The Irony of Annihilation: How Social Disintegration During Civil War Paved the Way for State-Building

• In Event: Conflict, State Building, and Revolution

Brief Overview

Through the analysis of the Taiping Civil War, this study presents a society-centric theory of state building, proposing that civil war's impact hinges on a tragic mechanism: the violent elimination of social structures that rival state power.

Authors

• Pengfei Xie, University of Hong Kong

• Zhenyu Zhang, Chinese University of Hong Kong

• Chengyan Shao, University of Hong Kong