Colonising Central Sulawesi. The ‘Ethical Policy’ and Imperialist Expansion 1890–1910

Abstract

The aim of this paper is to investigate the nature of Dutch colonial policy at the turn of the twentieth century in what was then the Netherlands East Indies.’ Referred to in the historiography of this period as ‘the ethical policy’, it is usually characterized as a welfare or developmentalist government. More recent comparisons have drawn attention to similarities between twentieth-century colony policy and the New Order Indonesian policy with a focus on economic growth and the lack of individual ‘development’. ‘Ethical policy’ is not usually a term applied to the politics of other imperialist powers, which begs the question that somehow Dutch colonialism was different. Recent comparative research by M. Kuitenbrouwer, A. Stoler and J. Breman has questioned this assumption.