Path Dependence-the Theoretical Thinking And Practical Enlightenment About The Decline From Prosperity Of Qing Dynasty

The political system has a very important position in politicalscience. Political system theory pays attention to analyze the political lifeitself, as well as the relationship or interaction between the political lifeand the environment from the dynamic perspective. Any political systemmust contain a system. The subsisting and development of the politicalsystem mainly relies on the operation of its internal political system.Qing Dynasty established its unified regime by Manchu EthnicGroup, which is the last feudal dynasty in our history. Owing to thespecial historical position of Qing Dynasty, its historical trend has veryfar-reaching influence on Chinese modern political development. Theearly Qing Dynasty rulers created a remarkable “the flourishing age ofKangxi and Qianlong”. But after this age, Qing Dynasty inevitablyembarked on the decline of the road. From the political system standpointinvestigating the Qing Dynasty, we can find that the political systemestablished by the Qing rulers from the great achievements of Kangxi andQianlong to the come-down of Jiaqing and Daoguang in the course ofhistory, which undoubtedly acted as an important role in this seriesradical change.This thesis attempts to use historical institutionalism as politicalinterpretation of the historical process of the Qing Dynasty fromprosperity to decline at the Qianlong period. The thesis holds the threepolitical systems---monarch totalitarian regime, feudal bureaucraticsystem and the military system of Manchu characteristics play asupportive role in the internal political system created by the QingDynasty rulers. It is the three orderly functioning of the political systemensure the normal operation of the whole political system. Behind thethree political systems, there is Confucian Statecraft Thoughts. This thesisuses path dependence theory of historical institutionalism to analyze thethree basic political system and ideological basis---Confucianism with the supporting political system of the Qing Dynasty. It holds that in the earlyQing Dynasty, these political systems conform to the requirements of thetimes development, which respectively play a positive role. Because ofthe system and the ideological complement with each other makes theoperation of the Qing’s political system very efficient in a period, and theQing Dynasty was also gradually moving towards the peak. In the lateQianlong, with the dramatic changes of the whole external environment,the three systems and Confucianism showed strong path dependence andthe systems influence with each other, so that it was increasingly unableto meet the entire on the political system and the system itself, and theoperation of the Qing’s political system moved more and more slowly.Ultimately Qing Dynasty moved toward the decline of the road quickly.In the end, this thesis has thought over the national construction andthe development of reality, describes some important system of ourcountry’s political system, points out the path dependence generated inthe operation of the system and the path dependence of institutionalchange may bring some matters to our country’s political development,and tries to put forward some enlightenment thinking.