Hostname: page-component-6587cd75c8-6qszs Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2025-04-23T19:15:34.513Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

State Formation and Bureaucratization: Evidence from Pre-Imperial China

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  25 October 2024

Joy Chen
Joy Chen*
Affiliation:
Assistant Professor, School of Economics, Renmin University of China, Beijing 100872, China.
*
E-mail: [email protected].
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract

This paper studies the relationship between military conflicts and state-building in pre-imperial China. I develop an incomplete contract model to examine rulers’ and local administrators’ incentives in conflict. Defensive wars drive decentralization: landowning local administrators have more to gain from a successful defense and are therefore more committed to it. Offensive wars drive centralization: the landowning ruler has personnel control over the non-land-owning local administrator and can therefore force the latter to participate in less lucrative attacks. Model predictions are corroborated with empirical evidence and historical case studies, and offer broader implications for the political divergence between China and Europe.

Type
Article
Information
The Journal of Economic History , Volume 84 , Issue 3 , September 2024 , pp. 690 - 726
Copyright
© The Author(s), 2024. Published by Cambridge University Press on behalf of the Economic History Association

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

Article purchase

Temporarily unavailable

Footnotes

I am indebted to Avner Greif, James Fearon, Saumitra Jha, and Avidit Acharya for their guidance and support. This work benefited from helpful comments and suggestions from Ran Abramitzky, Shuo Chen, Yiwei Chen, Xinyu Fan, James Fenske, Robin Gong, Yu Hao, Ruixue Jia, Mark Koyama, Mark Lewis, Cong Liu, Debin Ma, Joel Mokyr, Eric Shi, Yang Xie, Chenggang Xu, Leslie Young, Anthony Lee Zhang, and seminar participants at CKGSB, Fudan, Japanese Empirical Economics Seminar, Peking University, SHUFE, Stanford, Tsinghua, UCSD, All-UC Economic History Workshop, CEPR Economic History Symposium, EHA Annual Meeting, and International Symposium of Quantitative History. This work was supported by the Bradley Graduate Fellowship through a grant to the Stanford Institute for Economic Policy Research, and by the Pre-Doctoral Fellowship from the Stanford Center at Peking University. All errors are my own.

References

REFERENCES

Becker, Sascha O., Ferrara, Andreas, Melander, Eric, and Pascali, Luigi. “Wars, Taxation and Representation: Evidence from Five Centuries of German History.” CEPR Working Paper DP15601, London, UK, 2022.Google Scholar
Bentzen, Jeanet Sinding, Kaarsen, Nicolai, and Moll Wingender, Asger. “Irrigation and Autocracy.” Journal of the European Economic Association 15, no. 1 (2017): 1–53.Google Scholar
Besley, Timothy, and Persson, Torsten. “The Origins of State Capacity: Property Rights, Taxation, and Politics.” American Economic Review 99, no. 4 (2009): 1218–44.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Cantoni, Davide, Mohr, Cathrin, and Weigand, Matthias. “The Rise of Fiscal Capacity.” Econometrica, forthcoming.Google Scholar
Centeno, Miguel. “Blood and Debt: War and Taxation in Nineteenth-Century Latin America.” American Journal of Sociology 102, no. 6 (1997): 1565–605.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Chen, Joy. “Political Elites and Human Capital Formation in Pre-Imperial China.” SSRN Working Paper No. 3530279, Rochester, NY, 2024.Google Scholar
Chen, Joy. “Data and Code For ‘State Formation and Bureaucratization: Evidence from Pre-Imperial China’.” Ann Arbor, MI: Inter-university Consortium for Political and Social Research [distributor], 2024-05-12. https://doi.org/10.3886/E202661V1.Google Scholar
Cox, Gary W., Dincecco, Mark, and Gaetano Onorato, Massimiliano. “Window of Opportunity: War and the Origins of Parliament.” British Journal of Political Science 54, no. 2 (2023): 405–21.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Dincecco, Mark, Federico, Giovanni, and Vindigni, Andrea. “Warfare, Taxation and Political Change: Evidence from the Italian Risorgimento.” Journal of Economic History 71, no. 4 (2011): 887–914.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Du, Zhengsheng. Bianhu Qimin: Chuantong Zhengzhi Shehui Jiegou Zhi Xingcheng (The Formation of Social and Political Structures of the Traditional Society). Taipei: Lianjing Chuban Shiye Gongsi, 1990.Google Scholar
Durrant, Stephen, Li, Wai-Yee, and Schaberg, David. Zuo Tradition/Zuozhuan: Commentary on the “Spring and Autumn Annals.” Seattle: University of Washington Press, 2016.Google Scholar
Eich, Peter. “The Common Denominator: Late Roman Imperial Bureaucracy from a Comparative Perspective.” In State Power in Ancient China and Rome, edited by Scheidel, Walter, 90–149. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2015.Google Scholar
Ertman, Thomas. Birth of the Leviathan: Building States and Regimes in Medieval and Early Modern Europe. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1997.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Finer, Samuel. The History of Government from the Earliest Times, Vol. 1. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1997.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Gennaioli, Nicola, and Voth, Hans-Joachim. “State Capacity and Military Conflict.” Review of Economic Studies 82, no. 4 (2015): 1409–48.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Greif, Avner, and Rubin, Jared. “Endogenous Political Legitimacy: The Tudor Roots of England’s Constitutional Governance.” Journal of Economic History forthcoming, 2024.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Grossman, Sanford J., and Hart, Oliver D.. “The Costs and Benefits of Ownership: A Theory of Vertical and Lateral Integration.” Journal of Political Economy 94, no. 4 (1986): 691–719.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Gu, Derong, and Zhu, Shunlong. Chunqiu Shi (History of the Spring and Autumn Period). Shanghai: Shanghai Renmin Chubanshe, 2001.Google Scholar
Hart, Oliver, and Moore, John. “Property Rights and the Nature of the Firm.” Journal of Political Economy 98, no. 6 (1990): 1119–58.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Hart, Oliver, Shleifer, Andrew, and Vishny, Robert W.. “The Proper Scope of Government: Theory and an Application to Prisons.” Quarterly Journal of Economics 112, no. 4 (1997): 1127–61.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Hintze, Otto. The Historical Essays of Otto Hintze. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1975.Google Scholar
Hirschleifer, Jack. “Anarchy and Its Breakdown.” Journal of Political Economy 103, no. 1 (1995): 26–52.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Hsu, Cho-Yun. “The Spring and Autumn Period.” In The Cambridge History of Ancient China, edited by Loewe, Michael and Edward, L. Shaughnessy, 545–86. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1999.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Huang, Pumin. Zhongguo Junshi Tongshi – Chunqiu Junshi Shi (Military History of China – The Spring and Autumn Period). Beijing: Junshi Kexue Chubanshe, 1998.Google Scholar
Hui, Victoria. War and State Formation in Ancient China and Early Modern Europe. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2005.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Kivanc, Karaman, K., and Pamuk, Sevket. “Different Paths to the Modern State in Europe: the Interaction Between Warfare, Economic Structure, and Political Regime.” American Political Science Review 107, no. 3 (2013): 1–24.Google Scholar
Keegan, John. A History of Warfare. New York: Vintage Books, 1993.Google Scholar
Kiser, Edgar, and Cai, Yong. “War and Bureaucratization in Qin China: Exploring an Anomalous Case.” American Sociological Review 68, no. 4 (2003): 511–39.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Ko, Chiu Yu, Koyama, Mark, and Sng, Tuan-Hwee. “Unified China and Divided Europe.” International Economic Review 59, no. 1 (2018): 285–327.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Koyama, Mark, Moriguchi, Chiaki, and Sng, Tuan-Hwee. “Geopolitics and Asia’s Little Divergence: State Building in China and Japan after 1850.” Journal of Economic Behavior and Organization 155 (2018): 178–204.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Lewis, Mark E. Sanctioned Violence in Early China. Albany: State University of New York Press, 1990.Google Scholar
Ma, Baochun. Jinguo Lishi Dili Yanjiu (Historical Geography of the State of Jin). Beijing: Wenwu Chubanshe, 2007.Google Scholar
Mann, Michael. The Sources of Social Power, Volume I: A History of Power from the Beginning to AD 1760. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1986.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Michalopoulos, Stelios, and Papaioannou, Elias. “National Institutions and Subnational Development in Africa.” Quarterly Journal of Economics 129, no. 1 (2014): 151–213.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Skaperdas, Stergios. “Contest Success Functions.” Economic Theory 7, no. 2 (1996): 283–90.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Sng, Tuan-Hwee. “Size and Dynastic Decline: The Principal-Agent Problem in Late Imperial China, 1700–1850.” Explorations in Economic History 54 (2014): 107–27.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Tan, Qixiang. The Historical Atlas of China, vol. 1. Beijing: China Cartographic Publishing House, 1996.Google Scholar
Tian, Chengfang. Dongzhou Shiqi Chuguo Zongzu Yanjiu (A Study of Chu Lineages in Eastern Zhou). Beijing: Kexue Chubanshe, 2017.Google Scholar
Tilly, Charles. Coercion, Capital and European States, A.D. 990–1990. Cambridge: Blackwell Publishers, 1990.Google Scholar
von Glahn, Richard. The Economic History of China: From Antiquity to the Nineteenth Century. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2016.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Weber, Max. Economy and Society: An Outline of Interpretive Sociology. Berkeley: University of California Press, [1922] 1978.Google Scholar
Wen, Fangqi, Wang, Erik H., and Hout, Michael. “Social Mobility in the Tang Dynasty as the Imperial Examination Rose and Aristocratic Family Pedigree Declined, 618–907 CE.” PNAS 121, no. 4 (2024): e2305564121.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Wittfogel, Karl A. Oriental Despotism: A Comparative Study of Total Power. New Haven: Yale University Press, 1957.Google Scholar
Yang, Kuan. Zhanguo Shi (Warring States History). Shanghai: Shanghai Renmin Chubanshe, 1998.Google Scholar
Yang, Shanqun. “Lun Chunqiu Zhanguo Jian de ‘Yuantian’ Zhi (A Study of the ‘Yuantian’ System between Spring and Autumn and Warring States).” Jinyang Xuebao 5 (2010): 73–77.Google Scholar
Yates, Robin D.S. “State Control of Bureaucrats under the Qin: Techniques and Procedures.” Early China 20 (1995): 331–65.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Yu, Ying-Shih. Shi Yu Zhongguo Wenhua (Shi and the Chinese Culture). Shanghai: Shanghai Renmin Chubanshe, 2003.Google Scholar
Zhao, Dingxin. The Confucian-Legalist Sate: A New Theory of Chinese History. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2015.Google Scholar
Zhou, Zhenhe, and Li, Xiaojie. Zhongguo Xingzheng Quhua Tongshi (The History of Chinese Administrative Divisions), Vol 1. Shanghai: Fudan Daxue Chubanshe, 2009.Google Scholar
Zhu, Fenghan. Shangzhou Jiazu Xingtai Yanjiu (A Study of Family Structures in Shang and Zhou). Tianjin: Tianjin Guji Chubanshe, 2004.Google Scholar
Zuo, Peng. Chuguo Lishi Dili Yanjiu (Historical Geography of the State of Chu). Wuhan: Hubei Jiaoyu Chubanshe, 2012.Google Scholar
Supplementary material: File

Chen supplementary material

Chen supplementary material
Download Chen supplementary material(File)
File 1.1 MB