Political Repression and Nation-building
Keywords:
political repression, newspapers, revolution, nation-building, ChinaAbstract
Nations are products of modernity, but often rooted in deep history. This paper examines how Manchu conquest-era repression shaped 20th-century nation-building in China. Applying machine learning to 300,000 article titles, I show that regions with deeper repression histories produced more nationalist revolutionaries, particularly where newspapers reactivated collective memories as ethnic conflict. Using pre-conquest Jinshi density as an instrumental variable, I confirm causality. The transmission mechanism operated through local cultural institutions that preserved historical memory across generations despite sustained state suppression. These findings illuminate how political repression persists as latent collective memory and ultimately becomes a foundation for national identity.
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