Original
Is Blood Thicker Than Water(-and-Earth)? Partisanship Geography in Imperial China and the Limits of Quantitative History
Abstract
Using Wang Anshi’s Reform as a case study, Yuhua Wang’s “Blood is Thicker Than Water” ( American Political Science Review , 2022) argues that geographically dispersed kinship networks incentivize political elites to support the building of a strong state, whereas geographically concentrated kinship networks undermine state building. In this article, I improve the sample with the help of additional historical records and show that the reported correlation fails to replicate when either the control issue or the outlier issue is considered. I then propose two alternative hypotheses on the role of kinship network dispersal in Wang Anshi’s Reform, based on two common explanations of its partisanship geography in Chinese historical scholarship, that is, status competition and policy adaptiveness. After examining those hypotheses respectively, I reflect on the limits of quantitative history that this case illustrates.
中文
血浓于水（和土）吗？帝制中国的派系地理与计量史学的限度
摘要
本文以王安石变法为案例。王裕华《血浓于水》（《美国政治学评论》，2022）认为，地理上分散的亲属网络会激励政治精英支持强国家建设，而地理上集中的亲属网络则会削弱国家建设。在本文中，我借助更多历史文献改进样本，并表明：无论是考虑控制问题还是异常值问题，所报告的相关性都无法复现。随后，我基于中国历史学界对王安石变法派系地理的两种常见解释——地位竞争与政策适应性——提出关于亲属网络分散性在王安石变法中作用的两个替代性假设。在分别检验这些假设后，我反思该案例所揭示的计量史学的限度。
关键词
王安石变法、亲属网络、派系地理、国家建设、计量史学、可复现性、历史政治经济学、政策适应性