Political Competition, Innovation and Growth in the History of Asian Civilizations

Edited by Peter Bernholz and Roland Vaubel

in Books from Edward Elgar Publishing

Abstract: Do political decentralisation and inter state competition favour innovation and growth? There has long been a lively debate surrounding this question, going back to David Hume and Immanuel Kant. This book is a new attempt to test its veracity. The existing literature tends to assume that the beneficial effects of inter state competition have been confined to European history. By contrast, China, India and the Islamic Middle East are regarded as inherently imperial and overcentralised. However, these civilisations have not always been unified politically. In their history, there have been long spells of decentralised rule or inter state competition. The same is true for Japan. If the Hume–Kant hypothesis is correct, it should also apply to those periods. This volume analyses the qualitative and quantitative evidence.

Keywords: Asian Studies; Economics and Finance; Politics and Public Policy (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: H0 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2004
ISBN: 9781843769194
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Citations: View citations in EconPapers (16)

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Chapters in this book:

Ch 1 Introduction and overview

Peter Bernholz and Roland Vaubel

Ch 2 The political pattern of historical creativity: a theoretical case

Jean Baechler, Michael Cook and Mark Elvin

Ch 3 Creative clusters, political fragmentation and cultural heterogeneity: an investigative journey through civilizations East and West

Dean Keith Simonton

Ch 4 Lessons from the history of Imperial China

Pak-Hung Mo, Mark Elvin, Toby E. Huff, Li Chen and Ugurlu Soylu

Ch 5 Advantages of centralized and decentralized rule in Japan

Gu_nther Distelrath, Ken’ichi Tomobe and John Powelson

Ch 6 India

Deepak Lal, Dietmar Rothermund and Erich Weede

Ch 7 Islamic statecraft and the Middle East's delayed modernization

Timur Kuran, Peter Bernholz, Michael Cook, Toby E. Huff and R. Stephen Humphreys

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