Continuity or change? (in)direct rule in British and French Colonial Africa
| Autor: | Carl Müller-Crepon |
|---|---|
| Jazyk: | angličtina |
| Rok vydání: | 2020 |
| Předmět: |
Organizational Behavior and Human Resource Management
Direct rule Sociology and Political Science Colonialism Indirect rule Precolonial institutions Africa media_common.quotation_subject 05 social sciences Demise 0506 political science Power (social and political) Politics Blueprint Political science Political economy 0502 economics and business Political Science and International Relations 050602 political science & public administration Ideology 050207 economics Law media_common |
| Zdroj: | International Organization, 74 (4) |
| ISSN: | 1531-5088 |
| DOI: | 10.1017/s0020818320000211 |
| Popis: | Current political order in Africa is often linked to legacies of colonialism, in particular to legacies of indirect colonial rule. However, evidence about the application of indirect rule is scarce. In this paper I argue that empire-level characteristics interacted with precolonial institutions in shaping the indirectness of local rule. First, British governments ruled more indirectly than French administrations, which followed a comparatively centralized administrative blueprint, came with a transformative republican ideology, and had more administrative resources. Empirically, I find that French colonization led to the demise of the lines of succession of seven out of ten precolonial polities, twice as many as under British rule. Second, precolonial centralization was a crucial prerequisite for indirect rule. Local administrative data from eight British colonies show that British colonizers employed less administrative effort and devolved more power to native authorities where centralized institutions existed. Such a pattern did not exist in French colonies. Together, these findings improve our understanding of the long-term effects of precolonial institutions and draw attention to the interaction of characteristics of dominant and subordinate units in shaping local governance arrangements. © The IO Foundation, 2020. ISSN:1531-5088 ISSN:0020-8183 |
| Databáze: | OpenAIRE |
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