| Taking inspiration from the literature on European state formation, the dissertation traces out processes of twentieth-century state building in China at the local level. In doing so, the thesis examines one particular area of state development, that of taxation and public finance administration, and identifies the local confluence of macro-structural factors--economic, social, intra-governmental and security-related--that shaped how the local states developed. The dissertation uses the method of focussed, paired comparison to analyze county-level state building experiences in two time periods (1927-1937 and 1982-1992), in two regions (north and south China), and in two counties in each region. The cases are used to derive hypotheses about the sources of variation in state building outcomes across time and space. One major contention of the dissertation is that the county-level states experienced state building, defined as growing in size, reaching downward, and becoming more organizationally complex, during two periods which have most often been characterized as times of state retreat or collapse. National-level political chaos and economic liberalization facilitated, and perhaps even promoted, local state building, rather than hindering it. |
