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Curriculum and ideology: evidence from China

Davide Cantoni, David Y. Yang and Noam Yuchtman


This book presents a synthesis of key recent advances in political-economy research on the various approaches and strategies used in the process of building nations throughout modern history. The book is comprised of 26 chapters organised into six sections, each focusing on a different aspect of nation building. The first chapter presents a unified framework for assessing nation-building policies, highlights potential challenges that may arise, provides a summary of each of the other chapters, and draws out the main lessons from them. The following chapters delve into the importance of social interactions for national identification, the role of education, propaganda and leadership, external interventions and wars, and the effects of representation and redistribution. The book offers a nuanced understanding of effective nation-building policies.


14 February 2023


Published in Nation building: big lessons from successes and failures (2023), Edited by Dominic Rohner and Ekaterina Zhuravskaya, pp. 131-140, CEPR Press


Curriculum and ideology: evidence from China

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This Chapter is part of the centre's Growth programme.