Lecture 7 – Empire is Coming Home: Decolonisation in Europe Flashcards
Decolonisation in Europe:
1945 = turning point
Ramifications of conflict in Europe that reshapes and reconstructs Europe
Loss of European empires
Empire in the European Context:
Britain, France, Spain and Belgium – prominent global players through colonies – Western powers
Empire common theme and feature of European experience
Empire: “rule by a particular group in a political centre over a diverse and different set of other, often distant countries and peoples, generally as a result of military conquest”
European experience in global perspective
20th C Europe = end of empire and the final emergence of the nation state
Global empires in 1914:
on the eve of the first world war, most of the world was under imperial systems of rule
Global empires in 1938:
WW1 marked end of Austro-Hungarian and Ottoman empire, but inter war period saw expansion
Global empires in 1959:
winds of change blew through the post-war world – only soviet empire
Global empires in 1974:
with Britain and France now committed to the European project, only Portugal retained significant overseas presence
Empire as a normative theme in European history:
‘Imperialism’ – tends to imply building empire by taking in more territory, incorporate territory, subject people of empire become part of power
‘Colonialism’
Ends of Empire, 1900-1945:
World War One and the end of the Ottoman Empire, Russian, German and Austro-Hungarian empires
World War Two as the end of the Nazi, Italian fascist and Japanese empires
Ends of empire, 1945-1989:
End of the sea-based empires that had grown from the 15th C onwards, British, Dutch, French, Belgian, Spanish, Portuguese – Rise of Asian power
1989 – end of the Soviet empire
Forms of US imperialism
EU as a new expression of transnational forms of power – also an empire?
Explaining decolonisation after 1945:
Why keep an empire?
Empire facet of political identities
“It won us the war” – encouraged US to join war as became a global war
A place among the victors – gave winners a say as to how the world was structured, empire gives them weight, force and influence – contradictory as fought war against barbarianism yet run colonies with similar parallels
Justifying colonial rule: order, stability and the “colonial family”
Raw materials and strategic value
The colonial lobby: settlers, business, civilisation – builds a positive narrative – colonial entrenchment
“The second colonial occupation” (welfare colonialism)
Doctrine of civilisation
Empire keeps nations prominent and worthwhile investment
Why did empires end?
‘Domestic’ factors
Loss of European prestige, perceptions of invincibility as defeated in war
o Defeated in war
o European barbarity – Holocaust – organised and planned genocide
Loss of European Will
o Strategic re-focus – periphery back to the centre
o ‘Wind of change’ – inevitable historical change
Why did empires end?
Contextual factors
The Cold War: anti-imperial superpowers
o The Atlantic Charter 1941
o Suez 1956 - Britain and France – fail without power of US
o Backing for nationalist movements – Soviet Union
US/USSR as substitute imperial powers?
Why did empires end?
‘Subject’ factors
New ‘third world’ alignments o The UN as a new forum o The non-aligned movement – those that don’t take sides in the Cold War – dominant term in the 1950s and 1960s New forms of agency o Colonial elites o Revolutionary nationalism – Fanon o Pose significant challenges o New coloniser-colonised transactions
How did empires end?
‘Orderly’ transitions
Britain in India, the Caribbean, East Africa
France in West Africa, Tunisia, Morocco
How did empires end?
Violent transitions
Dutch in Indonesia
France in Indochina, Algeria
Portugal in South West Africa
