The Political Great Divergence
Join us for a talk with Clair Yang, Long Endowed Assistant Professor of Political Economy at the UW Henry M. Jackson School of International Studies.
Abstract: This talk examines the historical political divergence between China and Europe. While both regions experienced repeated shifts in territorial unification, political stability, and institutional development in earlier periods, from the medieval period onward their trajectories increasingly diverged. Europe gradually evolved toward a polycentric political order, while China consolidated into a centralized and authoritarian state. This talk proposes the development of China’s imperial civil service examination system as a key driver of this divergence. Drawing on a synthesis of several recent works, it approaches the question from three complementary perspectives: macro-level patterns of political development, micro-level quantitative evidence on bureaucratic recruitment, and formal theories of political equilibrium and institutional change.