| Publication |
2006.
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| Summary/Abstract |
Political capacity is a necessary condition for the growth and rise of any leading nation. History has witnessed the augmentation and decline of great powers concomitant with the ebbs and flows of their political capacity. This essay reviews the concept of political capacity and discusses the measure of relative political capacity. It further applies the concept and measure of such capacity to China where building government capacity seems to dovetail with the nation's policy priorities. China's political capacity decreases when economic reforms are the driving force and increases when political campaigns carry the day. Finally, a cross-province analysis of political capacity is conducted revealing that provinces located in the central part of China tend to have stronger governments than are found in other areas. This finding is consistent with the observation of historians that thousands of years of meteorological and geographic forces have shaped state-building in Central China.
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