Visions and Revisions: Village Policies of the Ming Founder in Seven Phases

Schneewind, Sarah

doi:10.1163/156853201804647

Cited by 21 publications

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“…Such shrines in celebration of one local official also rebuked others, asserting the rights of the local elite and, at least rhetorically, commoners to judge policies and state personnel. While shrines to living officials dated back to the Han, they may have played new roles under what Des Forges (2003) has called the "populist" regime of the Ming, given that the founder himself had mandated locals to report to him personally on their magistrates (Schneewind 2002). The present case study shows how the dynamic tension around Ming pre-mortem shrines produced arguments and practices legitimating local political participation within Mandate discourse.…”

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Beyond Flattery: Legitimating Political Participation in a Ming Living Shrine

Schneewind¹

2013

J of Asian Stud

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Ming (1368–1644) subjects of all classes, theoretically without a voice in the selection of bureaucratic personnel and setting of government policy in their hometowns, exploited the dynamic tensions within the orthodox Mandate of Heaven ideology to claim a legitimate political voice through one ubiquitous yet understudied local institution, the pre-mortem shrine. Meant to express gratitude to good magistrates and prefects moving on to other positions, the shrines were suspect as flattering an official in hopes of return favors. To forestall accusations of such corrupt gentry networking, steles for living shrines included or invented the voices of local commoners. Whether this meant that commoners living under the reality of autocracy and class oppression could actually affect personnel and policy or not, erecting such steles as permanent features in the landscape did legitimate commoners’ political participation within the same discourse that justified imperial rule and the dominance of educated men.

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“…Des Forges and Fang 2006). The Ming founder asked for local opinion on magistrates to curb their corruption (Schneewind 2002). Socioeconomic factors added further tensions to Ming ruler-minister-subject relations.…”

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Beyond Flattery: Legitimating Political Participation in a Ming Living Shrine

Schneewind¹

2013

J of Asian Stud

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“…The same Confucian values that helped promote social order and lighten the workload of the ruling class (Kung & Ma, 2014) also compelled the monarch and other members of his class to conform to their Confucian‐defined roles and responsibilities. Historical research in recent decades has also shown that Chinese monarchs—the most competent ones included—consistently run into bureaucratic and social resistance that undercut their wishes or ambitions (Huang, 1981; Kuhn, 1990; Schneewind, 2001; Zelin, 1984).…”

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The state in Chinese economic history

Qian

Sng

2021

Aust Econ Hist Rev

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We survey the recent economics and history literature on the Chinese state to investigate its role in China's long‐term socioeconomic development. We highlight three insights. First, unlike in Europe, where interstate competition helped give rise to capitalist states with high capacity, the Chinese state emerged from a different historical context. Second, the 18th‐ and 19th‐century Chinese state does not fit into the mould of a strong and extractive Oriental despotic state as once commonly believed. By conventional measures, early modern China had a weak state. Third, state building and centre‐local relations are two useful dimensions to understand development and change in China's recent history and political economy. To adapt China to a changing world, Chinese state builders embarked on a long process of state building from the late‐19th century through the Republican and Communist eras. Facilitated partly by regional decentralisation, the process now sees the Chinese state playing a substantially larger role in the economy and everyday life than any previous time in history.

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In the Shadow of the Mongol Empire

Robinson

2019

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Visions and Revisions: Village Policies of the Ming Founder in Seven Phases

Cited by 21 publications

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Beyond Flattery: Legitimating Political Participation in a Ming Living Shrine

Beyond Flattery: Legitimating Political Participation in a Ming Living Shrine

The state in Chinese economic history

In the Shadow of the Mongol Empire

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