Working paper. Last update: 2024.11.10

Abstract: The existing literature on the emergence of representative institutions focuses overwhelmingly on medieval Europe. Its theory of the fiscal-administrative mechanism depends on two important scope conditions: A small polity and a weak bureaucracy. In this paper, I reconstruct and theorize the origins of parliament in China during the late imperial period (1906–1911), when the Qing dynasty exercised control over a vast territory through an advanced bureaucratic system. Empirically, I focus on the first parliaments: The Consultative Bureaus (ziyiju, 諮議局), the provincial assemblies founded in 1909. I argue that emerging elites at the periphery of the political ladder were more likely to join the parliament. In this period of the dominance of the administrative state in the Chinese society, the concerns over upward mobility within the administrative system motivated many low-level elites to join the parliament: Men with low administrative qualifications who waited years to be appointed to permanent administrative positions (“expectants”), or who served as probationers or adjunct officers. This alternative legislative pathway was also regarded as politically useful by the ruler (the Empress Cixi), as she could create a system of counterbalance by instituting a new power base against the traditional bureaucracy. Drawing on a variety of primary and secondary sources, I show that provincial assemblies were convened by 1909, and that at least 72\% of the 1749 elected provincial legislators were emerging elites as such.

Final draft coming soon.

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