Public Interest and State Legitimation (Paperback)

Wenkai He

ISBN 10: 1009334557 / ISBN 13: 9781009334556

Published by Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, 2023

About this Item

Paperback. How were state formation and early modern politics shaped by the state's proclaimed obligation to domestic welfare? Drawing on a wide range of historical scholarship and primary sources, this book demonstrates that a public interest-based discourse of state legitimation was common to early modern England, Japan, and China. This normative platform served as a shared basis on which state and society could negotiate and collaborate over how to attain good governance through providing public goods such as famine relief and infrastructural facilities. The terms of state legitimacy opened a limited yet significant political space for the ruled. Through petitioning and protests, subordinates could demand that the state fulfil its publicly proclaimed duty and redress welfare grievances. Conflicts among diverse dimensions of public interest mobilized cross-regional and cross-sectoral collective petitions; justified by the same norms of state legitimacy, these petitions called for fundamental political reforms and transformed the nature of politics. Safeguarding public interest was vital to early modern state legitimacy in Western Europe and East Asia. Wenkai He identifies similar patterns in state-society interactions surrounding public goods provision and explores how conflicts over public interest led to calls for fundamental political change and to modern representative politics. Shipping may be from multiple locations in the US or from the UK, depending on stock availability.

Seller Inventory # 9781009334556

Bibliographic Details

• Title: Public Interest and State Legitimation (Paperback)
• Publisher: Cambridge University Press, Cambridge
• Publication Date: 2023
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 1009334557
• ISBN 13: 9781009334556
• Binding: Paperback
• Condition: new

About this title

Synopsis

How were state formation and early modern politics shaped by the state's proclaimed obligation to domestic welfare? Drawing on a wide range of historical scholarship and primary sources, this book demonstrates that a public interest-based discourse of state legitimation was common to early modern England, Japan, and China. This normative platform served as a shared basis on which state and society could negotiate and collaborate over how to attain good governance through providing public goods such as famine relief and infrastructural facilities. The terms of state legitimacy opened a limited yet significant political space for the ruled. Through petitioning and protests, subordinates could demand that the state fulfil its publicly proclaimed duty and redress welfare grievances. Conflicts among diverse dimensions of public interest mobilized cross-regional and cross-sectoral collective petitions; justified by the same norms of state legitimacy, these petitions called for fundamental political reforms and transformed the nature of politics.

About the Author

Wenkai He is Associate Professor in the Division of Social Science at the Hong Kong University of Science and Technology.