Strong institutions in weak polities : state building in Republican China, 1927-1940
Author(s)
Bibliographic Information
Strong institutions in weak polities : state building in Republican China, 1927-1940
(Studies on contemporary China)
Clarendon Press , Oxford University Press, 1998
Available at 16 libraries
  Aomori
  Iwate
  Miyagi
  Akita
  Yamagata
  Fukushima
  Ibaraki
  Tochigi
  Gunma
  Saitama
  Chiba
  Tokyo
  Kanagawa
  Niigata
  Toyama
  Ishikawa
  Fukui
  Yamanashi
  Nagano
  Gifu
  Shizuoka
  Aichi
  Mie
  Shiga
  Kyoto
  Osaka
  Hyogo
  Nara
  Wakayama
  Tottori
  Shimane
  Okayama
  Hiroshima
  Yamaguchi
  Tokushima
  Kagawa
  Ehime
  Kochi
  Fukuoka
  Saga
  Nagasaki
  Kumamoto
  Oita
  Miyazaki
  Kagoshima
  Okinawa
  Korea
  China
  Thailand
  United Kingdom
  Germany
  Switzerland
  France
  Belgium
  Netherlands
  Sweden
  Norway
  United States of America
Note
Includes bibliographical references (p. [249]-256) and index
Description and Table of Contents
Description
Strong Institutions in Weak Polities explores state building and its supporting processes of institution-building in Republican China, focusing particularly on efforts to create strong, proactive central administrative organizations under exceptionally difficult circumstances between 1927 and 1940. After considering Nationalist efforts to establish a national civil service and examination system, it details the institution-building strategies pursued by three different central state organizations: the Sino-Foreign Salt Inspectorate, the Ministry of Finance, and the Ministry of Foreign Affairs. Dr Strauss suggests that, far from being the morass of corruption and useless activity sometimes portrayed, all three of these organizations provided core services to the wider state building project, all were surprisingly successful and perceived to be of high status during their own time, and all pursued largely similar strategies of institution-building involving some combination of organizational insulation, bureaucratization around impersonal norms, and outwardly oriented goal achievement.
This book will be of interest to all those involved in modern Chinese studies, comparative history, and politics, as well as to anyone interested in the nexus between state building and organization theory.
Table of Contents
- Introduction
- 1. From Presiding to Centralizing State: The Late Imperial Legacy and Institution-Building Dilemmmas
- 2. The Civil Service and State Building: The Examination Yuan in the 1930s
- 3. Overcoming Institution-Building Dilemmas: The Sino-Foreign Salt Inspectorate
- 4. The Salt Inspectorate in the Nationalist State: Tensions between Politics and Administration
- 5. The Ministry of Finance and its Institution-Building Strategies
- 6. The Ministry of Foreign Affairs: Institution Building in a Generalist Organization
- 7. Conclusion
- Appendix A. A Note on Sources
- Appendix B. Biographical List of Sources
- Appendix C. Chinese Terms and Names Used in the Text
- Notes
- Bibliography
- Index
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