Autocratic Rule and Social Capital: Evidence from Imperial China

Xue, Melanie Meng; Koyama, Mark

doi:10.2139/ssrn.2856803

Cited by 23 publications

(19 citation statements)

References 110 publications

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“…Sharing norms are stronger within former rubber concessions. This is consistent with work that suggests that certain types of negative shocks, such as civil wars, can promote trust and social capital (Voors, Nilleson, Verwimp, et al 2012; Gilligan, Pasquale, and Samii 2014) whereas other shocks, such as political persecutions undermine social capital (Xue and Koyama 2017). Worse governance means that people rely less on the state and more on local communities.…”

Section: The Dissertations Of Eduardo Montero Erik Prawitz and Kilasupporting

confidence: 85%

Summaries of Doctoral Dissertations

Frydman¹,

Koyama

2019

J. Econ. Hist.

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Section: The Dissertations Of Eduardo Montero Erik Prawitz and Kilasupporting

confidence: 85%

Summaries of Doctoral Dissertations

Frydman¹,

Koyama

2019

J. Econ. Hist.

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“…The magnitude of the shock is likely to matter here: a shock that is large enough, such as the COVID, may generate a shift towards a new, self-reinforcing political equilibrium. For instance, a large initial shift towards less civil liberties could reduce social trust and pave the way for a more authoritarian governance (Xue and Koyama, 2018).…”

Section: Theory: Pandemics and Democratic Preferencesmentioning

confidence: 99%

Pandemics meet democracy. Experimental evidence from the COVID-19 crisis in Spain

Amat¹,

Arenas²,

Falcó-Gimeno³

et al. 2020

Preprint

174

129

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The COVID-19 outbreak poses an unprecedented challenge for contemporary democracies. Despite the global scale of the problem, the response has been mainly national, and global coordination has been so far extremely weak. All over the world governments are making use of exceptional powers to enforce lockdowns, often sacrificing civil liberties and profoundly altering the pre-existing power balance, which nurtures fears of an authoritarian turn. Relief packages to mitigate the economic consequences of the lockdowns are being discussed, and there is little doubt that the forthcoming recession will have important distributive consequences. In this paper we study citizens' responses to these democratic dilemmas. We present results from a set of survey experiments run in Spain from March 20 to March 28, together with longitudinal evidence from a panel survey fielded right before and after the virus outbreak. Our findings reveal a strong preference for a national as opposed to a European/international response. The national bias is much stronger for the COVID-19 crisis than for other global problems, such as climate change or international terrorism. We also find widespread demand for strong leadership, willingness to give up individual freedom, and a sharp increase in support for technocratic governance. As such, we document the initial switch in mass public preferences towards technocratic and authoritarian government caused by the pandemic. We discuss to what extent this crisis may contribute to a shift towards a new, self-enforcing political equilibrium.

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“…34 For a case of an absolutist state with massive monitoring capacity and coercive power in the early Ming dynasty during the 14 th century, see Guanglin Liu (2005). Also see Xue and Koyama (2017) on intellectual persecution, and Lai (2014) on the Qing's use of Tibetan Buddhism to control Central Asia.…”

Section: Iv3 Long Live the Emperormentioning

confidence: 99%

The Paradox of Power: Understanding Fiscal Capacity in Imperial China and Absolutist Regimes

Rubin

2017

SSRN Journal

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Tax extraction is often low in absolutist regimes. Why are absolutists unable to convert power into revenue? Supported by evidence from Imperial China, we explain this puzzle with a principal-agent model which reveals that absolutists, unconstrained by rule of law and unable to commit to not predating on their taxcollecting agents (and the masses), may find it optimal to settle for a low wage-low tax equilibrium, while permitting agents to keep extra, unmonitored taxes. Our analysis suggests that low investment in administrative capacity is a conscious choice for an absolutist since it substitutes for credible commitment to refrain from confiscation.

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Autocratic Rule and Social Capital: Evidence from Imperial China

Cited by 23 publications

References 110 publications

Summaries of Doctoral Dissertations

Summaries of Doctoral Dissertations

Pandemics meet democracy. Experimental evidence from the COVID-19 crisis in Spain

The Paradox of Power: Understanding Fiscal Capacity in Imperial China and Absolutist Regimes

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