暴力冲突与长期政治发展:中国与欧洲的比较

Violent Conflict and Political Development over the Long Run:China versus Europe

暴力冲突影响长期政治发展的传统逻辑具有普适性吗?为了回答这一问题,本文比较了欧洲和中国。尽管对中国与欧洲的历史而言,战争非常普遍,但只有欧洲出现了代议制政府。本文指出,战争与政治发展的关系取决于特定的政治地理环境。在欧洲,由于政治上高度的碎片化,所以冲突是外部化的(比如国家之间),并且军事攻击时常是多向度的。在这种情况下,精英有很强的退出能力。因此当君主开始新一轮的征税时,精英就可以与之讨价还价来争取政治代表权。相反,中国由于高度中央集权的性质,冲突时常发生在内部,加之外部的军事攻击时常是单向度的,并且精英退出的能力很低。皇帝无须在政治控制上做出妥协就能征收更多的税赋。在这种情况下,政治冲突强化了威权主义。此外,本文还简要地分析了撒哈拉沙漠以南的非洲和拉丁美洲的政治地理环境、历史冲突与政治发展间的关系。

Is the traditional logic by which violent conflict fosters long-run political development universal?To help address this question,this article compares Europe with China.While historical warfare was very common across both units,representative government flourished only in Europe.We suggest that the relationship between violent conflict and political development depends on the underlying political geography context.In Europe,political fragmentation was rampant.Thus,conflict tended to be external(i.e.,interstate),and attack threats were multidirectional.Furthermore,exit ability was high in this context.Elites were therefore in a strong bargaining position to demand political representation in return for new tax revenue.China,by contrast,was politically centralized.Here,conflict tended to be internal,attack threats were unidirectional,and exit ability was low.The emperor was thus powerful enough to extract tax funds without surrendering political control.In this context,violent conflict promoted autocratic reentrenchment.We conclude by briefly analyzing the relationships between political geography,historical conflict,and political development in sub-Saharan Africa and Latin America.