| By: |
Herrmann-Pillath, Carsten |
| Abstract: |
Building on a new model of institutions proposed by Aoki and the systemic
approach to economic civilizations outlined by Kuran, this paper attempts an
analysis of the cultural foundations of recent Chinese economic development. I
argue that the cultural impact needs to be conceived as a creative process
that involves linguistic entities and other public social items in order to
provide integrative meaning to economic interactions and identities to
different agents involved. I focus on three phenomena that stand at the center
of economic culture in China, networks, localism and modernism. I eschew the
standard dualism of individualism vs. collectivism in favour of a more
detailed view on the self in social relationships. The Chinese pattern of
social relations, guanxi, is also a constituent of localism, i.e. a peculiar
arrangement and resulting dynamics of central-local interactions in governing
the economy. Localism is balanced by culturalist controls of the center, which
in contemporary China builds on the worldview of modernism. Thus, economic
modernization is a cultural phenomenon on its own sake. I summarize these
interactions in a process analysis based on Aoki's framework. -- |
| Keywords: |
Aoki,culture and the economy,emics/etics,guanxi,relational collectivism,central/local government relations,culturalism,population quality,consumerism |
| JEL: |
B52 P2 Z1 |
| Date: |
2011 |
| URL: |
http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:zbw:fsfmwp:181&r=cul |