Federico Brusadelli (EURICS Fellow, Paris, and University of Naples “L’Orientale”, Italy),
Hagen Schulz-Forberg (Aarhus University, Denmark), Henrike Rudolph (University of Göttingen, Germany), David Serfass (INALCO, Paris, France)

In this talk, EURICS fellow Federico Brusadelli, will look at the development of Chinese federalism using the methodology of conceptual history (Begriffsgeschichte) in order to trace and understand its multi-layered translations (both as a linguistic translation from abroad and as a theoretical translation from the traditional political lexicon of imperial China into the urgences of the 20th century) and the conceptual causes/reflections of its political defeat. Why did federalism fail as a political program in Republican China? What role did the historical precedents of Chinese political thought play in the reception and articulation of federalism? And finally, what legacy does the “federal failure” still play today, after one century, in the (contested) definition of the relationship between centre and peripheries in the People’s Republic of China?