Early Modernities and Contentious Politics in Mid-Qing China, c. 1740–1839

Abstract

In the last three decades, a spate of research brought to light the dynamics of contentious politics in early modern Europe. These studies suggest that surges of commerce and centralized state power led to a transition of contentious politics from reactive to proactive claims, and from violent to non-violent repertoires. This literature assumes the uniqueness of the western experience, and pays little attention to the non-western world. This article is an attempt to examine the patterns of contentious politics in mid-Qing China, a period when China witnessed profound commercial growth and political centralization. Based on a catalogue of contentious events derived from archival sources, the article finds that contentious politics over mid-Qing China changed from predominantly proactive and peaceful actions to more reactive and violent forms. The direction of transition was opposite to that in Europe, and could be explained by the specific trajectories of state formation and commercialization in early modern China. The article also argues that the modern revolutionary movement in 20th-century China was a continuation of the reactive, violent contentions of the early 19th century. This study shows that ‘modernization’ of contentious politics in non-western civilizations is rarely a simple repetition of the western way, but is rather a complex interaction between western influences and indigenous tracks of development.