only two people and treated as a joke. They also have offices for internal wizarding-world things, like the Floo network and the Department of Mysteries. So it's hard to say exactly how much they focus on hiding magic vs. other governmental tasks. A very important task being simply to keep existing, if parallels to real governments help. I can see one goal being "employ witches and wizards who might otherwise not have jobs in our screwy closed economy," which might explain the Ministry's size, but not necessarily its organization.
According to Pottermore, the Ministry was founded in 1707, and was derived from the earlier Wizards' Council, which may or may not have also been called the Wizengamot. If not, then there was a Wizards' Council and a Wizengamot simultaneously for some time, and we're not sure what distinguished them. It looks like they kept the Wizengamot in some fashion and spun off some of their authority into the Ministry departments in 1707. Maybe.
I'm not sure how helpful looking at Muggle governments would be. I'm pretty sure that random mid-level employees in the British Ministry of Defense, for example, can't waltz into Parliament and propose legislation, and that this isn't a new development. Parliament has been bicameral since the 14th century or so. Evidently they could act as the highest court of appeal until recently--but none of the trials that we see are appeals, as far as we know. Harry's wasn't. The Privy Council was not several times larger than Parliament, nor was the Star Chamber, as I recall. (Though the Star Chamber looks like it has some potential here.) We don't know of any ecclesiastical authorities in the Wizengamot, unlike Parliament. I don't know how close a parallel you can find, really. Maybe someone more familiar with the ins and outs of English political history over the last thousand years can help?
You might be able to make something fit by picking the way bits of English government worked in different time periods and sticking them together, but that doesn't help us guess which bits to pick. And then grafting that to a modern Ministry setup with departments, divisions, and offices which send out memos makes you think you should be looking later in history, not earlier.