Traditional Social Institutions Research Articles

Traditional agricultural landscapes and community conserved areas: an overview

PurposeThis paper seeks to offer an overview on the theme of “Traditional agricultural landscapes and indigenous and community conserved areas.” It aims to explore questions related to the special values of these landscapes, the threats facing them and ways to sustain them in the future. It also aims to discuss recent developments in conservation, particularly related to governance of protected areas and the emerging recognition of “indigenous and community‐conserved areas” in diverse regions worldwide.Design/methodology/approachDrawing on a collection of conceptual papers and case‐studies presented at a workshop (Cusco, Peru, 2008) and compiled in the present issue of this journal, this overview paper explores key issues and challenges related to community stewardship of traditional agricultural landscapes. It synthesizes a few common themes emerging from these papers and the discussions in Cusco, and reviews these in the context of global developments in protected areas and conservation.FindingsAcross diverse settings, traditional agricultural landscapes, created by indigenous peoples and local communities, have been shaped by the dynamic interaction of people and nature over time. These landscapes, rich in agro‐biodiversity as well as inherent wild biodiversity and cultural and spiritual values, embody human ingenuity and are continually evolving. Key points emerging from this review include the role of traditional ecological knowledge systems, cultural practices and social institutions in creating these landscapes and ensuring their stewardship; the importance of securing customary governance; and need for dynamic socio‐ecological indicators to measure the resilience of different landscapes.Originality/valueThe paper shows that these “living landscapes” play a vital role in sustaining agro‐biodiversity as well as inherent wild biodiversity values, ensuring ecosystem function, and supporting livelihoods and food security. These landscapes and their associated management systems have much to teach us about sustainability and resilience in the face of global change.

Witch Hunting, Cultural Revolution, and the Bright Side of Kinship

Many studies on witch killings in Africa suggest that “witchcraft is the dark side of kinship.” But in Chinese history, where kinship has been emphasized as the foundation of the society, there have been few occurrences of witch-hunting except a large-scale one in the Cultural Revolution that broke out in 1966. This paper attempts to explain these two paradoxes by focusing on the effect of social structure on witch-hunting. In particular, I argue that there is a “bright side of kinship” due to two factors: first, it would be more difficult to pick out a person as qualitatively different in Chinese culture than in an individualist culture; second, the hierarchical trust structure embedded in the Chinese culture can help mitigate the preference falsification problem, which is the leverage for witch-hunting. In this sense, an important factor for the Cultural Revolution and the collective tragedy of witch-hunting is the decline of traditional social institutions and social values after 1949.

Residential Security as Social Protection

This article argues that residential insecurity and social marginalisation are closely linked, particularly in communities where housing is accessed through traditional and patriarchal social institutions. It uses community histories from rural areas of the Sindh province in Pakistan to analyse the processes and impacts of a scheme for the regularisation of housing rights for the landless poor, with a special focus on mobilisation among the socially marginalised. Government schemes that require prior collective action on the part of beneficiaries can strengthen the process of political enfranchisement of groups already on an upward trajectory. On their own, however, such interventions can exclude the most marginalised who are too weak to organise collective action or to form themselves into effective groups. A comprehensive social protection agenda, therefore, requires both types of interventions – those that ensure the inclusion of the marginalised in ‘passive’ transfers and those that create incentives and reward collective action.

Beyond Polarity: Negotiating a Hybrid State in Somaliland

Many African states struggle to reconcile traditional social institutions with the precepts of nation-state democracy within colonially defined borders. Since the 1991 fall of the dictatorial Somali regime of Siyaad Barre, Somaliland has gradually pieced together what appear to be a durable peace and an increasingly sophisticated, constitutionally based nation-state democracy. It is still negotiating the relationship between identity, nation and territory in which there is a differential commitment to democracy between the political elite and the wider population. Accommodation between a clan-based social structure and a representative democracy has been enabled by local socio-cultural traditions. External intervention, while minimal, has on occasion proved fruitful in providing a way out of crises. The territory has escaped the violence and political breakdown experienced in Southern Somali areas. This contribution argues that the remarkable resilience of the present socio-political system in Somaliland is challenged by present and forthcoming problems in the fields of democratic representation (inter alia of women), delivery of public goods, a fragile sub-regional context and foreign investment.

Panoptikum, demokracja, inwigilacja

The basic aim of the paper is to present the original interpretation of Foucaultian metaphor of panopticon. Using classical language of philosophy of politics, the author aims at proving that Michel Foucault as a political thinker should be considered rather as a conservative one, like Thomas Hobbes or Carl Schmitt, than indiscriminately associated with the left. The author’s attempt is focused on locating Foucault in the tradition of battle of social contract. On the one hand, one can find Hobbes and the Anglosaxon tradition of rational individuals, natural rights and fundamental contract, on the other the continental tradition with Carl Schmitt as a symbol of criticism of arbitral modern state which constantly obliterate the border between this what is political and what is not. The author’s interpretation of panopticon is focused on the fact of mediation of every social relation by the power of modern state, which nowadays is even multiplied in the process of European integration and the character of postmodern law, well defined in Foucault’s theory of normalisation and norm. The process of creation of the modern substratum of politics: individuum – the reason of the whole tradition of emancipation – was corelated with the development of the oppressive apparatus, which, especially in XIX century, autonomised from its democratical legitimisation. In consequence, it led to the eruption of new modern despotism in XX century. In this point of view, taking a creation of abstractive individuum as the condition of possibility of modern despotism, Foucaltian panopticon could be seen as a result of the depth of cultural individualism, favouring social atomism, in which every political subject prefers to ask the state for help than to turn to his neighbour. The main thesis of the paper is that the increase of cultural and political individualism corelates with the increase of preponderance of oppressive apparatus of modern or even postmodern state (where everybody controls everybody). The whole culture of individualism corelated with the tradition of emancipation leads both to rising of scepticsim towards traditional social institutions and traditional epistemological mediation of experience, which results in overestimating the phenomenon of fear, expressed in the growth of importance of social and international security. The cure for this global situation is to fund political thinking on trust, dialogue and natural, spontaneous social relation.

Commons management and ecotourism: Ethnographic evidence from the Amazon

The paper evaluates the relationship between ecotourism and commons management. Social and economic impacts of ecotourism in an indigenous village in the Peruvian Amazon are considered in relation to opportunities for collective action to manage common pool resources, including wildlife, forests, and river habitats. Longitudinal, ethnographic data gathered over 12 years about a joint venture ecotourism project between a private company and a local community show three outcomes that support commons management and three outcomes that challenge it. The outcomes in favor of commons management include: direct economic returns that act as conservation incentives, strengthened organization resulting from participatory management of ecotourism, and expanded networks of support from outside actors. Outcomes that are challenging the potential for collective action include: direct economic returns that enable expanded individual production and extraction, a new spirit of individual entrepreneurship that threatens to debilitate traditional social relations and institutions, and a conservation ethic that fosters dualistic thinking about people and nature and the zoning of places where resources are used vs. where they are preserved.

Organization of Religious Life of Muslim Tatars workers in the European part of Russia and Siberia at the second half of the 19th - early 20th centuries

Industrialization and the emergence of new industrial centers of Russia led to the emergence of workers communities and emergence of seasonal work ( otkhodnichestvo ) phenomenon. Analyzing the distribution of Tatar workers by the country’s enterprises, the author notes that most of them did not work in non-Muslim factories, forming there a local Muslim groups. Muslim workers faced to the need to transform traditional social institutions in the new environment. The article addresses such issues as an arrangement of religious life, introduction of religious holidays to the working schedule, the establishment of the official religious community and the right to build the mosque, fulfillment of funeral rites. Particular attention is paid to the issue of election of a Muslim cleric ( mullah ) in such communities and his salary.

The Zheng Communities and the Formation of a Transnational Lineage

AbstractTransnational business networks and entrepreneurship should not be regarded as the only major theme of Chinese contemporary transnationalism. The transnationalization of traditional social and cultural institutions and the social practices engaged in by agencies facilitated by the networks deserve our attention as well. By narrating the case of a transnational lineage, this article describes how the lineage was constructed historically in a broader structure of relations across borders, how the major concern of the lineage has been revived since the liberalization in China, and how these social and cultural practices are revealing a dynamic process of identity-making of people who are involved in the transnational space.

Mulatu Astatke, Ethio-jazz maestro

The aim of this article is to explore the music of Mulatu Astatke as an instance of ‘the black Atlantic culture’ (Gilroy 1993). The characteristics of such a musical culture are that it is hybrid in outlook and composition, contaminated by influences from other cultures and that it eschews notions of cultural absolutism. A musician and the music he makes, perhaps more so than any other artist, is a product of his country, his culture and his times. Ethiopia is an ancient African country with a documented history going back almost two millennia and it enjoys a unique position in the history of the continent. The Ethiopian monarchy survived the late nineteenth century inroads of European imperialism with its traditional political, social and other institutions virtually intact. This rich cultural legacy was to become a defining factor for Mulatu Astatke, Ethiopia's musician extraordinaire.

Equitable Gender Participation in Local Water Governance: An Insight into Institutional Paradoxes

The participation of local stakeholders in governance of water resources is regarded as inalienable for ensuring efficiency, effectiveness and sustainability. To enhance gender balance in the water governance process, institutions are being designed and executed globally to elicit enhanced participation of women. This paper contends that in the context of local communities, the new institutional framework is divorced from the traditional social institutions that in turn operationalize their resource management systems. Based upon empirical evidence from rural Indian setting, the paper deciphers the paradoxes between the two sets of institutional paradigms and illustrates how these paradoxes at the 'interface' between the local community context and the development strategy lead to problems with effective women's participation. On the basis of the findings, it argues that the institutional paradigm for achieving equitable gender participation in local water governance does not represent a truly 'bottom-up' approach. It further raises the concern that if the institutional paradigm for participation is contradictory to local institutions, then how can the objectives of participation founded thereupon be seen as achievable? The paper proposes the need to design participatory paradigms that are more realistically rooted in community-based institutional frameworks so as to enhance effectiveness of the endeavors.

Rapid achievement of the child survival millennium development goal: evidence from the Navrongo experiment in Northern Ghana

To determine the impact of deploying nurses and volunteers to village locations on demographic and health outcomes. We implemented an experimental design that emphasizes the value of aligning community health services with traditional social institutions that organize village life. Data for this analysis come from the Navrongo demographic surveillance system, a longitudinal database that tracks fertility, mortality, and migration events over time. The experiment uses conventional demographic methods for estimating mortality rates from longitudinal demographic surveillance registers. Posting nurses to community locations reduced childhood mortality rates by over half in 3 years and accelerated attainment of the childhood-survival millennium development goal (MDG) in the study areas relative to trends observed in comparison areas. Results from the Navrongo experiment demonstrate that community health and family planning programmes can have an impact on childhood mortality. Posting nurses to communities can dramatically accelerate the pace of progress in achieving the childhood-survival MDGs. Community-volunteer approaches, however, have no additional impact, a finding that challenges the child survival value of international investment in volunteer-based health programmes. The total cost of the intensive arm of the project is less than $10 per capita per year. Navrongo research thus demonstrates affordable means of attaining the child survival MDG agenda with existing technologies.

Accelerating reproductive and child health programme impact with community-based services: the Navrongo experiment in Ghana

To determine the demographic and health impact of deploying health service nurses and volunteers to village locations with a view to scaling up results. A four-celled plausibility trial was used for testing the impact of aligning community health services with the traditional social institutions that organize village life. Data from the Navrongo Demographic Surveillance System that tracks fertility and mortality events over time were used to estimate impact on fertility and mortality. Assigning nurses to community locations reduced childhood mortality rates by over half in 3 years and accelerated the time taken for attainment of the child survival Millennium Development Goal (MDG) in the study areas to 8 years. Fertility was also reduced by 15%, representing a decline of one birth in the total fertility rate. Programme costs added 1.92 US Dollar per capita to the 6.80 US Dollar per capita primary health care budget. Assigning nurses to community locations where they provide basic curative and preventive care substantially reduces childhood mortality and accelerates progress towards attainment of the child survival MDG. Approaches using community volunteers, however, have no impact on mortality. The results also demonstrate that increasing access to contraceptive supplies alone fails to address the social costs of fertility regulation. Effective deployment of volunteers and community mobilization strategies offsets the social constraints on the adoption of contraception. The research in Navrongo thus demonstrates that affordable and sustainable means of combining nurse services with volunteer action can accelerate attainment of both the International Conference on Population and Development agenda and the MDGs.

Social Relations and War Remembrance: Second World War Atrocities in Rural Tuscan Villages

This article addresses the issue of how long‐term memory of extreme conditions is socially transformed. It focuses on elements of the social structure and pre‐war habitus that might help understanding of the divided memory of massacres that were perpetrated by the Nazis in three rural Tuscan villages between 1943 and 1944. Within the “mnemonic communities”, discrepancies arise since some of the villagers paradoxically blame the partisans instead of the Nazis. An attempt is made to trace current representations of historical events in the framework of traditional social institutions and political life of these small villages in time of crisis. Battles over memory are seen as a twofold process—that is, as part of “internal”, intra‐village relations as well as a form of reaction toward the “external” world of which they feel victims. The article argues that long‐term memory of past political violence is strictly bound up with local power relations.

Traditional gathering of native hula plants in alien-invaded Hawaiian forests: adaptive practices, impacts on alien invasive species and conservation implications

Traditional resource management (TRM) systems in tropical forests can provide insights on sustainable resource use, but despite the growing prevalence of degraded tropical forest habitats, few studies have assessed the relationships between TRM and conservation in these environments. In Hawaii, the traditional gathering of native wild plants used for hula (chants and dance) and lei (garlands) is carried out in forests increasingly dominated by alien invasive species. Ethnographic methods and exploratory experimental harvests were employed to examine: gathering of hula plants in the past and present, ecological impacts of contemporary gathering practices of three important native hula species in alien-dominated forests, and relationships between traditional practices and past and modern conservation. Past gathering traditions included practices to increase and conserve hula plant populations. Harvest of Microlepia strigosa fern fronds significantly decreased M. strigosa cover over the short term. Cover of alien species significantly increased after frond-harvest of Sphenomeris chinensis. Regeneration of the fruit-harvested shrub, Melicope anisata, was significantly negatively correlated with the level of understorey invasive species. These results suggest that in Hawai‘i’s alien-dominated forests, gathering of some species may increase spread of alien invasive species or exacerbate regeneration problems caused by invasive species. However, some expert cultural practitioners have adapted traditional practices to ensure hula plant conservation by incorporating weeding of alien invasive species into their protocols. The re-strengthening and adaptation of traditional Hawaiian knowledge and social institutions to the modern context can provide opportunities to improve conservation of Hawai‘i’s culturally-important native plants and their habitats.

Engaging the Voices of Girls in the Aftermath of Sierra Leone's Conflict: Experiences and Perspectives in a Culture of Violence

Introduction: Sierra Leone's Civil War and Gendered Representations of Child SoldiersIn March 1991, the Revolutionary United Front of Sierra Leone (RUF/SL), led by former Sierra Leone Army corporal Foday Sankoh, and backed by Liberian warlord Charles Taylor, invaded Sierra Leone from Liberia. Although initially claiming to be political movement espousing liberation, democracy and a new Sierra Leone of freedom, justice and equal opportunity for all (RUF/SL 1995), the RUF in reality was loosely consolidated organization of largely disaffected young people that wreaked murderous havoc on the country. With its message of political revolution failing to attract popular support, the RUF embarked on savage 10-year civil war that had devastating consequences for civilians, particularly children.In many ways the RUF's campaign of cruelty and destruction was rooted in long history of structural violence. With its legacy of colonialism and slave re-settlement, Sierra Leone had been integrated into the world system in such way that its traditional social institutions were largely shattered and its economy was controlled by small group of international enterprises and kleptocratic governing elite (Clapham 2003; Richards 1998; Zack-Williams 1999). In this context of misrule and weakened social systems, the welfare of children1 was severely undermined. Children, who make up nearly half of Sierra Leone's population, had limited access to good quality education, and suffered from the effects of high unemployment and maldistribution of resources. By the end of the 1980s, disillusion and anger among young people were widespread. With civic life increasingly overtaken by avarice and violence, children were highly vulnerable to forces of aggression and war-lordism, and to perceptions of violent aggression as legitimate means to attain power and prestige (Abdullah et al. 1997; Krech and Maclure 2003). Following the outbreak of hostilities, children were rapidly engulfed by the conflict. Thousands of young people under 18 years of age became actively engaged as participants in Sierra Leone's armed struggle. As documented elsewhere, many of the children appear to have derived sense of personal empowerment and familylike solidarity from their attachment to militarized groups (Peters and Richards 1998). For many others, however, acquiescence to the norms of violence and terror, either as aggressors or as unwilling victims, was the only recourse for survival.As the war progressed and became more horrific, children engaged in the conflict were depicted by the world's media as being lost in vortex of iniquity and madness. The image of carrying out acts of horrible brutality became widely seen as the quintessence of youthful violence and irrationality (Skinner 1999). Moreover, once implicated in armed conflict, they were generally assumed to be permanently damaged:Even if [children] survive the rigors of combat, it's often too late to salvage their lives. Unrelenting warfare transforms them into preadolescent sociopaths, fluent in the language of violence but ignorant of the rudiments of living in civil society. (Newsweek 1995)By portraying as largely perverse and uncivilized, the bulk of international news reporting, and indeed much of academic and policy-oriented discourse, has tended to pathologize children who have been caught up in armed conflict and to discount the complex realities of the experiences and perspectives of the children themselves. In addition, this image has almost always been reified as masculine phenomenon, one that is persistently reinforced by familiar photographs of pre-pubescent boys armed with AK-47s. Because the majority of reports and international initiatives continue to regard the notion of child soldiers as either male or gender neutral, the effects of armed conflict on young girls, and the gender implications of children in combat, are rarely considered (McKay and Mazurana 2004). …

Progressivism and Philanthropy

Progressivism and Philanthropy Lenore T. Ealy (bio) and Steven D. Ealy (bio) Toward the end of the nineteenth century America faced unfamiliar circumstances that seemed to make its traditional social institutions obsolete and threatened the hope for social stability. Steady immigration swelled the ranks and diversity of the urban poor, and headlong industrialization radically changed the ways in which people worked and lived. The growing complexity of social and economic affairs contributed to a widespread belief that a new social and political order must be created. The response of many social critics and scholars, today known broadly as "Progressives," was to forge an approach to social and institutional change rooted in evolutionary philosophy, enamored with scientific objectivism, and often infused with German ideological statism. Traditional Anglo-American common sense and the rule of common law were increasingly suspect as the new "social sciences" emerged with hopes of rationalizing social control. In the decades that followed, most American institutions were organized or re-organized according to the Progressive prescription. The flow of social responsibility was away from more primary, local, and voluntary institutions to those more centralized, professionalized, and tax-supported. This transformation was financed in part by the fledgling philanthropic foundations of Carnegie, Rockefeller, Sage and others who subscribed to some version of the new corporate liberalism. The hierarchical, corporate organization of business entities created a work force with middle-class means and proletarian status, and many of the society's major responsibilities were newly assumed by remote national organizations or assigned to some level of government. By mid-century, in the wake of the New Deal, America's institutions and practices of mutual aid were widely displaced by specialized professionals. Those in need of assistance became clients or "cases." Today, at the turn of another century, new circumstances are rendering the Progressive prescriptions largely obsolete. American society is outgrowing the institutions the Progressives designed for it. The practical virtue and utility of classical liberal principles have triumphed over the ideologies of socialism and statism. Government administration has been shown to suffer from and to reinforce significant knowledge problems. The electronic revolution has suggested and enabled a more horizontal corporate organization in which more and more working people are self-managed. In short, the centralizing thrust of the 20th century seems to be giving way to a decentralizing tendency in the 21st. The purpose of this paper is to foster better understanding of the origins and rationale of the Progressive "old order" and of its continuing impact on American philanthropy. Drawing upon dozens of readings from Progressive-era journals and popular magazines, we seek to uncover the intellectual foundations of Progressivism and to identify its strengths and vulnerabilities. Part of our exploration is also intended to understand how we might best articulate a new rationale for philanthropic enterprises that are today working to return social responsibility to local communities and to support the emergence of new forms of mutual aid and voluntary action. A more robust understanding of the promise of decentralized voluntary action is needed to facilitate the reclamation of responsibility from the outdated, bureaucratic institutions born in the Progressive era. Philanthropists who are today glimpsing the opening of new paths for human action and who wish to encourage the present transformations must understand the challenges in proceeding. A better understanding of the "old order" as well as the entrenchment of contemporary institutions in Progressive assumptions can help promote more effective action in the present. Only when we understand the old assumptions and their compelling hold on the present can we begin fruitfully to challenge these assumptions with a new vision for the future. I. What's Wrong With Charity? A hallmark of the Progressive movement was its effort to reform politics and government administration, to reclaim them from the corrupt patronage system of the party bosses and to apply new, more professional means to accomplishing the ends of government. In the name of reform the Progressives viewed the legitimate ends of the national government as more expansive and substantive than in previous eras. Ever present in the minds of many reformers was the fear of popular revolution, and "the labor question" was of central importance. In the years...

The subversiveness of the marginalized women of scripture: Models of faith and action for twenty-first century women

T his decade of the twenty-first century is a pivotal one for Catholic women. The Church is in turmoil due to many factors, not least of which are the recently uncovered scandal ofpedophilia, the decline of vocations to the all-male priesthood, and the current transition taking place within the papal leadership. The effect these factors will have on the role of women in Catholic ministry is yet to be seen. I propose, though, that the role of women in the Catholic Church does not solely depend upon external circumstances. The female laity does not have to wait meekly until the Magisterium sees fit to grant greater participation to its sisters in the faith. There are circuitous routes that can be taken to claim ownership of the reins of our collective destiny if we but seek them out. It is my contention that the stories o f our biblical matriarchs can shed some light on a proposed course of action for assuming leadership. They, like many women in the Church today, were marginalized by the traditional social and religious institutions o f their time. Yet, these women of scripture possessed exemplary faith, and the wisdom and ingenuity to work within the confines imposed on them by their culture and society. So, too, can the female laity of the modern Church maneuver within the institutional confines imposed on them in the name of "tradition." My approach will be a bit different from the usual ways of addressing the question of female leadership within the Church. In the first of a series of two articles, I will select and analyze particular women in the First and Second Testaments

Sources of immoderation and proportion in marketing thought

The core argument of Bernard Cova’s provocative article, ‘Thinking of Marketing in Meridian Terms’, is well worth examining. The notion that marketing would benefit from a better sense of proportion resonates because so much evidence suggests that the discipline, both as a practice and as an ideology, has become increasingly pervasive, not just in its North American heartland, but around the world. As Johny Johansson (2004) so aptly puts it, marketing today is simply ‘in your face’. Advertising, for example, has found ever more ways to present itself to audiences – think of spam email and annoying web pop-up messages – in addition to the already saturated print, broadcast, postal, and out-of-home media. Sisodia and Backer (2004) contend that advertising has exhausted the consumer commons or the collective attention span of consumers. People have fought back by purchasing software and electronic devices (VCRs, TiVo) that block or skip over unwanted messages. Even relatively marketing-tolerant US consumers have rebelled. Over 85 million telephone numbers have been listed on the Federal Trade Commission’s ‘do-not-call’ registry restricting telemarketing (FTC, 2005), and broad political support exists for passing additional restrictive laws. A palpable sense of marketing excess is fueled by more than intrusive advertising, however. Johansson (2004) lists many additional instances – from unnecessarily aggressive products like the Hummer to increasing worldwide rates of obesity to the spread of deeply anti-global and anti-American attitudes – that make him and others uneasy with the present direction of marketing actions and their consequences. Adding to this apprehension is the sheer ubiquity of the marketing ethos. Marketing concepts and managerial approaches have spread well beyond business transactions into myriad nooks and crannies of everyday life. Non-profit organizations of all kinds have learned to interface with their patients, students, supporters, donors, and so on, not just as traditional social and cultural institutions, but in terms of being service providers that create customer satisfaction through integrated marketing programs. In a number of countries, religious

Traditional Institutions as Tools of Political Islam in Bangladesh

Since 1991, salish (village arbitration) and fatwa (religious edict) have become common features of Bangladesh society, especially in rural areas. Women and non-governmental development organizations (NGOs) have been subjected to fatwas delivered through a traditional social institution called salish. This article examines this phenomenon and its relationship to the rise of Islam as political ideology and increasing strengths of Islamist parties in Bangladesh. This article challenges existing interpretations that persecution of women through salish and fatwa is a reaction of the rural community against the modernization process; that fatwas represent an important tool in the backlash of traditional elites against the impoverished rural women; and that the actions of the rural mullahs do not have any political links. The article shows, with several case studies, that use of salish and fatwa as tools of subjection of women and development organizations reflect an effort to utilize traditional local institutions to further particular interpretations of behavior and of the rights of individuals under Islam, and that this interpretation is intrinsically linked to the Islamists’ agenda.

Growth, institutions and knowledge: a review and reflection on the historiography of 18th–20th century China

This article surveys major themes on the latest revisionist thesis of economic growth in China during the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. With an emphasis on the role of informal and formal institutions to economic growth, this article reviews the traditional legal system and its impact on the organizational evolution of major Chinese merchant groups. It argues that, to understand the distinctive path of long‐term economic growth or stagnation in China, we need to go beyond the study of resource endowments or technologies, to also incorporate an economic analysis of China’s traditional social and political institutions and their associated ideologies.