Lessons in bureaucracy: The politics of crisis management and the pedagogy of reform in Qing China, 1724--1730.

Abstract

This dissertation investigates the imperial management of a series of bureaucratic crises in Fujian during the reign of the Qing dynasty emperor Yongzheng (1723-1735) and its relationship to his efforts to overhaul and reform local administration. Specifically, it focuses attention on the political dimensions of Yongzheng's reforms by grounding his rule in a historically specific narrative that demonstrates the contingent manner in which imperial authority was constituted. One objective of this study is to explore how flexibility is engineered into seemingly rigid political institutions and governing techniques by the selective adaptation of moral standards and pragmatic approaches. Another aim is to create a finely-textured study of the late imperial Chinese bureaucracy in action and to detail the administrative reality that the Yongzheng emperor faced early in his reign. Chapter 1 provides an overview as well as a review of the relevant secondary literature. Chapter 2 describes the daily activities of officials to establish a baseline for bureaucratic functioning that captures the complex relationships between officials, monarch and bureaucrat, and conflicting notions of governance. Chapter 3 traces the eruption of official discord and its escalation into a major crisis that pitted established bureaucratic procedures against imperial prerogative. Chapter 4 examines the implications of the transformation of an instance of discord among colleagues into a broader crisis and scrutinizes the principles behind Yongzheng's approach to handling such administrative quandaries. Chapter 5 charts the reorganization of the provincial bureaucracy under imperial supervision and reconsiders the notion that institutional solutions formed the foundation of many of Yongzheng's reforms. Chapter 6 concludes by suggesting ways in which a new understanding of the Yongzheng emperor changes our perspective of the nature of imperial power and its limits as well as its capacity to effect systematic change in political institutions.