List of recent publications submitted by our members.
2020 |
Schoots, John Padgett; Katalin Prajda; Benjamin Rohr; Jonathan F Political discussion and debate in narrative time: the Florentine Consulte e Pratiche, 1376–1378 Journal Article Poetics, 78 (101377), 2020. Abstract | Links | BibTeX | Tags: 2020 @article{Padgett2020, title = {Political discussion and debate in narrative time: the Florentine Consulte e Pratiche, 1376–1378}, author = {John F Padgett; Katalin Prajda; Benjamin Rohr; Jonathan Schoots}, doi = {https://doi.org/10.1016/j.poetic.2019.101377}, year = {2020}, date = {2020-09-24}, journal = {Poetics}, volume = {78}, number = {101377}, abstract = {The Florentine Consulte e Pratiche is the oldest recorded series of speech-by-speech policy discussion by political elites in European history, over one hundred and fifty years in length. This article is the first of an extended two-article sequence on political discussion in the Consulte e Pratiche, during the 1376–1378 period of the War of Eight Saints, which led up to the famous Ciompi Revolt. Our interest is in discovering both the semantic-network (article 1) and the factional-network (article 2) mechanics of this unexpected spillover from foreign-policy conflict into domestic revolt. Our central finding at the semantic level, in this first article, is that the spillover from war to revolution was mediated through the ceremonial and political-economy sides of religion. The methodology in this first article is to uncover the evolving narrative-network structures exhibited in Florentine political discussion – namely, changing inter-correlations among keywords about topics, through chapters and subplots. “Narrative-network analysis” for us means (a) uncovering changing topological portraits of how subplots interlink through time, and (b) discovering interlocking linguistic “hinges” through which new historical trajectories of subplot combinations become defined. In our case, the linguistic hinges between foreign policy and domestic revolt were rooted in religion. How the evolving issues and topics discussed in this article express themselves in domestic (and eventually violent) political conflict between the anti-war Parte Guelfa faction and the pro-war Civic ‘faction’ will be the subject of the second of this complementary pair of articles.}, keywords = {2020}, pubstate = {published}, tppubtype = {article} } The Florentine Consulte e Pratiche is the oldest recorded series of speech-by-speech policy discussion by political elites in European history, over one hundred and fifty years in length. This article is the first of an extended two-article sequence on political discussion in the Consulte e Pratiche, during the 1376–1378 period of the War of Eight Saints, which led up to the famous Ciompi Revolt. Our interest is in discovering both the semantic-network (article 1) and the factional-network (article 2) mechanics of this unexpected spillover from foreign-policy conflict into domestic revolt. Our central finding at the semantic level, in this first article, is that the spillover from war to revolution was mediated through the ceremonial and political-economy sides of religion. The methodology in this first article is to uncover the evolving narrative-network structures exhibited in Florentine political discussion – namely, changing inter-correlations among keywords about topics, through chapters and subplots. “Narrative-network analysis” for us means (a) uncovering changing topological portraits of how subplots interlink through time, and (b) discovering interlocking linguistic “hinges” through which new historical trajectories of subplot combinations become defined. In our case, the linguistic hinges between foreign policy and domestic revolt were rooted in religion. How the evolving issues and topics discussed in this article express themselves in domestic (and eventually violent) political conflict between the anti-war Parte Guelfa faction and the pro-war Civic ‘faction’ will be the subject of the second of this complementary pair of articles. |
Ren, Xuefei Governing the Urban in China and India: Land Grabs, Slum Clearance, and the War on Air Pollution Book Princeton University Press., 2020. Abstract | Links | BibTeX | Tags: urban; governance; China; India; land grabs; Slum clearance; air pollution @book{Ren2020, title = {Governing the Urban in China and India: Land Grabs, Slum Clearance, and the War on Air Pollution}, author = {Xuefei Ren}, url = {https://press.princeton.edu/books/hardcover/9780691203409/governing-the-urban-in-china-and-india}, year = {2020}, date = {2020-09-12}, publisher = {Princeton University Press.}, abstract = {Urbanization is rapidly overtaking China and India, the two most populous countries in the world. One-sixth of humanity now lives in either a Chinese or Indian city. This transformation has unleashed enormous pressures on land use, housing, and the environment. Despite the stakes, the workings of urban governance in China and India remain obscure and poorly understood. In this book, Xuefei Ren explores how China and India govern their cities and how their different styles of governance produce inequality and exclusion. Drawing upon historical-comparative analyses and extensive fieldwork (in Beijing, Guangzhou, Wukan, Delhi, Mumbai, and Kolkata), Ren investigates the ways that Chinese and Indian cities manage land acquisition, slum clearance, and air pollution. She discovers that the two countries address these issues through radically different approaches. In China, urban governance centers on territorial institutions, such as hukou and the cadre evaluation system. In India, urban governance centers on associational politics, encompassing contingent alliances formed among state actors, the private sector, and civil society groups. Ren traces the origins of territorial and associational forms of governance to late imperial China and pre colonial India. She then shows how these forms have evolved to shape urban growth and residents’ struggles today. As the number of urban residents in China and India reaches beyond a billion, Governing the Urban in China and India makes clear that the development of cities in these two nations will have profound consequences well beyond their borders.}, keywords = {urban; governance; China; India; land grabs; Slum clearance; air pollution}, pubstate = {published}, tppubtype = {book} } Urbanization is rapidly overtaking China and India, the two most populous countries in the world. One-sixth of humanity now lives in either a Chinese or Indian city. This transformation has unleashed enormous pressures on land use, housing, and the environment. Despite the stakes, the workings of urban governance in China and India remain obscure and poorly understood. In this book, Xuefei Ren explores how China and India govern their cities and how their different styles of governance produce inequality and exclusion. Drawing upon historical-comparative analyses and extensive fieldwork (in Beijing, Guangzhou, Wukan, Delhi, Mumbai, and Kolkata), Ren investigates the ways that Chinese and Indian cities manage land acquisition, slum clearance, and air pollution. She discovers that the two countries address these issues through radically different approaches. In China, urban governance centers on territorial institutions, such as hukou and the cadre evaluation system. In India, urban governance centers on associational politics, encompassing contingent alliances formed among state actors, the private sector, and civil society groups. Ren traces the origins of territorial and associational forms of governance to late imperial China and pre colonial India. She then shows how these forms have evolved to shape urban growth and residents’ struggles today. As the number of urban residents in China and India reaches beyond a billion, Governing the Urban in China and India makes clear that the development of cities in these two nations will have profound consequences well beyond their borders. |
Elfstrom, Yao Li; Manfred Does Greater Coercive Capacity Increase Overt Repression? Evidence from China Journal Article Journal of Contemporary China, pp. 1-26, 2020. Abstract | Links | BibTeX | Tags: China @article{Li2020, title = {Does Greater Coercive Capacity Increase Overt Repression? Evidence from China}, author = {Yao Li; Manfred Elfstrom}, url = {https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/10670564.2020.1790898}, doi = {https://doi.org/10.1080/10670564.2020.1790898}, year = {2020}, date = {2020-09-01}, journal = {Journal of Contemporary China}, pages = {1-26}, abstract = {Drawing on an original dataset of Chinese protests, this article documents an evolving relationship between state coercive capacity and overt repression across administrations. Specifically, it finds that under Hu Jintao and Wen Jiabao (2003–2012) protests in provinces with higher coercive capacity were less likely to meet with a crackdown, whereas the relationship between capacity and repression reversed during the first three years of Xi Jinping’s rule (2013–2015). Although the study demonstrates that the two periods were on average very different, change-point analysis reveals that the inflection point toward a harder line came already in the late Hu-Wen era. The Xi administration’s policies should therefore perhaps be understood more as a manifestation than a cause of shifts in the country’s social control.}, keywords = {China}, pubstate = {published}, tppubtype = {article} } Drawing on an original dataset of Chinese protests, this article documents an evolving relationship between state coercive capacity and overt repression across administrations. Specifically, it finds that under Hu Jintao and Wen Jiabao (2003–2012) protests in provinces with higher coercive capacity were less likely to meet with a crackdown, whereas the relationship between capacity and repression reversed during the first three years of Xi Jinping’s rule (2013–2015). Although the study demonstrates that the two periods were on average very different, change-point analysis reveals that the inflection point toward a harder line came already in the late Hu-Wen era. The Xi administration’s policies should therefore perhaps be understood more as a manifestation than a cause of shifts in the country’s social control. |
Wenming Xiao, Yao Li Building a ‘Lofty, Beloved People's Amusement Centre’: The socialist transformation of Shanghai's Great World (Dashijie) (1950–58) Journal Article Modern Asian Studies, pp. 1-42, 2020. Abstract | Links | BibTeX | Tags: Socialist transformation; China; Dashijie @article{Xiao2020, title = {Building a ‘Lofty, Beloved People's Amusement Centre’: The socialist transformation of Shanghai's Great World (Dashijie) (1950–58)}, author = {Wenming Xiao, Yao Li}, doi = {https://doi.org/10.1017/S0026749X20000141}, year = {2020}, date = {2020-08-13}, journal = {Modern Asian Studies}, pages = {1-42}, abstract = {Based on a detailed case study of the socialist transformation of the Shanghai Great World Amusement Centre (Dashijie), this article documents state-building efforts during the early years of the People's Republic of China (PRC). Between 1950 and 1958, the Communist regime incrementally transformed the power configuration within Dashijie, promoting dramatic changes in its personnel, institutional structures, drama performances, and physical space. Over the course of this process, Dashijie seemed to become a ‘loftier’ cultural organization in accordance with the aims of its transformation. This transfigured Dashijie, however, fell out of favour with the people of Shanghai. This multifaceted transformation process reflects considerable state capacities on the one hand and illustrates the complexity of state capacities—their unevenness and the limitations of a strong state—on the other. The complexity of state capacities thus shaped and was embedded in the process and outcome of this socialist cultural transformation. Since the Chinese state is once again making strenuous efforts at culture-building, an overview of cultural transformation in the early PRC era has important contemporary implications.}, keywords = {Socialist transformation; China; Dashijie}, pubstate = {published}, tppubtype = {article} } Based on a detailed case study of the socialist transformation of the Shanghai Great World Amusement Centre (Dashijie), this article documents state-building efforts during the early years of the People's Republic of China (PRC). Between 1950 and 1958, the Communist regime incrementally transformed the power configuration within Dashijie, promoting dramatic changes in its personnel, institutional structures, drama performances, and physical space. Over the course of this process, Dashijie seemed to become a ‘loftier’ cultural organization in accordance with the aims of its transformation. This transfigured Dashijie, however, fell out of favour with the people of Shanghai. This multifaceted transformation process reflects considerable state capacities on the one hand and illustrates the complexity of state capacities—their unevenness and the limitations of a strong state—on the other. The complexity of state capacities thus shaped and was embedded in the process and outcome of this socialist cultural transformation. Since the Chinese state is once again making strenuous efforts at culture-building, an overview of cultural transformation in the early PRC era has important contemporary implications. |
Lee., Liam Downey; Elizabeth Lawrence; Micah Pyles; Derek Power, Hegemony, and World Society Theory: A Critical Evaluation Journal Article Socius, 6 , 2020. Abstract | Links | BibTeX | Tags: 2020 @article{Downey2020, title = {Power, Hegemony, and World Society Theory: A Critical Evaluation}, author = {Liam Downey; Elizabeth Lawrence; Micah Pyles; Derek Lee.}, url = {https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/full/10.1177/2378023120920059}, doi = {https://doi.org/10.1177/2378023120920059}, year = {2020}, date = {2020-05-07}, journal = {Socius}, volume = {6}, abstract = {World society theory has been one of the better published theoretical paradigms of the past 30 to 40 years. But despite its publishing successes, world society theory and research are beset by a number of theoretical and empirical problems that call into question the theory’s ability to accurately describe and explain the global diffusion of government practices, policies, and structures. The authors summarize world society theory’s key claims, demonstrate that the theory has trouble explaining a set of diffusion outcomes that it needs to be able to explain, and show that a key reason for this is that the actors highlighted by the theory are embedded in hierarchical and power-laden organizations, networks, and fields that strongly limit the kinds of actions these actors can take and the kinds of cultural scripts they can follow.}, keywords = {2020}, pubstate = {published}, tppubtype = {article} } World society theory has been one of the better published theoretical paradigms of the past 30 to 40 years. But despite its publishing successes, world society theory and research are beset by a number of theoretical and empirical problems that call into question the theory’s ability to accurately describe and explain the global diffusion of government practices, policies, and structures. The authors summarize world society theory’s key claims, demonstrate that the theory has trouble explaining a set of diffusion outcomes that it needs to be able to explain, and show that a key reason for this is that the actors highlighted by the theory are embedded in hierarchical and power-laden organizations, networks, and fields that strongly limit the kinds of actions these actors can take and the kinds of cultural scripts they can follow. |
Padgett., Jonathan Schoots; Benjamin Rohr; Katalin Prajda; John F Conflict and revolt in the name of unity: Florentine factions in the Consulte e Pratiche on the cusp of the Ciompi Revolt Journal Article Poetics, 78 (101386), 2020. Abstract | Links | BibTeX | Tags: 2020 @article{Schoots2020, title = {Conflict and revolt in the name of unity: Florentine factions in the Consulte e Pratiche on the cusp of the Ciompi Revolt}, author = {Jonathan Schoots; Benjamin Rohr; Katalin Prajda; John F. Padgett.}, doi = {https://doi.org/10.1016/j.poetic.2019.101386}, year = {2020}, date = {2020-02-05}, journal = {Poetics}, volume = {78}, number = {101386}, abstract = {We analyze public-policy speeches in the Florentine Consulte e Pratiche, immediately prior to the Ciompi Revolt, for signs of elite factional conflict, in the context of self-proclaimed unity. We employ three statistical analyses of these speeches in Latin: namely, scatterplots of word frequencies, Wordfish scaling, and regressions on speech-similarities. Plus we employ two qualitative analyses: a case study of the speeches of Lapo da Castiglionchio, leader of the Parte Guelfa faction, and a close examination of the rhetoric of unity in three important sets of meetings. Our main finding is this: The runup to the Ciompi Revolt was crystalization of “unity of citizens” in the room of the Consulte e Pratiche and, among the same actors, crystallization of “unity of Guelfs” in the room of the Parte Guelfa, with a lack of recognition in the multivocal speeches in the former of the obvious contradiction with actions in the latter. In our opinion, the tragedy of “the valiant failure of republicanism” in Florence was that intense wishful yearning for unity in speech induced, under background conditions of deep social-class contestation about “Who is Florence?,” an intensification in action of the very revolutionary forces that it most desperately wanted to suppress. }, keywords = {2020}, pubstate = {published}, tppubtype = {article} } We analyze public-policy speeches in the Florentine Consulte e Pratiche, immediately prior to the Ciompi Revolt, for signs of elite factional conflict, in the context of self-proclaimed unity. We employ three statistical analyses of these speeches in Latin: namely, scatterplots of word frequencies, Wordfish scaling, and regressions on speech-similarities. Plus we employ two qualitative analyses: a case study of the speeches of Lapo da Castiglionchio, leader of the Parte Guelfa faction, and a close examination of the rhetoric of unity in three important sets of meetings. Our main finding is this: The runup to the Ciompi Revolt was crystalization of “unity of citizens” in the room of the Consulte e Pratiche and, among the same actors, crystallization of “unity of Guelfs” in the room of the Parte Guelfa, with a lack of recognition in the multivocal speeches in the former of the obvious contradiction with actions in the latter. In our opinion, the tragedy of “the valiant failure of republicanism” in Florence was that intense wishful yearning for unity in speech induced, under background conditions of deep social-class contestation about “Who is Florence?,” an intensification in action of the very revolutionary forces that it most desperately wanted to suppress. |
2019 |
Li, Manfred Elfstrom; Yao Contentious Politics in China: Causes, Dynamics, and Consequences Book 2019. Abstract | BibTeX | Tags: Contentious Politics; China @book{Elfstrom2019, title = {Contentious Politics in China: Causes, Dynamics, and Consequences}, author = {Manfred Elfstrom; Yao Li}, year = {2019}, date = {2019-09-04}, journal = {Brill Research Perspectives in Governance and Public Policy in China}, volume = {4}, number = {1}, series = {Brill Research Perspectives and Brill Research Perspectives E-Books Online}, abstract = {China has become a land of protests, though the Chinese state possesses considerable administrative capacity. In this volume, Manfred Elfstrom and Yao Li provide an overview of Chinese contentious politics. They dig deep into major forms of social conflict, explore structural explanations for why protest occurs in China, and describe the ways in which various organizations and framings of issues by citizens affect how protests play out. Shifting to where grassroots activism ultimately leads, Elfstrom and Li survey China’s coercive and conciliatory institutions for maintaining social control, document and explain patterns in the state’s handling of different types of resistance, and examine the social and political impact of unrest. This work not only contributes to a deeper understanding of contentious politics and governance in China, but also provides insights for studies of social movements and authoritarian politics in general.}, keywords = {Contentious Politics; China}, pubstate = {published}, tppubtype = {book} } China has become a land of protests, though the Chinese state possesses considerable administrative capacity. In this volume, Manfred Elfstrom and Yao Li provide an overview of Chinese contentious politics. They dig deep into major forms of social conflict, explore structural explanations for why protest occurs in China, and describe the ways in which various organizations and framings of issues by citizens affect how protests play out. Shifting to where grassroots activism ultimately leads, Elfstrom and Li survey China’s coercive and conciliatory institutions for maintaining social control, document and explain patterns in the state’s handling of different types of resistance, and examine the social and political impact of unrest. This work not only contributes to a deeper understanding of contentious politics and governance in China, but also provides insights for studies of social movements and authoritarian politics in general. |
