The Form of Institutions and the Rise and Fall of Nations (Comparative Theories and Empirical Studies of Political Development)

Author: Yang Guangbin
Publisher:
Publish Date: 2005-10-01
Features: The rise and fall of nations has always been a hot topic in academia, particularly in the fields of history and economics. Some argue that the imbalance in economic and technological development has led to the cyclical rise and fall of hegemony in international relations. However, ancient China, represented by the Four Great Inventions, once had a technologically superior position in the world. Why did its modernization process lag far behind that of Western countries? Why did capitalism fail to take root during the Ming-Qing transition? Why did the former Soviet Union, despite possessing advanced aerospace and military technology, ultimately collapse? In fact, the rise and fall of nations is fundamentally a political science issue. As a collection of essays, this book consists of three closely interconnected parts: constructing relevant institutional theories from a political science perspective; interpreting the successes and failures of nations during the modernization process; and, through a macroscopic examination of the changes in China's political relations and a microscopic dynamic analysis, as well as on-site observational studies of listed companies and state-owned enterprises, reevaluating the pivotal historical moments and major events that determined China's modernization destiny. While addressing the aforementioned questions, this book also validates the institutional foundation of national competitiveness—the competitiveness of a nation depends on the degree to which its institutional arrangements are market-oriented.