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UID:289@harvard-yenching.org
DTSTART;TZID=America/New_York:20221013T110000
DTEND;TZID=America/New_York:20221013T123000
DTSTAMP:20220928T195459Z
URL:https://www.harvard-yenching.org/events/taxation-and-state-building-co
 ntradiction-grassroots-state-reconfiguration-under-tax-state-transition-in
 -rural-china/
SUMMARY:Taxation and State Building Contradiction: Grassroots State Reconfi
 guration under Tax State Transition in Rural China
DESCRIPTION:In-person talk – Seating is limited. Masks are required for a
 ll audience members.\n\nCo-sponsored with the Fairbank Center for Chinese 
 Studies\n\nTaxation is regarded as an important dynamic in state building\
 , and plays a crucial role in driving the process of bureaucratization. Ho
 wever\, this process could be contradictory under certain circumstances. T
 hrough an in-depth examination of taxation and state building in rural Chi
 na\, we find that the state strategically uses different institutional bui
 lding strategies in different periods to penetrate the rural society for d
 ifferent purposes. We develop a two by two matrix by combining concentrati
 on and centralization\, as a typology of micro institutional building stra
 tegies\, to describe the evolution of institutional strategies and cadre
 ’s roles. Specifically\, we find that after the market transition in 198
 0s and 1990s\, the tax state transition\, especially the abolition of agri
 cultural taxes in early 2000s\, marks a transition from penetration for ex
 traction to non-penetration with non-extraction. Using unique datasets whi
 ch combines individual\, village and county/province level data\, we focus
  on the dynamic on the role of village cadres which reflects the evolution
  of institutional strategies. We test the hypotheses of village cadres’ 
 income (dis)advantage before and after abolition of agriculture taxes whic
 h depended on village or upper-level government fiscal conditions\, respec
 tively. We find that before the tax state transition village cadres as tax
  farmers had income advantages over ordinary peasants regardless the villa
 ge and county fiscal conditions. But after the transition they turned to s
 emi-bureaucrats and lost their income advantage in most regions all over C
 hina. They only held advantages in those fiscally-rich regions. This resea
 rch indicates that the state building in rural China is associated with th
 e ending of taxation power rather than a development of taxation capacity 
 which led to state involution. This study contributes to taxation and stat
 e building literature by revealing this contradiction\, and complement to 
 the market transition debate by bringing taxation back in.
CATEGORIES:Visiting Scholar Talks
LOCATION:Common Room (#136)\, 2 Divinity Avenue\, Cambridge\, MA\, United S
 tates
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 ge\, MA\, United States;X-APPLE-RADIUS=100;X-TITLE=Common Room (#136):geo:
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