Network assemblage of regime stability and resilience: comparing Europe and China

摘要

This article demonstrates that the network structures of historical regimes influence the way information is spread, which in turn circumscribe the behaviors of the different groups that make up the system. It advances two central claims. The first is a methodological one showing that patterns of long-term historical change are best studied at the system level, rather than by a traditional equilibrium framework grounded in models of individual behavior. Then, an empirical claim is established by comparisons of China's hub-and-spoke hypernetwork with Europe's multi-hub hypernetwork to show that their different patterns of interconnectivity forged their respective capacities to weather intermittent socioeconomic transitions.