Public Interest and State Legitimation - Early Modern England, Japan, and China

How were state formation and early modern politics shaped by the state's proclaimed obligation to domestic welfare? Drawing on a wide range of historical scholarship and primary sources, this book demonstrates that a public interest-based discourse of state legitimation was common to early modern England, Japan, and China. This normative platform served as a shared basis on which state and society could negotiate and collaborate over how to attain good governance through providing public goods such as famine relief and infrastructural facilities. The terms of state legitimacy opened a limited yet significant political space for the ruled. Through petitioning and protests, subordinates could demand that the state fulfil its publicly proclaimed duty and redress welfare grievances. Conflicts among diverse dimensions of public interest mobilized cross-regional and cross-sectoral collective petitions; justified by the same norms of state legitimacy, these petitions called for fundamental political reforms and transformed the nature of politics.

List of contents

Introduction; Part I: 1. Legitimacy and resilience of the early modern state; 2. State-society collaboration against subsistence crisis; 3. Financing public infrastructure; 4. The negotiation of state and society over redress of grievances; Part II. Prologue: Limits to Early Modern State Resilience: 5. A political 'great divergence': England (1640�80), Japan (1853�95) and China (1840�11); Conclusion: toward a contextualized comparative historical analysis.

About the author

Wenkai He is Associate Professor in the Division of Social Science at the Hong Kong University of Science and Technology.

Summary

Safeguarding public interest was vital to early modern state legitimacy in Western Europe and East Asia. Wenkai He identifies similar patterns in state-society interactions surrounding public goods provision and explores how conflicts over public interest led to calls for fundamental political change and to modern representative politics.

Product details

• Authors: Wenkai He, Wenkai (Hong Kong University of Science and Te He, Wenkai (Hong Kong University of Science and Technology) He
• Publisher: Cambridge University Press ELT
• Languages: English
• Product format: Paperback / Softback
• Released: 01.09.2023
• EAN: 9781009334556
• ISBN: 978-1-0-0933455-6
• No. of pages: 320
• Series: Cambridge Studies in Historica; Cambridge Studies in Historical Sociology
• Subjects: Humanities, art, music > History; Social sciences, law, business > Sociology > Sociological theories; History, Sociology, Europe, Economics, SOCIAL SCIENCE / Sociology / General, HISTORY / General, BUSINESS & ECONOMICS / Economics / General, POLITICAL SCIENCE / Comparative Politics, SOCIAL SCIENCE / Anthropology / General, POLITICAL SCIENCE / World / Asian, POLITICAL SCIENCE / World / European, Comparative Politics, East Asia, Far East, Sociology and anthropology, Academic style, Academism, Academicism