scholarly journals Modern Age empires: colony management principles on the example of Great Britain and France

2020 ◽  
pp. 38-58
Author(s):  
Oleg Lisenkov
Keyword(s):  
Great Britain ◽  
Political Institutions ◽  
Management Policy ◽  
French Empire ◽  
Traditional System ◽  
Imperial Culture ◽  
Colony Management ◽  
Colonial Policy ◽  
Modern Age ◽  
Diversity Preservation

The object of this research is the colonial policy of the two largest European empires of the Modern Age: France and Great Britain. In the course of conquering new lands, these countries faced the problem of managing vast territories and diverse indigenous population. The solution consisted in establishment of effective colonial management systems. The peculiarities of functionality of such systems became the subject of this research. The goal lies in determination of specificity of organization and operation of the systems of colonial management in the British and French Empires from the perspective of their interrelation with cultural factors. The conclusion is made that the British Empire retained the traditional government system on the conquered territories – indirect management. The French Empire either replaced the traditional government institutions with European analogues or included traditional system into their system of management as a lower administrative link – direct management. Comparing the described management system, the author notes the French approach was more resource-intensive and did not allow gaining a large profit. This lead to an assumption that the colonial management policy was affected by both, cultural and economic factors. The scientific novelty consists in examination of the systems of colonial management from the perspective of their interrelation with the imperial strategies that are based on the policy of recognition of population differences. Such strategies could be implemented within the framework of two paradigms: unification (formation of the unified imperial culture and institutions in all subordinated territories), and diversity (preservation on the conquered territories of the local cultural and political institutions). Further on, the examples of India, Africa and other regions would demonstrate that there is a direct link between the indicated British and French imperial strategies and systems of colonial management.

On the issue of the British presence in Egypt: the business of “Thomas Cook and Son” in the assessment of contemporaries (the last third of the 19th century)

2021 ◽  
pp. 224-232
Author(s):  
Anna Y. Vasileva
Keyword(s):  
Great Britain ◽  
19Th Century ◽  
English Language ◽  
Mutual Influence ◽  
Nile Valley ◽  
Civilizing Mission ◽  
Mass Tourism ◽  
Colonial Policy ◽  
History Of ◽  
The 19Th Century

The purpose of the study is to determine how the development of the tourism business of Thomas Cook and Son in the Nile Valley influenced the perception and assessment of contemporaries of the British presence in Egypt at the end of the 19th century. The relevance of the analyzed problem lies in the fact that the study of the history of tourism in the era of New imperialism allows us to supplement our understanding of the representations of the empire and private busi-ness and their mutual influence. It is substantiated that, according to the views of contemporaries, the activities of the company contributed to the creation of conditions for the economic develop-ment of Egypt, opened these territories to the world, providing free movement along the Nile, and contributed to the spread of the English language, making this country more “civilized” in the eyes of Europeans. We conclude that, at the same time, the handbooks of the company broadcasted the achievements of the imperial policy of Great Britain, reinforcing the idea of the positive conse-quences of the British occupation for Egypt. It is concluded that the commercial success of private business became a visible manifestation of the success of the England’s civilizing mission. The research materials can be used to further study the relationship between the development of mass tourism and the colonial policy of Great Britain.

Does Membership Matter?

2014 ◽  
Author(s):  
David P. Auerswald ◽  
Stephen M. Saideman
Keyword(s):  
New Zealand ◽  
Great Britain ◽  
Political Institutions ◽  
Domestic Politics ◽  
Prime Minister ◽  
The Military

This chapter looks at two countries, Australia and New Zealand, that are partners with but not members of NATO. Australia and New Zealand have British-style political institutions, with the key decisions made by the prime minister and his or her minister of defense. The chapter then assesses whether membership in NATO makes a difference. It argues that non-membership can actually be a shield that countries use to deflect harder choices and more responsibilities. Otherwise, the domestic dynamics work like they do in Great Britain or Canada, demonstrating that the military constraints imposed by nations are driven far more by domestic politics than by NATO institutions.

II. Adam Smith's Project of an Empire

1925 ◽  
Vol 1 (3) ◽  
pp. 249-283 ◽  
Author(s):  
E. A. Benians
Keyword(s):  
Great Britain ◽  
British Empire ◽  
Adam Smith ◽  
Natural System ◽  
American Colonies ◽  
Colonial Policy ◽  
The Future ◽  
History Of ◽  
Wealth Of Nations ◽  
General Opinion

It is now nearly one hundred and fifty years since the publication of the Wealth of Nations and the Declaration of American Independence. The two events, closely associated in time, recall each other; for in his famous chapter on colonies Adam Smith predicted, with little apparent regret, the loss of the American colonies, and outlined the project of an empire which he thought could have been preserved and been worth preserving. That chapter, though it did not influence the course of the controversy which called it forth, nor, for a time, the colonial policy of Great Britain, has become, none the less, a landmark in the history of the British Empire. After Adam Smith had written, it was possible to think of colonies in a new way, though it was still not impossible to treat them in the old. The united empire of which he dreamed never became a fact, or even a political programme, but the ideas which he advanced bore their fruit in general opinion, and the spirit in which he wrote was in due course to animate a generation of colonial reformers and to bring forth a new and better colonial policy. Durham and his friends did not advocate Smith's imperial Parliament, the “States General of the British Empire,” and they did advocate imperial control of colonial trade, and not his “natural system of perfect liberty and justice”; but one may believe that the faith in the future of the British Empire which inspires the speeches of Molesworth and Buller, the Report on Canada and the Art of Colonization, owed some of its vitality to the courageous Utopia imagined in the Wealth of Nations.

FRENCH EMPIRE ELITES AND THE POLITICS OF ECONOMIC OBLIGATION IN THE INTERWAR YEARS

2009 ◽  
Vol 52 (4) ◽  
pp. 989-1016 ◽  
Author(s):  
MARTIN THOMAS
Keyword(s):  
The State ◽  
Development Plan ◽  
Popular Front ◽  
Political Elites ◽  
Civilizing Mission ◽  
French Empire ◽  
The Third ◽  
Colonial Policy ◽  
Policy Debates ◽  
Cultural Terms

ABSTRACTThis article considers the changing ways in which French political elites understood imperial obligation in the interwar years. It suggests that the economics of imperial rule and disputes over what could and should be done to develop colonial economies provide the key to understanding both the failure of interwar colonial reforms and the irreversible decline in France's grip over its colonies. In making this case, the article investigates four related colonial policy debates, all variously linked to changing conceptualizations of economic obligation among France's law-makers. The first concerns Albert Sarraut's 1921 empire development plan. The second reviews discussions over the respective obligations of the state and private financiers in regenerating colonial economies during the depression years of the early 1930s. The third debate reassesses policymakers' disputes over colonial industrialization. Finally, the article revisits the apparent failure of the investigative studies of economic and labour reforms conceived by the left-leaning Popular Front in 1936–8. The point is to highlight the extent to which senior political figures clashed over concepts of ‘colonial obligation’ viewed less in the cultural terms of ‘civilizing mission’ than in the material sense of economic outlay.

Woman Suffrage in Parliament: A Test for Cabinet Autocracy

1917 ◽  
Vol 11 (2) ◽  
pp. 284-309 ◽  
Author(s):  
Evans Clark
Keyword(s):  
Great Britain ◽  
Working Class ◽  
Political Theory ◽  
Political Science ◽  
Political Institutions ◽  
Social Group ◽  
Woman Suffrage ◽  
Natural Rights ◽  
Constitutional Theory ◽  
The Individual

The woman suffrage movement in Great Britain has rendered a service for political science of which even its adherents are often unaware. It has brought to a most searching test the prevailing constitutional theory.In these days of psycho-analysis of the individual there should be also some psycho-analysis of political institutions. Political theory, like the pious formulas with which we drape the nudity of our real desires and aspirations, is often at bottom what might be called a highly intellectualized excuse. Political theory is an afterthought: a justification or explanation of the desires and aspirations of the dominant economic and social group. The “divine right of kings” is now a hollow pretension to us. But it was as much a reality to the aristocracy, whose power is explained and excused, as are our own instinctive personal excuses. The “natural rights of man” have proven hardly more substantial,—the great excuse in which the rising commercial classes have ever covered their designs against the aristocracy. And now, at last, in the theory that “labor creates all wealth,” we find the embryo excuse for a growing threat of the working class.

The French Colonial Service and the Issues of Reform, 1944–8

1995 ◽  
Vol 4 (2) ◽  
pp. 153-188 ◽  
Author(s):  
James I. Lewis
Keyword(s):  
Political Parties ◽  
French Empire ◽  
Colonial Era ◽  
Pressure Groups ◽  
Colonial Policy ◽  
Fourth Republic ◽  
French Colonial ◽  
Post War ◽  
New Generation ◽  
Intellectual Elites

The problems of decolonisation in post-Second World War France have attracted renewed attention in recent years. A new generation of historians and political scientists has focused on why it was so difficult for the country's political and intellectual élites to accept the end of empire. This attention to the subjectivity of policy and opinion-makers has added a novel dimension to understanding how and why the end of the colonial era occurred with such difficulty and bloodshed for the French. This new orientation has largely displaced the old ‘Gaullist’ explanation for the failing of France's post-war regime, the Fourth Republic, in colonial policy. The older notion, articulated by General Charles de Gaulle himself during his twelve-year exile from political power between 1946 and 1958, blamed the unstable parliamentary coalitions and governing political parties of the era for the series of crises and disasters in colonial policy faced by a deeply fractured legislative regime. The rapid rise and fall of governments, the turnover of ministers, the constant governmental disputes on a range of questions, it was alleged, was the cause of inconsistent and weak policies incapable of meeting the succession of crises. The newer research, however, has demonstrated that the institutional problems of the Fourth Republic were not the key issue and that the essential problem lay with an inability of élites to recognise, accept and adapt to decolonisation worldwide. It has been shown that, far from having inconsistent or weak policies, the governing cadres of the Fourth Republic shared fundamentally similar concepts and goals in their determination to maintain the integrity of the French Empire. Yet this same historiography has focused on the political parties, pressure groups and shifting political landscape of French colonial policy while largely overlooking an important, though less obvious, player.

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