Embedding the Colonial State

Abstract

This article explains Mauritius’s exceptional state building and development during late colonialism as the product of a conjuncture of two separately determined historical processes. The first causal chain involves the creation of a bureaucratic state, which was built over two centuries of French and British colonial rule. The second main causal path concerns the development of a society with dense associational ties. This process was set into motion by land distribution that occurred in the late nineteenth century and resulted in the emergence of several villages of small landholders. The essay argues that a prolonged period of labor riots beginning in the late 1930s and the more interventionist policy of the British government after World War II combined to initiate a “critical-juncture period” that increased relations between state and societal actors. This increased embeddedness made possible state-society synergy, which promoted broad-based development by engaging and strengthening both state institutions and societal associations, thereby endowing Mauritius with the institutions necessary for broad-based development after colonial independence as well.