Including contributions from an international team of leading experts, this volume examines state making from a uniquely Asian perspective and reveals some of the misunderstandings that arise when states and state making are judged solely on the basis of Western history. The contributors argue that if we are to understand states in Asia then we must first recognize the particular combination of institution and ideologies embedded in Asian state making and their distinctiveness from the Western experience.

Presenting new empirical and conceptual material based on original...

Long run processes of socio-economic change generate prodigious problems of social conflict and social control, and governments responsible for these processes must therefore manage the resultant conflict. Consequently, the success or failure of a government's management of such conflicts is a crucial factor in development outcomes.

This volume investigates the political struggle for development specifically in two vital regions - East Asia and Latin America. This analysis calls into question the dominant emphasis on institutional and cultural bases for stable growth. A careful...

This series contains more than 100 carefully selected articles and book chapters focusing on the politics, economy and society of China since 1949. It will be grouped under two four-volume sets. Each set is self-contained with the first set dealing with politics and the second with economy and society. Each volume includes a short introduction giving a summary of the existing scholarship on the historical legacies, development trajectory and current debates concerning the particular theme. Moreover, each four-volume set has a general introduction which pulls together the various themes to...

This volume investigates the political struggle for development specifically in two vital regions - East Asia and Latin America. This analysis calls into question the dominant emphasis on institutional and cultural bases for stable growth. A careful historical account of the two regions is presented, which permits the rigorous testing of conventional wisdoms regarding development.

In China, rent seeking has been linked to the idea of the local developmental state in which rapid economic development is explained in terms of the promotion of village and township enterprises by local cadres who wants to maximize revenue. At the same time, the rent-seeking state is also seen as the root of corrupt practices and in the creation of a political market where state assets and authorities are diverted into private interests.

Despite the prevalence of rent seeking practices in present day China, no systematic study of the phenomenon across different regions and...