User:Crcarey/sandbox/Impact of Western European colonialism and colonisation

Impact of Western European colonialism and colonisation

Colonialism is the policy or practice of acquiring full or partial political control over another country, occupying it with settlers, and exploiting it economically. Research suggests, the current conditions of post-colonial societies have roots in colonial actions and policies. For example, colonial policies, such as the type of rule implemented, the nature of investments, and identity of the colonizers, are cited with impacting the post-colonial states. Examination of the state-building process, economic development, and cultural norms and mores shows the direct and indirect consequences of colonialism on the post-colonial states.

History of colonisation and decolonization

Main articles: History of colonialism and Decolonization

The era of European colonialism lasted from the 16th century to the mid-20th century and involved European powers vastly extending their reach around the globe by establishing colonies in Africa, Asia, and the Americas. The dismantling of European empires following World War II saw the process of decolonization begin in earnest. In August 1941, President Franklin D. Roosevelt and British Prime Minister Winston Churchill jointly released the Atlantic Charter, which broadly outlined the goals of the United States and British Governments. One of the main clauses of this document acknowledged right of all people to choose their own government. The document became the foundation for the United Nations and all of its components were integrated into the UN Charter, giving the organization a mandate to pursue global decolonization.

In 1961, the U.N. Special Committee on Decolonization was established to implement the Declaration on the Granting of Independence to Colonial Countries and Peoples and make recommendations on the process of global decolonization. Despite this uniform effort by the United Nations, modern post-colonial states vary widely in terms of political and economic stability.

Varieties of colonialism

Historians generally distinguish two main varieties established by European colonials: settler colonialism, where towns and cities were established with primarily European residents and the amenities of a “Neo-Europe” and exploitation colonialism, purely extractive and exploitative colonies whose primary function was to exploit resources. These frequently overlapped or existed on a spectrum.

Settler colonialism

Main article: Settler colonialism

Settler colonialism is a form of colonisation where foreign citizens move into a region and create permanent or temporary settlements called colonies. The creation of settler colonies often resulted in the forced migration of indigenous peoples to less desirable territories through forced migration. This process is exemplified in the colonies established in the United States, New Zealand, South Africa, Canada, Argentina, and Australia.

The resettlement of indigenous peoples frequently occurs along demographic lines, but the central stimulus for resettlement is access to desirable territory. Regions free of tropical disease with easy access to trade routes were favorable. When Europeans settled in these desirable territories, natives were forced out and regional power was transferred to the colonials. Subsequently, this type of colonial behavior led to the elimination of native populations, not necessarily through genocide—the systematic killing of an ethnic group, but through the disruption of local customary practices and the transformation of socioeconomic systems. Ugandan academic Mahmood Mamdani cites “the destruction of communal autonomy, and the defeat and dispersal of tribal populations” as one primary factor in colonial oppression. Europeans justified settler colonialism with the false belief that the settlers were more capable of utilizing resources and land than the indigenous populations due to the introduction of modern agricultural practices. As agricultural expansion continued through the territories, native populations were further displaced to clear fertile farmland.

Daron Acemoglu, James A. Robinson, and Simon Johnson theorize that Europeans were more likely to form settler colonies in areas where they would not face high mortality rates due to disease and other exogenous factors. Many settler colonies sought to establish European-like institutions and practices that granted personal freedoms and allowed settlers to become wealthy by engaging in trade. Thus, jury trials, freedom from arbitrary arrest, and electoral representation were implemented to allow settlers rights similar to those enjoyed in Europe.

Exploitation colonialism

Main article: Exploitation colonialism

Exploitation colonialism is a form of colonisation where foreign citizens conquer a country in order to control and capitalize on its its natural resources and indigenous population. Acemoglu, Johnson, and Robinson argue, “institutions [established by colonials] did not introduce much protection for private property, nor did they provide checks and balances against government expropriation. In fact, the main purpose of the extractive state was to transfer as much of the resources of the colony to the colonizer, with the minimum amount of investment possible.” Since these colonies were created with the intent to extract resources, colonial powers has no incentives to invest in institutions or infrastructure that did not support their immediate goals. Thus, Europeans established authoritarian regimes in these colonies, which had no limits on state power.

The policies and practices carried out by King Leopold II of Belgium in the Congo Basin are an extreme example of exploitation colonialism. E. D. Morel, a British journalist, author, pacifist, and politician, detailed the atrocities in multiple articles and books. Morel believed the Belgian system that eliminated traditional, commercial markets in favor of pure exploitation was the root cause of the injustice in the Congo. Under the “veil of philanthropic motive,” King Leopold received the consent of multiple international governments (including the United States, Great Britain, and France) to assume trusteeship of the vast region in order to support the elimination of the slave trade. Leopold positioned himself as proprietor of an area totaling nearly 1 million square miles, which was home to nearly 20 million Africans.

After establishing dominance in the Congo Basin, Leopold extracted large quantities of ivory, rubber, and other natural resources. It has been estimated that Leopold made 1.1 billion in today’s dollars by employing a variety of exploitative tactics. Soldiers demanded unrealistic quantities of rubber be collected by African villagers, and when these goals were not met, the soldiers held women hostage, beat or killed the men, and burned crops. These and other forced labor practices caused the birth rate to decline as famine and disease spread. All of this was done at very little monetary cost to Belgium. M. Crawford Young, Professor Emeritus of Political Science at the University of Wisconsin–Madison observed,“ [the Belgian companies] brought little capital–a mere 8000 pounds...[to the Congo basin]–and instituted a reign of terror sufficient to provoke an embarrassing public-protest campaign in Britain and the United States at a time when the threshold of toleration for colonial brutality was high.”

The system of government implemented in the Congo by Belgium was authoritarian and oppressive. Multiple scholars view the roots of authoritarianism under Mobutu as results of colonial practices.

Plantation Colonies

Exploitation colonialism is a form of colonisation where foreign citizens conquer a country in order to take over and exploit its natural resources and indigenous population.

• ARJ argue that European colonists implemented exploitative colonies in areas with high European mortality rates.
• “European powers set up “extractive states”, exemplified by the Belgian colonization of the Congo. These institutions did not introduce much protection for private property, nor did they provide checks and balances against government expropriation. In fact, the main purpose of the extractive state was to transfer as much of the resources of the colony to the colonizer, with the minimum amount of investment possible.”
• The setup of extractive states put in institutions that persisted long after the end of colonialism.

Indirect and Direct Control of the Colonial Political System

Main articles: Indirect rule and Direct colonial rule

Systems of colonial rule can be broken into the binary classifications of direct and indirect rule. Direct rule involves the establishment of a centralized European authority, run by colonial officials, within a territory. In a system of direct rule, the native population is excluded from all but the lowest level of the colonial government. Mamdani defines direct rule as centralized despotism: a system where natives were not considered citizens. By contrast, indirect rule integrates pre-established local elites and native institutions into the administration of the colonial government. Indirect rule maintain good pre-colonial institutions and foster development within the local culture. Mamdani classifies indirect rule as “decentralized despotism,” where day-to-day operations were handled by local chiefs, but the true authority rested with the colonial powers.

Indirect rule

In certain cases, as in India,the colonial power directed all decisions related to foreign policy and defense, while the indigenous population controlled most aspects of internal administration. This led to autonomous indigenous communities that were under the rule of local tribal chiefs. These chiefs were either drawn from the existing social hierarchy or were newly-minted by the colonial authority. In areas under indirect rule, traditional authorities acted as intermediaries for the “despotic” colonial rule, while the colonial government acted as an advisor and only interfered in extreme circumstances. Often, with the support of the colonial authority, natives gained more power under indirect colonial rule than they had in the pre-colonial period. Mamdani points out that indirect rule was the dominant form of colonialism and therefore most who were colonized bore colonial rule that was delivered by their fellow natives.

The purpose of indirect rule was to allow natives to govern their own affairs through “customary law.” In practice though, the native authority decided on and enforced its own unwritten rules with the support of the colonial government. Rather than following the rule of law, local chiefs enjoyed judicial, legislative, executive, and administrative power in addition to legal arbitrariness.

Direct rule

In systems of direct rule, Europeans colonial officials oversaw all aspects of governance, while natives were placed in an entirely subordinate role. Unlike indirect rule, the colonial government did not convey orders through local elites, but rather oversaw administration directly. European laws and customs were imported to supplant traditional power structures. Joost van Vollenhoven, Governor-General of French West Africa, 1917-1918, described the role of the traditional chiefs in by saying, “his functions were reduced to that of a mouthpiece for orders emanating from the outside…[The chiefs] have no power of their own of any kind. There are not two authorities in the cercle, the French authority and the native authority; there is only one.” The chiefs were therefore ineffective and not highly regarded by the indigenous population. There were even instances where people under direct colonial rule secretly elected a real chief in order to retain traditional rights and customs.

Direct rule deliberately removed traditional power structures in order to implement uniformity across a region. The desire for regional homogeny was the driving force behind the French colonial doctrine of Assimilation. The French style of colonialism stemmed from the idea that the French Republic was a symbol of universal equality. As part of a civilizing mission, the European principles of equality were translated into legislation abroad. For the French colonies, this mean the enforcement of the French penal code, the right to send a representative to parliament, and imposition of Tariff laws as a form of economic assimilation. Requiring natives to assimilate in these and other ways, created an ubiquitous, European-style identity that made no attempt to protect native identities. Indigenous people living in colonized societies were obliged to obey European laws and customs or be deemed “uncivilized” and denied access to any European rights.

Comparative outcomes between Indirect and Direct Rule

Both direct and indirect rule have persistent, long term effects on the success of former colonies. Lakshmi Iyer, of Harvard Business School, conducted research to determine the impact type of rule can have on a region, looking at postcolonial India, where both systems were present under British rule. Iyer’s findings suggests that regions which had previously been ruled indirectly were generally better-governed and more capable of establishing effective institutions than areas under direct British rule. In the modern postcolonial period, areas formerly ruled directly by the British perform worse economically and have significantly less access to various public goods, such as health care, public infrastructure, and education.

In his book Citizen and Subject: Contemporary Africa and the Legacy of Colonialism, Mamdani claims the two types of rule were each sides of the same coin. He explains that colonialists did not exclusively use one system of rule over another. Instead, European powers divided regions along urban-rural lines and instituted separate systems of government in each area. Mamdani refers to the formal division of rural and urban natives by colonizers as the “bifurcated state.”Urban areas were ruled directly by the colonizers under an imported system of European law, which did not recognize the validity of native institutions. In contrast, rural populations were ruled indirectly by customary and traditional law and were therefore subordinate to the “civilized” urban citizenry. Rural inhabitants were viewed as “uncivilized” subjects and were deemed unfit to receive the benefits of citizenship. The rural subjects, Mamdani observed, had only a “modicum of civil right,” but were entirely excluded from all political rights.

Mamdani argues that current issues in postcolonial states are the result of colonial government partition, rather than simply poor governance as others have claimed. Current systems, in Africa and elsewhere, are riddled with an institutional legacy that reinforces a divided society. Using the examples of South Africa and Uganda, Mamdani observed that, rather than doing away with the bifurcated model of rule, postcolonial regimes have reproduced it. Although he uses only two specific examples, Mamdani maintains that these countries are simply paradigms representing the broad institutional legacy colonialism left on the world. He argues that modern states have only accomplished "deracialization" and not democratization following their independence from colonial rule. Instead of pursuing efforts to link their fractured society, centralized control of the government stayed in urban areas and reform focused on “reorganizing the bifurcated power forged under colonialism.” Native authorities that operated under indirect rule have not been brought into the mainstream reformation process; instead, development has been “enforced” on the rural peasantry. States must overcome the fundamental disconnect between the urban and rural, the customary and modern, and participation and representation in order to achieve autonomy and successful democratization and good governance.

Colonial actions and their impacts

Reorganization of borders

Main article: Berlin Conference

Defining Borders

Throughout era of European colonization, those in power routinely partitioned land masses and created borders that are still in place today. It has been estimated that Britain and France traced almost 40% of the entire length of today’s international boundaries. Sometimes boundaries were naturally occurring, like rivers or mountains, but other times these borders were artificially created and agreed upon by colonial powers. The Berlin Conference of 1884 systemized European colonization in Africa and is frequently acknowledged as the genesis of the Scramble for Africa. The Conference implemented the Principle of Effective Occupation in Africa which allowed European states with even the most tenuous connection to an African region to claim dominion over its land, resources, and people. In effect, it allowed for the arbitrary construction of sovereign borders in a territory where they had never previously existed.

Borders occasionally followed naturally occurring boundaries, like rivers and mountain ranges, but were often times artificially created by agreements between colonial powers. The Berlin Conference of 1884 systemized European colonization in Africa and is frequently acknowledged as the genesis of the Scramble for Africa. The Conference implemented the Principle of Effective Occupation in Africa, which allowed European states with even the most basic connection to an African region to claim dominion over the land, resources, and people. In effect, it allowed for the arbitrary construction of sovereign borders in a territory where they had never previously existed.

Jeffrey Herbst has written extensively on the impact of state organization in Africa. He notes, because the borders were artificially created, they generally do not conform to “typical demographic, ethnographic, and topographic boundaries.” Instead, they were manufactured by colonialists to advance their political goals. This led to large scale issues, like the division of ethnic groups, and small scale issues, such as families’ homes being separated from their farms.

William F.S. Miles of Northeastern University, argues that this perfunctory division of the entire continent created expansive ungoverned borderlands. These borderlands persist today and are havens for crimes like human trafficking and arms smuggling.

Modern preservation of the colonially defined borders

Herbst notes a modern paradox regarding the colonial borders in Africa, while they are arbitrary there is a consensus among African leaders that they must be maintained. Organization of African Unity in 1963 cemented colonial boundaries permanently by proclaiming that any changes made were illegitimate. This, in effect, avoided readdressing the basic injustice of colonial partition, while also reducing the likelihood of inter-state warfare as territorial boundaries were considered immutable by the international community.

Modern national boundaries are thus remarkably invariable, though the stability of the nation states has not followed in suit. African states are plagued by internal issues such as inability to effectively collect taxes and weak national identities. Lacking any external threats to their sovereignty, these countries have failed to been unable to consolidate power leading to weak or failed states.

Though the colonial boundaries sometimes caused internal strife and hardship, some present day leaders benefit from the desirable borders their former colonial overlords drew. For example, Nigeria's inheritance of an outlet to the sea, and the trading opportunities a port affords, gives the nation a distinct economic advantage over its neighbor, Niger. Effectively, the early carving of colonial space turned naturally occurring factor endowments into state controlled assets.

Differing colonial investments

• Health and education investment
• Infrastructure
• Huillery (2009) and Huillery (2011)
• Modern public investments
• Banerjee & Iyer (2005) and Dell (2010)
• Frederick D. Lugard -- How Europe underdeveloped Africa (Chapters 5 - 6)

Land, Labor, and other Property rights

Changes to agriculture led to the setup plantation economies. This forced countries to grow a single crop. [Plantation colonies] In turn, this destroyed local independent economies and increased dependence on the colonial government.

Land was previously not private property, but it was a communal holding that everyone had access to (22) According to Mamdani, this shift had three consequences.

1 African people were not thought of as natives but tribespeople

• Two legal systems: modern and customary
• Law of the tribe
• Civilize Africa as communities

2 Several traditions

• Custom was state ordained and state enforced
• institutional framework was skewed in favor of state-appointed customary authorities

3 Bulleted list item

• African colonial experience was unusually violent
• Forced land and labor out of the customary and into the modern by force

The chiefs were the functionaries of the local state apparatus Passed and executed all laws

Migdal summary

New goods, markets, and trade

• Expansion of market for European goods
• Fail of African industries
• intercolonial trade was never developed - left countries disconnected
• no local markets
• Duration of the colonization
• Feyrer & Sacerdote 2009
• Identity of colonizer
• Porta et al. 1998; Bertocchi & Canova 2002; Berkowitz & Clay 2003
• Extraction vs settlement (continuation of initiation argument?)
• Engerman & Sokoloff 2000, Acemoglu, Johnson & Robinson 2001, 2002, Dell 2010, Bruhn & Gallego 2012, Naritomi, Soares & Assunção 2012

Societal consequences of colonialism

Ethnic identities

• Mamdani
  • Citizen and Subject
  • When Victims Become Killers
  • Making Sense of Political Violence in Postcolonial Africa
• Fanon
  • Black Skin, White Masks
  • The Wretched of the Earth
• Bruce Berman: 
Ethnicity, Patronage and the African State: The Politics of Uncivil Nationalism
• Perspectives on Africa : a reader in culture, history, and representation
  • The invention of tradition in colonial Africa by Terence Ranger (page 450)

Religious

• introduction and spread of christianity
• Christian missionaries
• Impact on local religions
• Chidester: Savage Systems

Reorganization of civil society

• Mamdani
  • “independence deracialized the state but not civil society” 20
  • Africanization - 20
  • detribalized vs deracialized - 21
  • “definition of land as a customary possession” 21
• Migdal - there is a link between state and civil society.

National identities

• The Wretched of the Earth
• Citizen and Subject
• Using manufactured identities to turn against colonial powers (Fanon & Mamdani)
  • Foucault: Social constructionism and human nature

Historic debates surrounding colonialism

During the sixteenth century, Spanish priest and philosopher Francisco Suarez (1548-1617) expressed his objections to colonialism in his work De Bello et de Indis (On War and the Indies). In this text and others, Suarez supported natural law and conveyed his beliefs that all humans had rights to life and liberty. Along these lines, he argued for the limitation of the imperial powers of Charles V, Holy Roman Emperor by underscoring the natural rights of indigenous people. Accordingly, native inhabitants of the colonial Spanish West Indies deserved independence and each island should be considered a sovereign state with all the legal powers of Spain.

Bartolomé de Las Casas (1484-1566) was the first Protector of the Indians appointed by the Spanish crown. During his time in the Spanish West Indies, he bore firsthand witnessed many of the atrocities committed by Spanish colonists against the natives. After this experience, he reformed his view on colonialism and determined the Spanish people would suffer divine punishment if the gross mistreatment in the Indies continued. de Las Casas detailed his opinion in his book The Destruction of the Indies: A Brief Account.

French philosopher Denis Diderot criticized ethnocentrism and the colonisation of Tahiti in Supplément au voyage de Bougainville in 1772.

Modern theories of colonialism

Dependency theory

Main article: Dependency theory

Dependency theory is an economic theory which postulated that advanced and industrialized “metropolitan” nations have been able to develop because of the existence of less-developed “satellite” states. Satellite nations are anchored to, and subordinate to, metropolitan countries because of the international division of labor. Satellite countries are thus dependent on metropolitan states and incapable of charting their own economic path.

The theory was introduced in the 1950s by Raul Prebisch, Director of the United Nations Economic Commission for Latin America after observing that economic growth in wealthy countries did not translate into economic growth in poor countries. Decency theorists believe this is due to the import-export relationship between rich and poor countries. Walter Rodney, in his book How Europe Underdeveloped Africa, used this framework when observing the relationship between European Trading Companies and African peasants living in postcolonial states. Through the labour of peasants, African countries are able to gather large quantities of raw materials. Rather than being able to export these materials directly to Europe, states must work with a number of trading companies, who collaborated to keep purchase prices low. The trading companies then sold the materials to European manufactures at inflated prices. Finally the manufactured goods were returned to Africa, but with prices so high, labourers were unable to afford them. This led to a situation where the individuals who labored extensively to gather raw materials we unable to benefit from the finished goods.

Neocolonialism

Main article: Neocolonialism

Critics of the alleged abuses of economic and political advantages accruing to developed nations via globalised capitalism have referred to them as neocolonialism, seeing them as a continuation of the domination and exploitation of ex-colonial countries. Neocolonialism is in this sense a new form of imperialism, which had first been theorized by Lenin in Imperialism, the Highest Stage of Capitalism (1916). Lenin and Rosa Luxemburg thought that the necessary economic expansion of capitalism automatically led to territorial expansion, in order to find new resources and markets.

Some economic historians, including Marxist historian Bill Warren, disagree with dependency theorists:

There is no evidence of a process of underdevelopment…The evidence rather supports a contrary thesis: that process of development has been taking place…and that this has been a direct result of the west.

Other economists, such as Celso Furtado, have widely theorized on the specificities of third world economies, forming a concise theory of underdevelopment which understands it not simply as an early stage of a nation's economic history, but as a specific sort of modernized macroeconomic structure (a point of view which corroborates dependency theory, from a different perspective).

Benign colonialism

Dutch colonial administrator of the South Moluccas, picture taken 1940.

Benign colonialism is a term that refers to a supposed form of colonialism in which benefits outweighed risks for indigenous populations whose lands, resources, rights and freedoms were preempted by a colonising nation-state. The historical source for the concept of benign colonialism resides with John Stuart Mill who was chief examiner of the British East India Company dealing with British interests in India in the 1820s and 1830s. Mill's most well-known essays on benign colonialism are found in "Essays on some Unsettled Questions of Political Economy."

Mill's view contrasted with Burkean orientalists. Mill promoted the training of a corps of bureaucrats indigenous to India who could adopt the modern liberal perspective and values of 19th century Britain. Mill predicted this group's eventual governance of India would be based on British values and perspectives.

Advocates of the concept cite improved standards of health and education, employment opportunities, liberal markets, developed natural resources and introduced improved governance. The first wave of benign colonialism lasted from c. 1790-1960, according to Mill. The second wave included neocolonial policies exemplified in Hong Kong, where unfettered expansion of the market created a new form of benign colonialism. Political interference and military intervention in independent nation-states, such as Iraq, is also discussed under the rubric of benign colonialism in which a foreign power preempts national governance to protect a higher concept of freedom. The term is also used in the 21st century to refer to US, French and Chinese market activities in African countries with massive quantities of underdeveloped nonrenewable natural resources.

These views have support from some academics. Economic historian Niall Ferguson argued that empires can be a good thing provided that they are "liberal empires". He cites the British Empire as being the only example of a "liberal empire" and argues that it maintained the rule of law, benign government, free trade and, with the abolition of slavery, free labour. Historian Rudolf von Albertini agrees that, on balance, colonialism can be good. He argues that colonialism was a mechanism for modernisation in the colonies and imposed a peace by putting an end to tribal warfare.

Historians L.H Gann and Peter Duignan have also argued that Africa probably benefited from colonialism on balance. Although it had its faults, colonialism was probably "one of the most efficacious engines for cultural diffusion in world history". These views, however, are controversial and are rejected by some who, on balance, see colonialism as bad. The economic historian David Kenneth Fieldhouse has taken a kind of middle position, arguing that the effects of colonialism were actually limited and their main weakness wasn't in deliberate underdevelopment but in what it failed to do. Niall Ferguson agrees with his last point, arguing that colonialism's main weaknesses were sins of omission. Marxist historian Bill Warren has argued that whilst colonialism may be bad because it relies on force, he views it as being the genesis of Third World development.

Exemplary in the Dutch Empire of what was intended to be benign colonialism is the Dutch Ethical Policy applied in the Dutch East Indies (now: Indonesia) of the early 20th century.

Contemporary debate in France

Main articles: Abolitionism and Negationism

The Taubira law officially recognized slavery and the Atlantic slave trade as crimes against humanity in 2001. May 10 was selected as the day dedicated to the recognition of the crime of slavery. Anticolonialist activists also want the African Liberation Day to be recognized by France.

Although slavery was recognized by this law, four years later, the vote of the February 23, 2005 law by the conservative Union for a Popular Movement (UMP), prompted teachers and textbooks to "acknowledge and recognize in particular the positive role of the French presence abroad, especially in North Africa." The law was met with public uproar and accusations of historic revisionism, both inside France and abroad.

See also

• Scramble for Africa
• Decolonization
• Decolonisation of Africa
• State failure
• State-building
• Environmental determinism
• States and Power in Africa: Comparative Lessons in Authority and Control