The Art of Being Governed: Everyday Politics in Late Imperial China, by Michael Szonyi

Abstract

Michael Szonyi’s book focuses on the ‘everyday politics’ deployed by members of military-registered households of the south-east coast of China to manage their relations with the Ming state (1368–1644). As indicated by the title, Szonyi’s work complements James Scott’s influential 2009 study, The Art of Not Being Governed: An Anarchist History of Upland Southeast Asia. Instead of analysing methods of evasion and resistance to state power, as Scott does, Szonyi studies the more widespread methods of mediation, negotiation and optimisation. He also extends his period of study further back in time, making the case that pre-modern states, specifically Ming China, also sought to map territory and people to make them ‘legible’ in the fashion of modern states, though their technologies differed. The Ming dynasty implemented a military registration system that required each military household to provide a soldier for service, to be replaced in perpetuity. It was the family’s responsibility to designate the serving individual, creating some leeway for the way they chose to fulfil the requirement. The transition from Ming to Qing (1644–1911) rule did not entirely erase the influence of the Ming registration system. Although organisation of the military was transformed, at least in some places and time periods, the Ming military registration system continued to shape communities, lineage formation, and tax collection.