The Sale of Offices, Political Values and the Revolution of 1911

Abstract

The relationship between economic development and political institutional changes has always been the focus of academic attention. There are still many different interpretations of the causes of political changes during the late Qing dynasty. This paper responds to the discussion of social mobility and the 1911 revolution in the academic circles, takes the sale of offices during the late Qing dynasty as an entry point, and proposes the new hypotheses that trigger the Revolution of 1911through sorting out the factors affecting modern political reform and institutional changes. It shows that the sale of offices is one of the important factors that lead to the outbreak of the Revolution of 1911. The political consciousness and political values of the donation officials not only directly affected the revolutionary response of the areas they served, but also influenced the political attitudes of their native elite through local relation networks. As an important tool for the promotion of social mobility during the late Qing dynasty, the sale of offices not only promoted the rise of modern bureaucratic class, but also advanced the changes in modern political rights pattern through new-style education, popular opposition, revolutionary groups and so on, and accelerated the process of the Revolution of 1911. The sale of offices promotes the changes in modern political system through the influences on class mobility and political consciousness of the officials, which provides an important empirical basis for understanding the changes in Chinese traditional social elite groups and the association changes in political systems.