UC Irvine UC Irvine Electronic Theses and Dissertations Title From the Ashes Shall Rise: Determinants of State Reconstitution in Republican China and Sengoku Japan Permalink https://escholarship.org/uc/item/9qq0v92c Author Odell, Graham Publication Date 2017 Peer reviewed|Thesis/dissertation eScholarship.org Powered by the California Digital Library University of California UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA, IRVINE From the Ashes Shall Rise: Determinants of State Reconstitution in Republican China and Sengoku Japan DISSERTATION submitted in partial satisfaction of the requirements for the degree of DOCTOR OF PHILOSOPHY in Political Science by Graham French Odell Dissertation Committee: Professor Emerita Dorothy J. Solinger, Chair Chancellor’s Professor Charles C. Ragin Associate Professor Robert M. Uriu 2017 © 2017 Graham French Odell DEDICATION To Karina and my family ii TABLE OF CONTENTS Page LIST OF TABLES iv ACKNOWLEDGMENTS v CURRICULUM VITAE vi ABSTRACT OF THE DISSERTATION vii INTRODUCTION 1 CHAPTER ONE: A New Theory of State Formation 22 CHAPTER TWO: Necessary Structural Conditions and State Reconstitution 74 CHAPTER THREE: Necessary Strategic Conditions and State Reconstitution 124 CHAPTER FOUR: Assessing the External Validity of the Theoretical Framework 178 CONCLUSION 209 REFERENCES 231 iii LIST OF TABLES Page Table One A Conceptual Map of State Formation 33 Table Two Summary of Theoretical Framework 60 Table Three Salience of Political Strategies, by Phase of Reconstitution 71 Table Four Expansion of Communist Military Forces, 1930-1945 143 Table Five Expansion of CCP Membership, 1921-1945 144 Table Six Presence of the Six Causal Conditions in the Three Test Cases 208 iv ACKNOWLEDGMENTS I would like to express my deepest gratitude to my committee chair, Professor Dorothy J. Solinger, who provided me with sustained intellectual guidance throughout my time earning a PhD. She has encouraged me to find my own path and interests and staunchly supported me professionally and academically. I take great inspiration from her work ethic, scholarly contributions and dedication to the research enterprise. I would also like to thank my committee members, Professors Robert Uriu and Charles Ragin, for their highly valuable advice and challenging questions. I also greatly appreciate their assistance in advancing my professional career. I finally would like to thank Professor John Herman, at Virginia Commonwealth University, for sparking my intense interest in East Asia, and Professor Brantly Womack, at the University of Virginia, for inspiring and shaping my scholarly concern with the politics of China and beyond. v CURRICULUM VITAE Graham French Odell 2005 B.A. in History, Virginia Commonwealth University 2008 M.A. in East Asian Studies, University of Virginia 2011-2016 Teaching Assistant, University of California, Irvine 2017 Ph.D. in Political Science, University of California, Irvine FIELD OF STUDY Comparative Politics vi ABSTRACT OF THE DISSERTATION From the Ashes Shall Rise: Determinants of State Reconstitution in Republican China and Sengoku Japan By Graham French Odell Doctor of Philosophy in Political Science University of California, Irvine, 2017 Professor Emerita Dorothy J. Solinger, Chair This dissertation addresses the question of why some collapsed states have been reconstituted whereas others have not. Many states today have collapsed, so answering this question has not only scholarly but also practical implications. Very little theorization has been done on this issue, so this study’s primary purpose is to develop a new theoretical framework of state reconstitution, especially of the internally-driven variety, which may be more efficacious than externally-directed state reconstruction. This study employs two cases of successful state reconstitution – Republican China (1912-1949) and Sengoku Japan (1477-1615) – to analytically-inductively derive a new theoretical framework. These cases are distinct across a number of potentially explanatory factors, thus making them ideal for a most-different same outcome (MDSO) research design, which is most appropriate for a study that seeks to formulate a novel theoretical explanation for a phenomenon. vii Through the investigation of these cases as well as gleaning insights from the existing state formation literature, this dissertation develops a theory of successful state reconstitution by emphasizing the causal impacts of ideology, political symbolism and the distribution of social power. The penultimate chapter tests this framework on three cases not used to develop it and finds that the framework is highly successful in explaining cases very different from those employed to develop it in the first place, suggesting a substantial degree of generalizability. viii Introduction The phoenix dies, and then is born again - Inferno, Canto XXIV, by Dante Alighieri1 Nor shall this peace sleep with her: but as when The bird of wonder dies, the maiden phoenix, Her ashes new create another heir, As great in admiration as herself; So shall she leave her blessedness to one, When heaven shall call her from this cloud of darkness, Who from the sacred ashes of her honour Shall star-like rise, as great in fame as she was, And so stand fix'd - Cranmer, Henry VIII, Act V, Scene V, by William Shakespeare2 As a leader of the English Reformation, Thomas Cranmer was a staunch supporter of state sovereignty. He believed in the principle of Royal Supremacy, which asserted monarchical authority over the Church in the English realm. In other words, Cranmer was one of the early 1 Longfellow 1904: 141 2 Shakespeare: 72 1 proponents of establishing territorial sovereignty – that is, the state – in the person of the monarch. Moreover, as the above quotation dramatizes, Cranmer considered English royal authority to persist after Henry VIII’s and Elizabeth I’s reigns. Even with the death of the sovereign, Elizabeth’s glory would endure throughout her heir’s rule. Put another way, the state would outlast any individual mortal coil; sovereignty would be preserved. In Cranmer’s usage by way of Shakespeare, the phoenix represents the transcendence and persistence of state authority without regard to the passing of individual rulers. But such sovereign stability is often not observed in the trajectories of human polities. Instead, the metaphorical phoenix can manifest itself in an alternative way, as when territorial sovereignty is reborn from circumstances of its prior collapse. The course of state authority can be a jagged and unstable one. Indeed, cases of state collapse and reconstitution have occurred throughout history: the cyclic rise and fall of the Ancient Egyptian Kingdoms; the denouement and rebirth of the Chinese empire in the tenth century CE; the devastation and renascence of the Valois French state in the fifteenth; and the implosion and reconstruction of the Ugandan polity in the twentieth. Yet many collapsed states remain so, as can be seen in the fates of the Roman Empire, Poland-Lithuania in early modern Europe and Somalia today. In these cases, state authority persists not in its transcendence but in its absence. Why do some states collapse and then reemerge whereas others remain riven and disarrayed? How can territorial, sovereign authority be reconstituted? How can the phoenix once again stand strong and complete? State formation and state collapse are subjects that have received considerable attention from scholars. State formation, especially of the European variety, has been a central concern of scholarly work for decades. The study of state collapse has also seen sustained 2 attention over the past twenty years or so, ever since the end of the Cold War led to a drastic increase in the number of collapsed states, especially in Africa and the Middle East. Comparatively little work, however, has been done on state reconstitution, defined as the formation of a new state following state collapse. Many states collapse, but comparatively few attempts at reconstruction are successful. Since 1975, seventeen states have undergone the collapse of central authority, with just four of these also being clear instances of state reconstitution.3 Failure to reconstruct the state, however, is not due to a lack of effort, as the case histories of collapsed states indicate. Many internal and external actors have sought to rebuild central authority in these societies. Why, then, are some attempts at state reconstitution successful, whereas others are not? Addressing this question is crucial for societies that are currently experiencing state collapse or have already seen their state institutions crumble. Typically, collapsed states are beset by endemic civil conflict, poor economic performance and generalized human insecurity (Zartman 1995). Developing insights into how these societies can rebuild their state apparatuses is thus not just a scholarly enterprise but also a moral imperative. A number of scholars have examined this issue (e.g., Zartman 1995; Rotberg 2003; Kieh 2007; Ghani and Lockhart 2008; Fearon and Laitin 2004; Krasner 2004; Lake and Fariss 2014). 3 I used data from the Political Instability Task Force (PITF) Consolidated Problem Set version 2015 to arrive at these figures. The list of collapsed states since 1975 includes: Somalia, Sierra Leone, Bosnia, Liberia, Democratic Republic of Congo, Afghanistan, Haiti, Iraq, Uganda, Ethiopia, Chad, Libya, Central African Republic, Lebanon, Burundi, Mali and Yugoslavia. States that were reconstituted include: Liberia (since 2003), Uganda, Ethiopia and Sierra