New Crops and Old States - State Building in Historical China

• In Event: Chinese Politics Mini-Conference: Consolidating State Power

Abstract

The world witnessed a Great Divergence when Europe surpassed other parts of the world, especially Asia, and emerged as the global leader in economic growth sometime between the 17th and 18th century. This historical event has fascinated historians and social scientists for decades. In this book, we introduce the concept of a Political Divergence, which predated the Great Economic Divergence between Europe and East Asia by centuries.

For the conference presentation, we will focus on the first chapter of the book, which delineates the overarching statistical and narrative patterns encapsulating the transition "from convergence to divergence." The evidence is largely based on four quantitative indices: political unification and centralization, elite conflicts, fiscal capacity, and ruler stability. Building upon these four indices, we unveil "three divergences" and "one convergence" between Europe and East Asia. Until the Middle Ages, East Asia and Europe exhibited many common characteristics. However, a pronounced divergence emerged from the 10th or 11th century onward. While both regions achieved stability following the medieval period, they manifested entirely different patterns concerning political centralization, elite conflicts, and fiscal capacity. The presentation will review the general contours of political development, supplemented with historical insights and a brief discussion of potential drivers behind the phenomenon.

Authors

• Yasheng Huang, Massachusetts Institute of Technology

• Clair Yang, University of Washington