OxTalks will soon move to the new Halo platform and will become 'Oxford Events.' There will be a need for an OxTalks freeze. This was previously planned for Friday 14th November – a new date will be shared as soon as it is available (full details will be available on the Staff Gateway).
In the meantime, the OxTalks site will remain active and events will continue to be published.
If staff have any questions about the Oxford Events launch, please contact halo@digital.ox.ac.uk
This study analyzes how the state may establish or lose a monopoly over violence in the context of late modernizers, taking imperial China as a laboratory. We construct new micro-level data that span several hundred years. We show evidence that, traditionally, there was greater state development – at the expense of private security provision via the clan – in response to mass rebellion, because the cost of public security was relatively low. After 1850, however, there was a dramatic increase in this cost due to China’s military loss to the West. In turn, we find evidence for greater private security provision – now at the expense of public provision – in response to internal conflict. This change reduced the imperial state’s monopoly over violence and eventually promoted state failure. Our study provides a new perspective on the long-run political dynamics of the Great Divergence.
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