week 6 - colonial and post-colonial politics Flashcards
Liberalism and Marxism (universalist theories - similarity and uniformity)
- economic change brings social transformation
- with new sets of beliefs and ways of life
- political change toward liberal democracy
- ultimately rendering all parts of the world identical
But convergence has not come about: - capitalism has spread globally, facilitated by globalization
- development has been uneven
- social effects are incomplete - no universalization of the middle or working classes in the global south
- political effects are incomplete - unstable democratization, persistent authoritarianism
Reasons to resist universalist approach
- polities underdeveloped
- digressions along the way
- adjusted accounts required - with the same categories as casual mechanisms
Example: Vladimir Lenin - imperialism as the highest form of capitalism
- Russia as the weak link in the capitalist chain
- the vanguard party will compensate for the weakness of the proletariat
- Mao Zedong: the vanguard party will guide the peasantry, the true revolutionary class
Colonialism
- Europeans didn’t invent it, but they systematize and greatly broaden it
- as made possible by the high capacity of their developing states and economies
- colonialism occurred at different times in different global contexts
- some with no history of contact - the americas
- some with significant history of contact - Asia and Africa
Decolonization (waves)
- national elites absorbed modern theory from colonial metropoles: liberalism, democracy, nationalism, socialism
- helped to generate substantial social unity behind the independence struggle
- prepared to set afoot a new man (Fanon) based on well-elaborated western blueprints
- emphasizing liberal institutions and multi party elected based democracies
- supported by an effective state and well-integrated national community
- with a modern economy grounded on a culture of rationality, science and freedom
Soon after independence, new directions:
- often stunted economic development
- some impressive economic and nation building projects
- but in most cases unsuccessful, or not attempted at all (transformation hard to come by)
- a broad turn to authoritarian regimes
- ruling within weak states, and over deeply divided societies
- with modern beliefs remaining primarily at elite level
The post colonial state - major theories
a) liberal modernization theory: with economic and social development would come a strong European-style state
b) huntington: development generates social grievances and demands that exceed the capacity of the state to respond - collapse into praetorianism
c) Marxism: the state would lack autonomy, but would build the required capacity to advance the interests of the bourgeoisie
d) Herbst: war makes states, and so the absence of war leaves states underdeveloped
The colonial impact
a) highly developed repressive apparatus - military, domestic security
b) leaving the other parts of the weak state - fiscal for taxing, administration for effective delivery of programs and services
c) so strong despotic power, minimal infrastructural power
d) reinforcing lingering public suspicion of the legitimacy of the state
e) and during the Cold War, the superpowers care about loyalty not domestic governance
Key result of the post colonial state is neopatrimonial rule
a) defined as the sharing of the fruits of power with a complex network of patron-client relationships- leader, big men, clients
b) leaders rule in their own interests, not that of the public
c) some group benefits but other excluded, further affecting state legitimacy
d) if political parties are too weak to deliver patronage, reliance on prebendalism: provision of executive offices as benefits
e) which creates an enlarged state that is extremely expensive and highly inefficient
f) and weakens the prospects for party based democratization
The post colonial nation
Nationalism integration is extremely challenging
a) colonialism often disregarded national communities in governing, drawing artificial territorial boundaries
b) Neely independent states were deeply divided on multiple bases: ethnicity, language, religion
c) the unity of the independence struggle was temporary - social differences soon reasserted themselves
d) especially amidst neo-patrimonialism - distribution of spoils to existing social groups, reinforcing narrower identities and attachments
e) which are relied upon for the delivery of basic goods and services
The post colonial nation: India’s complexity
a) a great many bases for social division: religion, caste, language, region
b) unlike Africa, some common historical points
c) but differences reinforced by more systematic colonial reliance on categories for subjects: cast, tribe, religion
d) and divide and rule strategies against anti colonial mobilization
e) but there is no easy path to a nation state, although this western inspired aspiration remained in place - perhaps the state could create a nation
f) set against two nation theory: one Hindu and one Muslim nation
g) this was the basis for Partition in 1947 - highly contagious, violent and involving a mass population movement
The post colonial nation: new states, new nations?
a) Pakistan: the Muslim league emphasizes a Muslim nation, pursued through Islamization campaigns
b) India: the Indian national congress imagines a secular nation that transcends religious and other divisions
c) these are seen as the best available materials for nation formation
d) but the attempt exposes tensions and exclusions:
- religious uniformity is lacking in Pakistan, and further partition will come in 1971
- many in India remain frustrated by the emphasis on secularism rather than Hinduism, some minority groups feel disregarded
After effects
- Gandhi is assassinated by an extremist supporter of a Hindu India
- Jawaharal Nehru carries forth a secular and modernizing approach to governing India
- Tudor: the variation in the independence movement shapes the ability of the post Independence Party to broker social compromise; Pakistan’s later start limits its capacity to construct a broad coalition and keep the military at bay
- the congress party gradually yields its dominant status
- with as it’s main rival the Hindu nationalist Baratiya Janata Party
- which channels Hindu nationalism largely through party competition in the Indian democracy
