The Late Colonial State Revisited

What was the ‘late colonial state’ in India? Purely chronologically, it might be taken to be a period from the 1920s or the 1930s onwards; but this is with the benefit of hindsight. Most writers are in agreement that, despite the political rhetoric of British imperialism in India, it was not until the Second World War that an actual withdrawal from India was seriously contemplated by Britain, with the definite reservation that matters of imperial importance such as defence and economic interest should be controlled by Britain as far as possible. If an acceptance by the colonial power of impending decolonisation is to be the basis of such a characterisation, then it is doubtful whether there was a late colonial state at all. If, on the other hand, a difference in the forms of control and of exercise of power over the colony from earlier periods is to be the basis of the characterisation ‘late’, then perhaps there is more of a case for a use of the term ‘late colonial state’ as more than a mere chronological device.

Reviewed by: Decolonization and Its Impact: A Comparative Approach to the End of the Colonial Empires Charles C. Kolb Decolonization and Its Impact: A Comparative Approach to the End of the Colonial Empires. By Martin Shipway. Malden, Mass.: Blackwell Publishing, 2008. 288 pp. $86.95 (cloth); $36.95 (paper). Martin Shipway is lecturer in French studies at Birkbeck College, University of London; the author of The Road to War: France and Vietnam, 1944–1947 (1996); and has published journal articles and book chapters on French colonial policy making and decolonization [End Page 160] in Indochina, sub-Saharan Africa, Algeria, and Madagascar. In addition he has written on colonial discourse, psychology, and on postcolonial memory. His current work broadens his prior geographical foci to include the decolonization of British, Dutch, and Belgian colonies in South and Southeast Asia and Africa in the two decades following World War II. In "Introduction: Decolonization in Comparative Perspective," Shipway considers the European colonial system and seven nations that broke ties: Vietnam (1945), Indonesia (1945), the Philippines (1946), Pakistan (1947), Indonesia (1949), South Africa (1910), and Hong Kong (1997). The initial chapter, "The Colonial State: Patterns of Rule, Habits of Mind," provides background on the colonial state, patterns of rule, and the "official mind." Chapter 2, "Colonial Politics before the Flood: Challenging the State, Imagining the Nation," focuses on the limits of colonial politics, moderate versus "mendicant" politics, the uses of tradition in colonial states ("thrones and dominions"), communism and nationalism, collaboration and resistance, Indian Nationalist politics to 1935, Vietnam in the 1930s, and blocked reform in Algeria. A subsequent essay, "The Impact of the Second World War and the 'First Wave' of Decolonization," provides case studies on Africa (Madagascar and Senegal), Southern Asia (Indochina, Burma, and Vietnam), the "endgame" of the Raj (India), and distinctions between dominion states (Ceylon and Burma). In "Imperial Designs and Nationalist Realities in Southeast Asia, 1945–1955," Shipway writes about the French Union, Indochina, Chinese and Muslim influences in Malaya, the Dutch "reconquest" of Indonesia, and the eight-year French and Viet Minh war a "front in the Cold War." Chapter 5, "Shifting Frameworks for Change: The Late Colonial State in Africa," covers the period 1944–1951 and emphasizes the French and Belgian "welfare" states, British reforms in East Africa, the politics of the Gold Coast and Nigeria (Muslims and Ashanti), the Brazzaville Conference of 1944, the Ivory Coast, and the Central African Federation. "The Late Colonial State at War: Insurgency, Emergency and Terror" characterizes food shortages and famine in India, North Vietnam, and parts of Africa, origins of wars (Malagasy Insurrection, Mau Mau, Algerian War, and Cyprus Emergency), as well as "dirty wars" and policies to win hearts and minds. In "Towards Self government: Patterns of Late Colonial African Politics, 1951–1957," Shipway writes about the Gold Coast, Nigeria, the Sudan, Cameroun, and Tanganyika to illustrate the end of assimilation in French Africa and British policies. Last, in "Wind of Change: Endgame in Colonial [End Page 161] Africa, 1958–1964," he examines French policies in Algeria and Sub Saharan Africa under de Gaulle, Algeria (1958–1962), and the demise of a "platonic ideal" in the Belgian Congo. In "Conclusion: The Impact of Decolonization," Shipway reviews the endgame of decolonization and the conclusions of a variety of historiographers and experts on the subject. He notes that World War II was central to decolonization but was "multi-layered and pluri-dimensional, with some devastating immediate consequences and others that took time to work themselves out" (p. 234) and that it was an "accelerator of imperial change" (p. 235). Extreme or eccentric experiments in decolonization had catastrophic consequences and were costly to both the colony and the colonizer. Shipway's book joins approximately 260 others published during the past two decades that most often deal with specific instances of decolonization since 1940 rather than with a comparative assessment. Prasenjit Duara's edited reader, Decolonization: Perspectives from Now and Then (2004), brings together cutting edge thinking by major historians of decolonization, and writings by leaders of decolonizing countries. The essays emphasize the perspectives of the former colonies rather than a Western analysis of decolonization. The selection of writings also focuses on imperialism and...

The commercial revolution in the Ovimbundu States, 1840s-1904 the politics of pacification and colonization - the early colonial state, 1904-1926 the Estado Novo (New State) and the politics of economic subjugation, 1926-1960 social change and the New State, 1926-1960 the Ovimbundu and the late colonial state - authority versus autonomy, 1961-1974 the anticolonial struggle and the roots of Ovimbundu nationalism, 1961-1974 the Ovimbundu and the postcolonial state, 1974-1992.

This chapter provides an assessment of how the late Portuguese colonial state (especially in Angola and Mozambique) responded to widespread conflict and anticolonial pressures. Focusing on its structures, idioms, and strategies of social transformation and control-especially as they relate to the domains of development and security-my assessment of state response emphasizes the coming together of: coercive repertoires of rule; planned developmental strategies of political, economic and social change; and processes of engineering sociocultural difference. The late colonial state’s developmental and repressive facets are critically assessed through mobilizing theoretical perspectives and empirical analysis.

Using the expression ‘late-colonial State’ obviously induces not only a chronological differentiation, but also some kind of specific institution. Is it possible to show that colonialism changed courses at an identifiable moment in time? If one observes the realities of the colonial presence in French Occidental Africa (Afrique Occidentale Française: AOF), and more particularly in the nomadic zone, a superficial glance could make one think the opposite is true. Nomads of the AOF and the area of land they travel are hardly obvious examples of ‘the colonial development’. The conquest of the Saharan areas was carried out with difficulty, hindered by immeasurable distances, the logistic difficulties of mounting and supply, the ignorance of the routes and wells, and especially the resistance to the French colonial regime from the Moorish and Tuareg nomads. The French managed to impose a lasting peace only after the Tuareg revolts of 1916 and 1917, after the fall of Djanet in the early 1920s, and finally after the pacification at the beginning of the 1930s of the last pockets of Moorish ‘dissidence’, putting an end to the raids against colonial establishments along the Niger river and in Adrar des Ifoghas. French soldiers and administrators initially held a certain mistrust towards the turbulent nomads. This feeling, combined with the apparent economic uselessness of the huge desert spaces they inhabited, makes it possible to understand that the essential efforts of colonial France were concentrated on military aspects and on keeping law and order within the major strategic routes connecting the southern and northern African possessions through the Sahara; routes that in these areas represented creations of major infrastructure.

The historiography of the late colonial era has had a love-hate relationship with the colonial state. In the early years of post-colonial independence, much history was written to record and celebrate the achievements of ‘nation-building’. The founding fathers of independence had defeated the colonial state in their struggle against its oppressions. The old state, now under new management, but with the same boundaries, language and (usually) administrative structure, had become a nation, with an undisputed claim to the loyalty of its former colonial subjects. The task of the historian was to show how a national identity had emerged ineluctably from the bundle of districts cellotaped together by colonialism into a dependency, and how it had been mobilised to throw off colonial rule and create a sovereign nation. Subsequently, as this version of the recent colonial past was undermined by the difficulties and divisions of the independent present, and, in some cases, by disillusionment with its ruling elite, the focus shifted towards the sources of popular resistance in the colonial period. In this ‘subaltern’ history, the emphasis was upon uncovering rural struggles, local solidarities, and ‘hidden’ communities of belief that colonial rulers had ignored, or suppressed but which had played a key part in destroying the legitimacy and exercise of their power. The implication here was that the colonial state was an alien coercive force whose continuation into the post-colonial era (even with a change of crew) had frustrated social justice and the achievement of an authentic post-colonial identity.

The article reassesses the economic role of the late colonial state in Malaya. It seeks to dispel the view that the colonial government served British business interests, and that broad-based development policies only followed independence in 1957. Rather the developmentalist orientation of the state began earlier in the 1940s, and was not fully in accordance with existing economic interests.

The Late Colonial State in Indonesia: Political and Economic Foundations of the Netherlands Indies, 1880–1942. Edited by Robert Cribb. Leiden: KITLV Press, 1994. xiii, 295 pp. $29.00 (paper). - Volume 54 Issue 3

This paper examines Dutch colonial discourse as it was developing at the beginning of the twentieth century. I argue that colonial circumstances were changing at the beginning of the twentieth century in many aspects - economic, political, social - and that these changes required new policy and administrative responses. I take as examples of these changing colonial conditions and responses, two episodes in the history of ‘the late colonial state’, which I argue are both representative of and formative in shaping, colonial policy in the last decades of Dutch colonial rule in Indonesia.

ABSTRACTIt is the era of decolonisation in central Africa: angry mobs in the streets; authorities struggling to contain agitation by communists and other subversives; reports of Africans strangled to death or dragged behind cars by European settlers; whites arming themselves. One might presume these scenes of disorder and abuse took place during the Congo crisis from 1960 to 1965, when events appeared to spin out of control in central Africa. In fact, they occurred during the years after the Second World War, when Belgians seemed to have affairs well in hand in their central African colony. The Congo crisis is almost always viewed in sharp contrast to the peaceful era that preceded it—as if the lifting of Belgian rule unleashed chaos—and the relative stability post-1965 that came with the Mobutu dictatorship. There is broad agreement that Congo’s independence was a fiasco, with the former colonial ruler, Belgium, largely to blame. This essay argues that the Belgian authorities were not as in control as has been believed. Historians have known for years now that things were not as rosy as they might have seemed at the time, in the years leading up to independence in 1960, but recently available archival documents reveal the situation was even more fluid than previously thought. Bula Matari was not as far-reaching as believed, and many controls signalled a nervousness inherent in the late colonial state more than they did its strength. Reports by administrators reveal a lack of domination in the 1950s and underlying tensions in the colony, even conflicts. The public impression that Belgians had affairs well in hand is due in part to post-Second World War propaganda depicting an idyllic Congo. Belgians wanted to build support for colonialism, bolster their authority, forestall foreign interference and combat their own anxieties. Images produced persuaded many that the Congo was more peaceful than it was. The shock at independence ought to be attributed less to events unfolding as of June 1960 and more to the impressions of tranquillity projected by the authorities beforehand.

The discourse around indigeneity, customary rights of possession and claims to political autonomy in Northeast India conventionally traces the postcolonial protectionist legislation for ‘tribes’ to various acts passed under the late colonial state, the most significant precursor being seen as the Government of India Act, 1935. This article will argue that one can in fact trace the ‘original moment’ in the idea of customary law for ‘tribes’ much further back in history, to the early decades of the nineteenth century. This historical moment was anchored in the beginnings of the East India Company’s conquest of the Garo hills in the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries, in the appropriation of the land and revenue of the Garos and in the ethnogenesis of the ‘hill Garo’. The article will explore the ways in which the beginning of the invention of customary law and traditional authority in Northeast India under East India Company rule was impelled by the Company’s demands for revenue and was shielded and secured by the deployment of military power across the hills. Over the course of the nineteenth century, the strategies of imperial control first introduced in the region were reproduced across the rest of Northeast India, underscoring the significance of the Garo hills as the first ‘laboratory’ of colonial rule in the region as well as sharpening our understanding of the character of the early colonial state. The article thus takes as its task the historicization of the categories of ‘customary law’, ‘traditional/indigenous authority’ and the ‘hill tribe’, all of which form the basis of late colonial and postcolonial legislation on the ‘tribe’.

Javanese economic history is conventionally represented as an involutionary process in which rural Javanese, protected from the deleterious effects of capitalism by the colonial State, intensified subsistence agriculture to provide each household with a meagre living. This study challenges the conventional interpretation in two respects. Firstly it demonstrates that before the Dutch established economic control and again around 1900, trade and petty commodity production were significant sectors of the indigenous economy producing perhaps thirty percent of rural income. Secondly, it argues that the inability of Javanese traders to compete with Chinese wholesalers was not due to a lack of commercial acumen but to State policies which inhibited capital accumulation and made credit prohibitively expensive.

By the mid-1960s, local-level development workers in Ghana were expected to act as the eyes and ears of the state, reporting on ‘the minds of the people’ and explaining their reactions to President Kwame Nkrumah's project of socialist reconstruction. This articles argues that through mass education, social welfare and community development plans, both the late colonial and early independent state sought to make its presence manifest in the everyday lives of its citizens, to bind them to a broader vision for their country, and to present their successes to the outside world. By identifying some of the competing models of social development that were promoted by British, Ghanaian and African-American experts in the aftermath of independence, this article investigates the role of specialist knowledge in the developmentalist authoritarianism which is often presented as a generic legacy of the colonial state in Africa.

Legal pluralism – as practice and theory – is frequently viewed as a functional response to the diversity of legal culture and practices around the globe, or, as Michaels (2009) so succinctly observes, as a process driven by pressures from below for the recognition of local customs or norms. Such a bottom-up perspective elides the questions of “who” promotes these experiments and for “what” reason. In essence, we argue that legal pluralism should not be judged by its own terms, but rather understood as a technology of jurisprudence that provides templates for institutional entrepreneurs such as transnational agencies as they develop novel institutions of legal governance. This essay is a first cut at analyzing the emergence of legal pluralism as a regulatory project within the field of “law and development.” The term regulation is extensively used here to describe the system of rules and standards governing the conduct of agents or organizations. Regulatory projects grounded in the theory and practice of legal pluralism are attempts to steer “rule of law” programs via the incorporation of private or civic actors within institutional hybrids. These projects carve out spaces of legal governance that lead to the juridification of civic or customary legal regimes. Using customary regimes – often around reinvented customary practices – has resonance with regimes of legal governance in the late colonial state (Mamdani 1996). A regulatory focus places the accent on those new institutional forms through which localized legal and social norms are given recognition and authority in seeking to implement the rule of law. Institutions, not the diversity of legal culture, need to be at center stage in the study of legal pluralism. Within a law and development context, we need to ask why legal pluralism has become such an important question for many transnational actors and organizations involved with legal and governance reform? Proceeding from this question – rather than from the usual question, “What is legal pluralism?” – allows us to problematize rule of law projects as forms of institutional bricolage, that is, the conscious attempt of actors to weave new institutional forms by drawing on past social and cultural practices. More than that, the diverse institutional experiments subsumed under the label of legal pluralism are not a product of the purely “local” circumstances and norms, but rather stand at the intersection of the local and transnational legal order.

This paper focuses on diplomatic training as a site for exploring the tensions in late colonialism around sovereignty and self-government. Training for the diplomats of soon to be independent states was understood by imperial governments as an ambiguous issue in this period immediately pre-independence: it offered the potential for the former metropole to sustain power and influence within a rapidly changing world, whilst at the same time challenging the very foundations of imperialism by empowering the diplomats of soon to be independent African states. Drawing on archives in France, the UK, and the US, as well as a newly recorded oral history interview with one of the first cohort of Ghanaian trainees, we focus on the development of diplomatic training from ad hoc responses to requests to a more formalised programmes provided by imperial powers and the United States, and tensions and competition between providers and over the content of the courses. We focus primarily on the Gold Coast/Ghana, contextualised within wider experiences of African colonies in both the British and French empires. We demonstrate that training for diplomats provides novel insights into the temporalities, spatialities, and agency that characterised the late colonial state.