Key points are not available for this paper at this time.
The relationship between centralized political authority and the construction of large-scale irrigation systems has been a major research topic in both anthropology and archaeology for many decades. One of the objects of this research has been to determine whether large-scale irrigation works were a cause or a result of political centralization. Some scholars (e.g., Wittfogel) have argued that construction of such projects played a critical role in the emergence of centralized, bureaucratic social structures. Others believe that large-scale irrigation works were constructed only after a centralized government emerged, and that before this, local people managed relatively small-scale cooperative irrigation works without intervention of a centralized political authority. This paper argues that large-scale reservoirs were constructed only after and because of the appearance of centralized political organization, in this case, the Silla Kingdom in ancient Korea.
Bong Won Kang (Sat,) studied this question.