From political legacy to academic field: the evolution and construction of the knowledge ecology of China’s revolutionary heritage discourse

Purpose This study aims to investigate the construction and evolution of the academic field surrounding China’s revolutionary heritage (HCRP), revealing the mechanisms through which a state-driven political concept transforms into an institutionalized domain of knowledge. Design/methodology/approach A computational discourse analysis, integrating dynamic topic models and complex network analysis, was performed on a corpus of 1,154 articles from Chinese core journals spanning from 2005 to 2023. Findings This study reveals a clear three-stage evolution: from ideological legitimation (2005–2016), through agenda expansion (2017–2020), to technical-managerial specialization (2021–2023). The field’s knowledge structure consolidated over time, shaped by a dual mechanism: the external force of state power providing stability via ideological “structural anchors” and the internal logic of academia driving thematic diversification. Originality/value This study offers a novel, dynamic framework for analyzing state-driven knowledge production. By computationally mapping the entire life cycle of an academic field from its political origins, it provides a replicable methodology for critical heritage studies and the sociology of knowledge, moving beyond traditional static or qualitative analyses.