Why Elites Rebel: Elite Insurrections during the Taiping Civil War in China1

Abstract

Insurrection of local elites in the early modern era is often regarded as the result of structural contradictions between the expanding state and elites or of preexisting cleavages among elites, but these models cannot address cases in which preexisting, structural cleavages were less evident. This article instead proposes a dynamic, relational model to explain why initially counterinsurgent elite-led militias became rebels during the Taiping Civil War in mid-19th-century China. It argues elite insurrection was an unintended consequence of the countermobilization of the state and elites in reaction to the rising Taiping rebels. By considering insurgent formation as the emergent and endogenous result of iterative interactions of multiple actors, this processual, relational model can be applied to explain many historical and contemporary insurgent wars. Hence, it moves beyond structural determinism and stochastic contingency in offering a sequential approach to the studies of contentious politics and historical change.