Social scientists always have been fascinated by cyclic theories, which not only parsimoniously describe and explain the underlying dynamics of world events, but, for the more adventurous, offer the possibility of prediction. This fascination has been especially true in the China field, where Chinese scholars and practitioners have used cyclic theories to explain Chinese politics since the Early Han. Among contemporary Western academics, sociologists have used “compliance” cycles to characterize the relationship between Chinese elites and the peasantry. Western economists have focused on variations of Chinese business cycles, such as the demand for consumption goods or harvest failures, to analyse China's economic growth. Political scientists have looked at the impact of various business, reform and factional cycles on Chinese political development.
scite is a Brooklyn-based organization that helps researchers better discover and understand research articles through Smart Citations–citations that display the context of the citation and describe whether the article provides supporting or contrasting evidence. scite is used by students and researchers from around the world and is funded in part by the National Science Foundation and the National Institute on Drug Abuse of the National Institutes of Health.