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Annual Review of Political Science
Violent Conflict and Political
Development Over the Long
Run: China Versus Europe
Mark Dincecco1
and Yuhua Wang2
1
Department of Political Science, University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, Michigan 48109, USA;
email: dincecco@umich.edu
2
Department of Government, Harvard University, Cambridge, Massachusetts 02138, USA;
email: yuhuawang@fas.harvard.edu
Annu. Rev. Political Sci. 2018. 21:341–58
First published as a Review in Advance on
February 28, 2018
The Annual Review of Political Science is online at
polisci.annualreviews.org
https://doi.org/10.1146/annurev-polisci-050317-
064428
Copyright c 2018 by Annual Reviews.
All rights reserved
Keywords
political geography, representative government, autocracy, state formation,
historical analysis, exit-voice-loyalty model
Abstract
Is the traditional logic by which violent conflict fosters long-run political
development universal? To help address this question, this article compares
Europe with China. While historical warfare was very common across both
units, representative government flourished only in Europe. We suggest that
the relationship between violent conflict and political development depends
on the underlying political geography context. In Europe, political fragmentation
was rampant. Thus, conflict tended to be external (i.e., interstate), and
attack threats were multidirectional. Furthermore, exit ability was high in
this context. Elites were therefore in a strong bargaining position to demand
political representation in return for new tax revenue. China, by contrast,
was politically centralized. Here, conflict tended to be internal, attack threats
were unidirectional, and exit ability was low. The emperor was thus powerful
enough to extract tax funds without surrendering political control. In this
context, violent conflict promoted autocratic re-entrenchment. We conclude
by briefly analyzing the relationships between political geography, historical
conflict, and political development in sub-Saharan Africa and Latin America.
341
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INTRODUCTION
Violent conflict is a prominent explanation for long-run political development in Europe (e.g.,
Bates & Lien 1985, pp. 54–57; Mann 1986, pp. 125–32; Downing 1992, pp. 18–55; Tilly 1992,
pp. 67–95; Ertman 1997, pp. 74–87; Stasavage 2016, pp. 154–56). The basic logic of this argument
is as follows. Historical warfare was very costly (Hoffman 2015, pp. 19, 21–22). To obtain new
funds, sovereign rulers were willing to exchange political freedoms (e.g., political representation)
which gave elite taxpayers formal roles in public policy matters. By partially surrendering political
control, rulers could secure new revenue and thereby increase military strength.1
Is this logic universal? Given the literature’s traditional focus on the European experience, the
answer remains unclear. To help address this question, this article compares historical patterns
of violent conflict and long-run political development in Europe versus China. This comparison
makes sense for several reasons. First, both units are major players on today’s world stage. Second,
they are relatively similar in physical size, making for geographical comparability. Third, as we
show here, violent conflict was a main historical feature in both Europe and China. While Europe
has a long tradition of political representation, however, China remains autocratic.
We argue that historical differences in political geography helped influence the relationship
between violent conflict and long-run political development in Europe versus China. Historically,
Europe was highly politically fragmented, while China was politically centralized. Circa 1500, for
example, there were more than 200 independent states in Europe (Tilly 1992, pp. 45) but only
a single polity in China (Rosenthal & Wong 2011, pp. 12–13). We argue that such differences
in political geography help explain variations in the nature of historical conflict between the two
units. While warfare was very common across Europe and China alike, there were at least two basic
differences in its contours. The vast majority of major violent conflicts in fragmented Europe were
fought between rival states. In centralized China, however, most major conflicts took the form
of rebellions and civil wars. High political fragmentation, moreover, meant that foreign attack
threats in Europe could emanate from multiple directions, whereas in China the most significant
recurrent foreign attack threat came from Steppe nomads. Elites in Europe were thus in a relatively
strong bargaining position to demand political freedoms (e.g., political representation) from their
rulers in return for new revenue to put toward military defense. Given high political fragmentation,
European elites could credibly threaten to move abroad to a nearby sovereign polity if the ruler did
not meet their demands, and could exploit the fact that the ruler was vulnerable to external attack
threats by military rivals from several directions. In China, by contrast, political centralization
meant that the emperor’s bargaining position relative to elites was stronger. Due to the difficulty
of moving abroad, the threat of exit by Chinese elites was less credible. Furthermore, external
attack threats were unidirectional, reducing the emperor’s vulnerability. In this historical context,
the ruler may have been powerful enough to extract tax revenue to fund military efforts without
surrendering any political control through representative government. Over time, this dynamic
may have promoted autocratic re-entrenchment, as the Chinese state exploited threats of internal
rebellion to strengthen its coercive power.
To return to the motivating question from above, then, our analysis suggests that violent
conflict need not foster long-run political development. Depending on the underlying political
1
Besley & Persson (2009; 2011, pp. 45–63) link warfare with state development in formal models. Their core model portrays
military defense as a common-interest public good that promotes investments in the state’s extractive capacity. Gennaioli
& Voth (2015), by contrast, argue that warfare promotes state development (including representative government) only if
military victory is dependent on high revenue. In their view, this change did not take place in Europe until after the sixteenthcentury
military revolution (Parker 1996, pp. 1–2). Møller (2016) and Boucoyannis (2015) analyze the role of warfare in
political development in two first-mover states, Aragon and England, respectively.
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geography context, historical warfare may promote representative government (as in Europe), or
it may induce the ruler to double down on autocracy (as in China).
We structure this article as follows. The next two sections contrast historical conflict patterns
between Europe and China, and relate differences in the basic contours of conflict to political
geography. We then develop a simple exit-voice-loyalty model that links political geography and
violent conflict with political development. As part of this approach, we briefly evaluate an alternative
argument that portrays representative government as the result of economic growth. The
subsequent three sections show evidence that helps corroborate several implications that flow from
our model, including exit ability, extractive capacity, and the political legacy of historical conflict
in China. We conclude with a brief analysis of the relationships between political geography,
historical conflict, and political development in two world regions beyond Eurasia: sub-Saharan
Africa and Latin America.
HISTORICAL CONFLICT PATTERNS
Violent conflict was a central feature of Europe’s historical landscape (Tilly 1992, pp. 72, 74;
Parker 1996, p. 1; Hoffman 2015, pp. 21–22). Describing Renaissance Europe, for example, Hale
(1985, p. 21) states: “There was probably no single year throughout the period in which there was
neither a war nor occurrences that looked and felt remarkably like it.”
Yet historical warfare in itself does not appear to differentiate Europe from China. According
to Hoffman (2015, p. 70), for example, early modern China fought interstate wars in 56% of all
years, while England fought 53% of the time and France 52%.
To improve our understanding of historical conflict patterns in China versus Europe, we
bring together two new databases, each of which attempts to geocode all major historical military
conflicts within its region. We take the European data from Dincecco & Onorato (2017, pp. 19–
30), who in turn rely on comprehensive works by two military historians, Clodfelter (2002) and
Bradbury (2004). The Chinese data are from Wang (2016), who collects exhaustive conflict information
from The Catalog of Historical Wars, produced by the Nanjing Military Academy (2002).
These databases, which are broadly comparable in terms of conflict coverage, support the view
that violent conflict was a main feature of both European and Chinese history. We estimate that
there were more than 850 major recorded land conflicts in Europe and about 1,470 land-based
conflicts in China between the years 1000 and 1799 (see Figures 1 and 2).
While the frequency of historical conflict does not seem to distinguish China from Europe,
the nature of warfare appears to have differed in at least two basic ways. The first difference
concerns external (interstate) versus internal (intrastate) conflicts (Gupta et al. 2016, p. 66). The
vast majority of sample conflicts in Europe were battles or sieges fought between rival states (e.g.,
England versus France). In China, by contrast, more than 65% of sample conflicts were rebellions
and civil wars.
The second difference concerns multidirectional versus unidirectional foreign attack threats.
In Europe, historical attack threats could emanate from several directions (Ko et al. 2014, table 7).
In China, however, the most important recurrent foreign attack threat came from Steppe nomads
(Hoffman 2015, pp. 70–71). According to our data, more than 80% of external conflicts in China
between 1000 and 1799 were fought against the nomads. By contrast, there were no nomadic
invasions of Western Europe over a similar period (Ko et al. 2014, table 6).
This brief overview suggests that, though historical conflict was very common across Europe
and China alike, there were important differences in its basic contours. We now analyze what may
help account for such differences.
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Number of
conflicts
1
2
3
Figure 1
Major military conflict locations in Europe, 1000–1799. There were 856 land-based conflicts. Dot sizes indicate the number of conflicts
geocoded to each specific location. Source: Dincecco & Onorato (2017).
THE IMPORTANCE OF POLITICAL GEOGRAPHY
To help explain historical differences in the nature of warfare between Europe and China, we
focus on the role of political geography. We argue that, historically, political fragmentation best
represents Europe, while political centralization best represents China.
The ninth-century fall of the Carolingian Empire resulted in a high level of political fragmentation
in Europe (Strayer 1970, pp. 15),2
and this fragmentation was enduring.3
In 1500, for
example, it is likely that there were at least 200 independent states in Europe (Tilly 1992, p. 45).
Average state size was relatively small: roughly 25,000 square kilometers and just over 300,000
inhabitants (Tilly 1992, p. 45).4
In this historical context, it makes sense that (a) external conflicts
between the small rival states were common and (b) foreign attack threats could emanate from
several directions.
China, by contrast, was enormous (Rosenthal & Wong 2011, pp. 12–14). The Qin (221–
206 BCE) established the first unitary state in China (Rosenthal & Wong 2011, p. 17),5
after
2
Stasavage (2011, pp. 95–100) describes the “accidental” way in which the Carolingian Empire was partitioned. Before
Charlemagne, Western Europe was politically fragmented from the demise of the Roman Empire onward (Hoffman 2015,
p. 107).
3
The international relations literature (e.g., Spruyt 1994, Fearon 1997, Hui 2004, Schweller 2004, Levy & Thompson 2005,
Wohlforth et al. 2007, Møller 2014) analyzes why the competitive “states system” in Europe never gave way to control by a
single power.
4
Hoffman (2015, pp. 108–16) explains why physical geography alone (e.g., mountainous terrain, irregular coastlines) cannot
account for historical differences in political fragmentation and state size between Europe and China.
5
Scholars including Kiser & Cai (2003), Hui (2005), and Zhao (2015) relate early political centralization in China to violent
conflict during the Warring States era (475–221 BCE). Between the years 1 and 1800, a single political authority ruled China
for more than 1,000 years (Ko & Sng 2013, p. 480). Historical periods of political fragmentation (e.g., Northern and Southern
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Figure 2
Major military conflict locations in China, 1000–1799. There were 1,468 land-based conflicts. Borders are for territory under the Qing
Dynasty. Source: Wang (2016).
which the central government abolished feudal titles and appointed national officials to govern
localjurisdictions(Hui2005,pp.97–99;Fukuyama2011,p.118).Furthermore,theQinestablished
a uniform written language, standardized the currency, measures, weights, and axle lengths for
carts, and laid the groundwork for a centralized tax system (Fukuyama 2011, p. 130; von Glahn
2016, pp. 99–108). In Europe, however, comparable centralization efforts (e.g., the standardization
of measures and weights) did not typically take place even within individual nation-states until
after the French Revolution of 1789 (Dincecco 2010, p. 308). Indeed, the European Union was
unable to establish a common currency across (much of ) Europe until the early 2000s—a feat that
China accomplished roughly two millennia before.
The available quantitative evidence further supports the view that political fragmentation was
most descriptive of Europe’s historical political geography, while political centralization was most
descriptive of that of China. Taking data from Nussli (2011), Wei (2011), and Ko et al. (2014,
Dynasties, 420–589; Five Dynasties and Ten Kingdoms, 907–60) were relatively brief and may be thought of as exceptions to
the rule.
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figure 1), we calculate that the average number of sovereign states between 1000 and 1799 was
nearly 85 in Europe, but only 1.5 in China.
As described above, it is likely that historical political fragmentation in Europe was related to
the nature of warfare (external conflicts and multidirectional foreign attack threats). Similarly, it
makes sense that historical political centralization in China had implications for the basic contours
of violent conflict found there. First, unlike in Europe, China’s huge size and long border with
the Eurasian Steppe may have made it more likely that external threats would be unidirectional.
Second, political centralization meant that, in contrast to Europe, internal conflicts were more
common in China. The central government found it challenging to monitor officials in far-flung
jurisdictions of the vast territory (Sng & Moriguchi 2014, Ma & Rubin 2016). Our data suggest
that more than 20% of historical sample conflicts in China were rebellions led by regional elites
against the emperor, while another 30% were mass revolts.6
Political centralization itself could
make domestic politics more contentious by increasing the potential scale (and therefore the
threat) of collective action efforts (Tilly 1995, pp. 5–14), a process which Acemoglu et al. (2016)
label the “political agenda effect” of state centralization.
ECONOMIC GROWTH?
In the previous two sections, we have highlighted differences in the basic contours of historical conflict
between Europe and China, and we have argued that political geography may help explain such
differences. In the next section, we will develop a conceptual framework that links political geography
and violent conflict with political development. Before proceeding, however, we briefly evaluate
a classic argument that views representative government as the result of economic growth.7
One historical variant of this argument is as follows. Europe’s central corridor runs from the
Low Countries to Northern Italy through parts of France and Germany. Historically, rich soil
and easy river access made this corridor advantageous. Rich soil enabled local populations to generate
food surpluses that made urban agglomerations possible. Aided by river trade routes, urban
agglomerations helped foster commerce. In time, the effects of economic agglomeration allowed
the most prosperous urban centers to build upon their previous success. According to this view,
representative government in medieval Europe was an outcome of urban-led economic growth,
as wealthy city dwellers eventually overcame traditional agricultural interests and established pluralistic
institutions.
This classic argument may help partially explain historical variation in political institutions
within Europe (Stasavage 2016, pp. 152–54). The available evidence, however, suggests that economic
growth alone cannot fully account for the development of representative government in
Europe versus other world regions. Economic development in Western Europe in 1000—the
start year for our analysis—was far lower than in China and slightly lower than in the Middle
East (Stasavage 2016, pp. 153–54). If economic development drove political representation, then
China should have historically been a parliamentary leader. Representative government, however,
6
Moore (1966, pp. 201–27) claims that China was historically prone to mass rebellions because peasants did not believe that
the central government played any meaningful economic role in their lives. Endemic mass violence thus became part of a
survival strategy by the peasantry (Perry 1980, p. 11).
7
This type of argument has a long pedigree, including Lipset (1959), Rokkan (1975, pp. 575–91), Przeworski et al. (2000,
pp. 78–141), Glaeser et al. (2004), Haber (2012), and Boix (2015, pp. 209–15), among others. Abramson & Boix (2015) provide
systematic historical evidence for Europe in favor of it. Others argue that the causation actually runs the other way, from
political reforms to economic growth (Acemoglu et al. 2008, Papaioannou & Siourounis 2008, Acemoglu et al. 2015, Cox
2017).
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flourished in Western Europe alone. According to Pomeranz (2000, p. 8), moreover, economic development
levels across parts of China and Europe were relatively similar through the mid-1700s.
Yet political divergence between the two regions still took place.
CONCEPTUAL FRAMEWORK
Our conceptual framework helps explain how political geography may influence the relationship
between violent conflict and long-run political development. Several historical arguments about
interstate competition (Landes 1998, pp. 29–44; Jones 2003, pp. 104–26; Rosenthal & Wong
2011, pp. 167–207; Gelderblom 2013, pp. 1–18; Cox 2017) influence this framework. To anchor
it, we now develop a simple game theory model (we leave the technical details to the section titled
Model Appendix). Our model draws on Clark et al. (2017), who formalize Hirschman’s (1970)
well-known “exit, voice, and loyalty” argument.
Our simple model analyzes the optimal political decisions of a ruler who must defend her
polity against external threats of military attack by rival states. Such threats may be predominantly
unidirectional or multidirectional in nature. To fund military defense, the ruler must gather tax
revenue from domestic elites. The ruler must decide whether to use coercion or bargaining to
gather this revenue. Coercion involves the outright expropriation of the elites via the threat or
actual use of physical force. Bargaining, by contrast, involves the provision of a political freedom
such as political representation in exchange for tax revenue.
Elites have three possible responses to the ruler’s demand: moving, contesting, or staying.
Moving refers to the elites’ decision to relocate to another polity where they can escape future
taxation by the ruler. Contestation means negotiating over the exchange of a political freedom
(e.g., political representation) in response to the ruler’s tax demand. Such contestation is costly in
terms of time and effort to both the ruler and elites. The ruler may deny or grant the demand of
the contesting elites. If their demand is granted, then the elites receive a positive benefit associated
with political freedom, while the ruler incurs a cost due to the surrender of partial political control.
If the demand is denied, however, then the elites must decide whether to move abroad or stay.
Staying refers to their decision to accept the ruler’s action—whichever it may be—as it stands.
Whenever the elites stay rather than move, the ruler receives a positive benefit associated with
their loyalty. This payoff captures the extent to which the ruler depends on the elites for the
survival of her polity as a sovereign (i.e., independent) entity.
Our simple model suggests that warfare may have diverse implications for political development
depending on the underlying political geography context. Namely, the model predicts that political
representation is more likely to emerge in the context of political fragmentation. Here, the elites
may credibly threaten to move abroad if the ruler does not meet their demand for a political
freedom. Furthermore, the ruler may be more vulnerable to external attack by military rivals
emanating from multiple directions, enhancing the value that she places on elite loyalty. For both
reasons, the elites may be in a strong enough bargaining position vis-`a-vis the ruler to demand
political representation. In the context of political centralization, by contrast, the elites’ threat to
exit is less credible, due to the difficulty of moving abroad. The ruler, moreover, may place less
value on elite loyalty, both because of the smaller chance that elites will move abroad and because
of the greater probability that foreign attack threats will be unidirectional in nature, thereby
reducing her vulnerability. The ruler’s bargaining position versus elites should thus be stronger,
making the emergence of political representation less probable. We argue that this model helps
explain why political representation was less likely to develop in China than in Europe. Table 1
summarizes the main components of our conceptual framework.
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Table 1 Exit, voice, loyalty: Europe versus China
Attribute Europe China
Political geography Fragmentation Centralization
State size Small Large
Exit abilitya High Low
Warfare Common Common
Conflict type External Internal
Threat directionb Multidirectional Unidirectional
Power balance Favors elite Favors ruler
Political representation More likely Less likely
a
“Exit ability” refers to the elite’s ability to move abroad to another polity.
b
“Threat direction” refers to the directionality of external (i.e., interstate) attack threats by military rivals.
EXIT ABILITY
To motivate our model, we have highlighted basic differences in the underlying political geography
context and the nature of historical conflict between Europe and China. We now corroborate three
key implications that flow from this model: exit ability, extractive capacity, and the political legacy
of conflict in China.
We start with historical differences in the ability of elites to exit in Europe versus China.
According to the model, European elites could credibly threaten to move to another polity and
escape coercive taxation, because political fragmentation was high and average state size was
small. The historical evidence supports this implication. Individual freedom of movement was the
norm in Western Europe (Winter 2013, pp. 406–7, 412);8
de Vries (1984, p. 213) states: “One
of modern historical demography’s key findings is that the preindustrial European population
was highly mobile.” In this context, urban elites could play sovereign rulers against each other
by threatening to change allegiances if their demands for local political freedoms (e.g., political
representation) were not granted (Gelderblom 2013, pp. 1–18; Cox 2017). During the Investiture
Controversy, for example, urban elites in eleventh-century Italy were able to play the Holy Roman
Emperor against the Pope and seize local political power from traditional church and state officials
(Hohenberg & Lees 1995, p. 41).
In politically centralized China, by contrast, the emperor’s territory stretched from the Mongol
Steppe to the South China Sea. The ability of elites to credibly threaten to move to a foreign polity
was thus low. In this context, immobile capital—namely, land—played an important role (along
with education) as part of a long-term strategy by elites to maintain their social standing (Beattie
1979, pp. 1–21). This emphasis on land-holding made it difficult for elites in China to credibly
bluff exit, further weakening their bargaining position vis-`a-vis the emperor.9
Urbanization rates are a tractable, albeit rough, proxy for cross-regional mobility levels in
history. While Europe and China appear to have had relatively similar urbanization levels through
the 1200s, the urbanization rate in Europe was more than double that of China (i.e., 13% versus
8
In Eastern Europe, by contrast, feudal lords placed new limits on individual mobility after the fourteenth-century Black
Death (Winter 2013, pp. 406–7, 412). Consistent with our argument, representative government was less likely to flourish
there (van Zanden et al. 2012, pp. 842–43).
9
This observation corresponds with observations by other scholars that owners of mobile capital such as machinery have
greater voice in public policy matters than owners of immobile capital such as land (Bates & Lien 1985, pp. 59, 61; Boix 2003,
pp. 12–13; Acemoglu & Robinson 2006, pp. 32–33).
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0 2.5 5.0 7.5 10.0 12.5 15.0
Per capita revenue (gold grams)
China
Ottoman Empire
India
Russia
France
England
Dutch Republic
Figure 3
Per capita revenue across Eurasia in the 1780s. See Dincecco (2017) for construction methods. Sources:
Karaman & Pamuk (2010) for the Dutch Republic, England, France, the Ottoman Empire, and Russia;
Hoffman (2015, p. 51) for China; Gupta et al. (2016, p. 57) for India.
5%) by the start of the 1800s (Winter 2013, p. 405; von Glahn 2016, p. 372). This evidence is
consistent with our argument that historical mobility (and exit) was higher in Europe than in China.
EXTRACTIVE CAPACITY
Another implication of our argument, though not explicitly a part of our model, is that political
representation should facilitate greater revenue collection. The logic here is simple. As more
political control accrues to elites, it becomes more likely that new tax funds will be spent on items
that will benefit them (versus the ruler only). Thus, parliamentary elites may be more willing to
agree to new tax requests, thereby increasing the state’s extractive capacity.10
The expression “no
taxation without representation” conveys this logic, hinting that fiscal strength is in part a function
of representation and transparency (Besley & Persson 2013, p. 56).
Consistent with this argument, state revenue in the late eighteenth century was significantly
higher in Western Europe than in China (see Figure 3). Per capita revenue was roughly 15 gold
grams in the Dutch Republic and 11 gold grams in England (both of which we may think of as parliamentary
regimes; see Stasavage 2010, p. 631) but was less than 0.50 gold grams in imperial China.
Similarly, Figure 3 suggests that revenue per capita was very low in other imperial Eurasian states.
Beyond the rationale of our argument, which highlights the relatively weak bargaining position
of the elites vis-`a-vis the emperor, China’s vast geographical scale itself—a by-product of political
centralization—may have made it difficult to establish representative government and increase
extractive capacity. First, geographical scale would have raised communication and travel costs
(Stasavage 2011, pp. 14–16), thereby reducing the ability of hypothetical representatives to attend
parliamentary events and the ability of constituents to monitor their performance. Similarly,
geographical scale meant that the emperor could not effectively supervise local tax agents, whose
predatory behavior could lead to rebellions and threaten regime stability. In an attempt to avoid
violent revolts, the emperor may have kept taxation low (Sng & Moriguchi 2014). Tax levels and
10
This argument is called the fiscal contract view of state building (e.g., Bates & Lien 1985; Levi 1988, pp. 52–67; North &
Weingast 1989; Hoffman & Rosenthal 1997; Cheibub 1998; Timmons 2005).
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public good provision, for example, were significantly lower in Qing China than in Tokugawa
Japan (Sng & Moriguchi 2014), which was also centralized but much smaller. Ma & Rubin (2016)
argue that the Chinese emperor intentionally restricted the government’s ability to oversee tax
agents. This commitment to weak fiscal institutions enabled tax agents to hide bribes. Their ability
to enrich themselves increased their loyalty to the regime and thereby enhanced its stability.
THE POLITICAL LEGACY OF HISTORICAL CONFLICT IN CHINA
A final implication of our model concerns the political legacy of historical conflict in China,
which our argument suggests may look rather different from the European benchmark. Namely,
violent conflict in China may have promoted autocratic re-entrenchment rather than political
representation.
As described in our conceptual framework, the relatively high level of political centralization
in China may have made representative government less likely to ever develop. First, political
centralization meant that elites could not play sovereign rulers against each other by threatening
to switch allegiances if their demands for local political authority were not met. Second, vast
geographical scale (a result of political centralization) meant that external threats were more likely
to be unidirectional, reducing the emperor’s vulnerability and making elite loyalty less important
at the margin. For both reasons, the ruler’s bargaining position vis-`a-vis elites was stronger in
China than in Europe, enabling the emperor to rely on coercive resource extraction rather than
the surrender of any political control to gather tax revenue (Stasavage 2016, pp. 155, 159).
It may be that, over time, the strong coercive power of the state, combined with the low bargaining
power of the mostly landed elites and the high frequency of rebellion, came to form a
political equilibrium in China that was self-reinforcing (Greif & Laitin 2004). The Taiping Rebellion
(1850–1864)—among the largest mass rebellions in Chinese history—provides an illustrative
example (Wang 2017). During this event, the Qing government ran out of funds for its antirebel
efforts. To defeat the rebels, the emperor asked local gentry for financial help. In exchange, public
school quotas were adjusted in the gentry’s favor, increasing the odds that their sons would
later be admitted to the imperial civil service. Wang (2017) finds that gentry located in zones
nearer to the so-called Taiping Heavenly Kingdom—the revolutionary regime established by the
Taiping—contributed significantly more to the emperor’s military efforts. This evidence suggests
that, rather than exploit the ruler’s need for quick funds to bargain over local political freedoms,
as was common in Europe, the gentry agreed to remain loyal in exchange for a greater chance
for their offspring to gain entrance to the imperial civil service.11
The gentry’s donations not
only helped the incumbent regime put down the rebels but also strengthened the government’s
coercive power.12
The political dynamics evident in the Taiping Rebellion may reflect more fundamental
historical trends in China. Wang (2016) shows evidence that the state repeatedly used rebellion
threats as an opportunity to double down on its coercive power. To proxy for state strength, he
analyzes the locations of military garrisons during the Ming Dynasty (1368–1644). The Ming
regime established more than 500 garrisons across its territory. Taking the form of a militaryagricultural
colony, each garrison was settled by rank-and-file soldiers under the command of
11
We may think of the competitive civil service exam system as a relatively cost-effective way for the politically centralized
regime in China to maintain elite support, without having to strike a parliamentary bargain and formally surrender political
control as in politically fragmented Europe. Indeed, the abolition of the civil service exam at the start of the twentieth century
reduced political stability in China (Bai & Jia 2016).
12
In modern-day Southeast Asia, Slater (2010, pp. 3–52) highlights a similar dynamic, whereby regional rebellions induced
ruling elites to make new state capacity investments in order to retain power.
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0
0.5
1.0
1.5
#ofgarrisonsper1000km2inearlyMing
0 10 20 30
# of pre−Ming rebellions
0
625
1,250
1,875
2,500
#ofgovernmentinstitutionsper1000km2in2015
0 0.5 1.0 1.5
# of garrisons per 1000 km2 in early Ming
Figure 4
Pre-Ming rebellions, Ming-era garrisons, and contemporary government presence in China. The left panel
plots the number of garrisons per 1,000 km2 during the early Ming era against the number of rebellions
prior to the Ming era. The right panel plots the number of government institutions per 1,000 km2 in 2015
against the number of garrisons per 1,000 km2 during the early Ming era. Solid lines represent locally
weighted scatter plot smoothing (LOWESS). Source: Wang (2016).
military officers, with soldiers assigned a fixed acreage to cultivate (Kuhn 1970, pp. 21). The
garrisons were both self-defending and self-supporting. When conflict took place, soldiers would
be mobilized to fight; otherwise, they were demobilized to farm. Although the garrisons were
originally used to defend border regions, they were eventually established throughout the state’s
interior territory for domestic repression. To populate the garrisons, the Ming recruited both
ordinary subjects and criminals. Later, the government made garrisons hereditary, and soldier
communities remained there for several generations (Kuhn 1970, p. 21; Dreyer 1982, pp. 76–83).
Both the large-scale migration and the self-supporting nature of the garrisons appear to have
had a persistent influence on local governance even after the Ming Dynasty fell. To connect
the capital, Beijing, to the garrisons (and to connect the garrisons themselves), the Ming built
a network of courier routes. This road network helped the central government broadcast power
over what were previously peripheral zones (He & Wu 2015, p. 80).13
Wang (2016) finds that
the Ming systematically located garrisons in zones that were prone to rebellion.14
He also shows
evidence for persistence: Prefectures that had a higher density of Ming-era garrisons have a
significantly greater government presence today. Figure 4 displays the positive correlations
between pre-Ming rebellions, Ming-era garrisons, and contemporary government institutions.
13
Herbst (2000, pp. 84–87, 159–70) evaluates the long-run relationships between road networks and state power in sub-Saharan
Africa.
14
Downing (1992, p. 50) argues that the Ming-era garrisons were detrimental to political development in China. Not only
were they administered by (and thus loyal to) the state, but also their main function was to suppress peasant unrest and not to
defend against external attack.
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The rebellion–coercion dynamic in China did not end with the fall of the imperial regime
at the start of the twentieth century. Between the 1990s and the present, for example, China’s
domestic security apparatus has dramatically expanded, and “stability maintenance” operations
have become a top priority for local government officials (Wang & Minzner 2015, p. 339). Wang
& Minzner (2015) find that policy changes in response to the Tiananmen democracy movement
in the late 1980s help explain this expansion. Over the past 20 years, these changes have evolved
into an elaborate scheme, whereby local governance appears increasingly organized around the
need to prevent social unrest.
BEYOND EUROPE AND CHINA
We argue in this article that the relationship between violent conflict and long-run political
development depends—at least in part—on the underlying political geography context. In Europe,
the historical interaction between high political fragmentation and conflict (in this case, largely
external and multidirectional) appears to have promoted representative government. In China, by
contrast, the interaction between political centralization and conflict (here, largely internal and
unidirectional) appears to have instead induced autocratic re-entrenchment. Our analysis thus
suggests that the traditional logic which links violent conflict with political representation does
not extend outside of the European context.
The historical evidence for sub-Saharan Africa appears to provide further support for this
claim. Dincecco & Onorato (2017, pp. 102–6) focus on a feature of political geography specific to
sub-Saharan Africa: the high land–labor ratio. In 1500, there were far fewer individuals per square
kilometer in sub-Saharan Africa than in China or Europe (Herbst 2000, p. 16). Bates (1983, pp. 41–
42) recognizes one political benefit of historical land abundance. In this context, the exit ability of
elites was particularly high. Thus, they were in a relatively strong bargaining position vis-`a-vis the
ruler, a position they could exploit to gain some control over public policy matters.15
However,
the high historical land–labor ratio in sub-Saharan Africa may have promoted enduring warfare
(Dincecco & Onorato 2017, pp. 102–6). Given labor scarcity (versus land scarcity, as in Europe),
a main goal of historical conflict was to capture slaves (Herbst 2000, pp. 42–43; Reid 2012, p. 5).
The nature of warfare in sub-Saharan Africa thus appears to have differed from that in Europe
or China. The most common type of African warfare—the raiding war—was characterized by
recurrent small attacks on the rival’s resources, human and otherwise (Reid 2012, pp. 4–5). Over
time, this type of warfare may have engendered open-ended conflict, particularly in combination
with historical events such as the transatlantic slave trade (e.g., Whatley & Gillezeau 2011). Bates
(2008, p. 85) states that “past conquests by monarchs and warriors created territorial disputes that
reverberate to this day.” Similarly, Besley & Reynal-Querol (2014) show evidence for a significant
statistical correlation between precolonial conflict and modern-day conflict in Africa.16
It is not at all obvious whether warfare promoted long-run political development in Latin
America. Centeno (1997, 2002, pp. 101–66) argues that elites in post-independence Latin
American states were too politically divided among themselves to take advantage of the opportunity
for institutional reform afforded by foreign military threats. In this context (as in sub-Saharan
15
Fenske (2013) evaluates the relationship between Africa’s high historical land–labor ratio and long-run political and economic
development.
16
Bates (2014) and Reid (2014) both argue that late-nineteenth-century efforts by European colonialists to implement the
“imperial peace” blocked the process of war-driven political development in Africa. Osafo-Kwaako & Robinson (2013) analyze
the relationship between warfare and political development in precolonial Africa. Thies (2007) analyzes it over the period
1975–2000.
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Africa), the high historical land–labor ratio (Herbst 2000, p. 16) may have made it more difficult for
national governments to consolidate political authority and broadcast power. By contrast, Thies
(2005) finds that interstate military rivalry (though not external warfare in itself ) did in fact foster
state development in twentieth-century Latin America. Similarly, Arias (2013) shows evidence
that fiscal capacity grew significantly in militarily vulnerable regions in Mexico in the aftermath
of Spain’s defeat in the Seven Years’ War. Soifer (2015, pp. 1–23) argues that the specific nature
of political interactions between national and regional elites explains differences in long-run state
development across Latin America.
We do not, of course, think of the analysis in this article as the last word on this important
topic. Future research should continue to examine the political legacy of historical conflict across
a wide variety of world regions. This will further improve our understanding of the underlying
contextual factors that influence the relationship between violent conflict and long-run political
development.
MODEL APPENDIX
Setup
To fund military defense and fend off external attack threats by rivals, a ruler must gather tax
amount t > 0 from domestic elites. The ruler must decide whether to use coercion or bargaining
to gather this tax revenue. The elites may respond to the ruler’s tax demand in three ways: move,
contest, or stay. Let m be the elites’ payoff for moving. As we describe below, m can be positive
or negative depending on political geography. Let cR, cE > 0 be the ruler’s and elites’ costs,
respectively, of contestation (e.g., time and effort). The ruler may deny or grant the elites’ demands.
If the elites’ demands are granted, they receive payoff p > 0, while the ruler receives payoff −p.
If denied, then the elites must decide whether to move abroad or stay. Whenever the elites stay,
the ruler receives payoff l > 0 associated with their loyalty. We describe below how l can vary
depending on political geography. Figure 5 illustrates the model’s timing and payoffs.
Optimal Decisions
We analyze the optimal decisions by the ruler and the elites for two historical contexts. First,
we analyze such decisions under political fragmentation. Second, we analyze them under political
centralization.
Context 1: Political fragmentation. Political fragmentation may manifest itself as a plethora of
small sovereign states. Thus, it may be relatively painless (e.g., in terms of travel costs) for elites
to escape the ruler’s taxation by moving abroad to another polity. To reflect the high potential for
exit in this context, we designate the elites’ payoff associated with moving m > 0. Furthermore,
given political fragmentation and small average state size, the ruler may feel extra vulnerable,
because external attack threats may emanate from multiple directions. In this context, therefore,
the ruler will likely place a particularly high value on elite loyalty: l 0.
We solve for optimal decisions in this historical context by backward induction. Given m > 0,
the elites prefer to move abroad rather than stay at the final stage. At the preceding stage, the
ruler prefers to grant rather than deny the elites’ demand for a political freedom (e.g., political
representation) so long as the ruler’s payoff to elite loyalty l exceeds her cost for the surrender
of partial political control p. As described above, l 0 under political fragmentation because of
the ruler’s relatively high vulnerability to external attacks. Thus, it is likely that this inequality
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Elite
Elite
Stay Move
Ruler
Ruler
Contest
Coerce Bargain
MoveStay
MoveStay
Elite
Deny Grant
0, mt + l − p, pt + l, 0 t, m
t + l − p − cR
t + l − cR t − cR
p − cE
0 − cE m − cE
Figure 5
Model and payoffs. Payoffs are ordered (Ruler, Elite). We always assume t, p, cR, cE > 0, while we assume
m > 0 and l 0 under political fragmentation and m < 0 and l > 0 under political centralization.
Definitions: t, tax amount that ruler must gather from elite to fend off external threats; m, elite’s payoff from
moving abroad to another polity; p, elite’s payoff from receiving a political freedom; cE, elite’s cost of
contesting coercive action by the ruler; cR, ruler’s cost of surrendering (partial) political control; l, elite’s
value as a taxpayer to ruler.
(i.e., l > p) will hold in this context. Going backward another step, the elites prefer contestation
to moving abroad in response to initial coercive action by the ruler so long as the payoff m to
moving is not too attractive. Similarly, they prefer to stay and accept initial bargaining by the ruler
rather than move abroad so long as the value of a political freedom is high enough (i.e., p > m).
Finally, at the first stage, the ruler prefers to bargain and grant the elites a political freedom rather
than attempt coercive action that will be costly to ultimately retract in order to gather tax revenue;
t +l − p > t +l − p − cR. Formally, the subgame perfect equilibrium under political fragmentation
is (Bargain, Grant; Contest, Stay, Move).
Context 2: Political centralization. Political centralization may manifest itself as a single large
sovereign polity instead of a plethora of small states. It may therefore be relatively difficult (e.g.,
in terms of travel costs) for the elite to escape the ruler’s taxation by moving abroad. Given
the low potential for exit in this context, the elites’ payoff associated with moving is m < 0.
Similarly, given the difficulty of moving abroad, the ruler may downgrade the importance of elite
loyalty. Large state size may exacerbate this tendency by making it more likely that external threats
will be unidirectional, reducing the ruler’s anxiety about attack. For these reasons, we now have
l > 0 (versus l 0 under political fragmentation).
To solve for optimal decisions, we again proceed by backward induction. At the last stage, the
elites prefer to stay rather than move abroad because m < 0. Thus, the ruler prefers to deny rather
than grant the elite’s demand for political freedom at the preceding stage in order to forego the
cost of the surrender of any political control (i.e., t + l − cR > t + l − p − cR). Moving backward
another step, the elites prefer to stay and accept initial coercive action by the ruler rather than
move abroad or contest it, as 0 > m and 0 > cE. Similarly, they prefer to stay and accept the initial
bargaining by the ruler rather than move abroad, because p > 0 and m < 0. Finally, the ruler
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prefers to take coercive action at the first stage in order to gather tax revenue rather than bargain
and grant the elites a costly political freedom, as t + l > t + l − p. Formally, the subgame perfect
equilibrium under political centralization is (Coerce, Deny; Always Stay).
DISCLOSURE STATEMENT
The authors are not aware of any affiliations, memberships, funding, or financial holdings that
might be perceived as affecting the objectivity of this review.
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
We thank coeditors Margaret Levi and Nancy Rosenblum for the invitation to contribute this article,
and Robert Bates, Gary Cox, Anna Grzymala-Busse, David Stasavage, and panel participants
at the 2017 Annual Meeting of the American Political Science Association for valuable comments.
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Annual Review of
Political Science
Volume 21, 2018Contents
Politics and Political Science
Robert Jervis p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p 1
A Conversation with Charles V. Hamilton
Charles V. Hamilton and Fredrick C. Harris p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p21
Transparent Social Inquiry: Implications for Political Science
Colin Elman, Diana Kapiszewski, and Arthur Lupia p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p29
Political Trust in a Cynical Age
Jack Citrin and Laura Stoker p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p49
State Capacity Redux: Integrating Classical and Experimental
Contributions to an Enduring Debate
Elissa Berwick and Fotini Christia p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p71
Unwelcome Change: Coming to Terms with Democratic Backsliding
David Waldner and Ellen Lust p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p93
Cities and Politics in the Developing World
Alison E. Post p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p 115
A Taxonomy of Protest Voting
R. Michael Alvarez, D. Roderick Kiewiet, and Lucas N´u˜nez p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p 135
Confucian Political Theory in Contemporary China
Yi-Huah Jiang p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p 155
On the Theory of Parties
Nolan McCarty and Eric Schickler p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p 175
Advances in Survey Methods for the Developing World
Noam Lupu and Kristin Michelitch p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p 195
Complicit States and the Governing Strategy of Privilege Violence:
When Weakness Is Not the Problem
Rachel Kleinfeld and Elena Barham p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p 215
How to Think About Social Identity
Michael Kalin and Nicholas Sambanis p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p 239
Some Advances in the Design of Survey Experiments
Paul M. Sniderman p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p 259
Annu.Rev.Polit.Sci.2018.21:341-358.Downloadedfromwww.annualreviews.org
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The Other Side of Taxation: Extraction and Social Institutions in the
Developing World
Ellen Lust and Lise Rakner p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p 277
Redistribution Without a Median Voter: Models of Multidimensional
Politics
Torben Iversen and Max Goplerud p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p 295
Political Psychology in International Relations: Beyond the Paradigms
Joshua D. Kertzer and Dustin Tingley p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p 319
Violent Conflict and Political Development Over the Long Run:
China Versus Europe
Mark Dincecco and Yuhua Wang p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p 341
Does Foreign Aid Build Peace?
Michael G. Findley p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p 359
Political Theories of Migration
Sarah Song p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p 385
Legitimacy in Areas of Limited Statehood
Thomas Risse and Eric Stollenwerk p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p 403
Dead But Not Gone: Contemporary Legacies of Communism,
Imperialism, and Authoritarianism
Alberto Simpser, Dan Slater, and Jason Wittenberg p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p 419
Models of Other-Regarding Preferences, Inequality,
and Redistribution
Matthew Dimick, David Rueda, and Daniel Stegmueller p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p 441
Radicalization: A Relational Perspective
Donatella della Porta p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p 461
Justice and Future Generations
Simon Caney p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p 475
Theories of Institutional Corruption
Dennis F. Thompson p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p 495
International Negotiation: Some Conceptual Developments
Barry O’Neill p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p 515
Errata
An online log of corrections to Annual Review of Political Science articles may be found
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Annu.Rev.Polit.Sci.2018.21:341-358.Downloadedfromwww.annualreviews.org
AccessprovidedbyMasarykUniversityon02/20/23.Forpersonaluseonly.