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The Political Economy of Imperialism, Decolonization and Development

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  01 February 2011

Erik Gartzke  and
Dominic Rohner
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Abstract

Nations have historically sought power and prosperity through control of physical space. In recent decades, however, this has largely ceased. Most states that could do so appear relucant, while the weak cannot expand. This article presents a theory of imperialism and decolonization that explains both historic cycles of expansion and decline and the collective demise of the urge to colonize. Technological shocks enable expansion, while rising labour costs and the dynamics of military technology gradually dilute imperial advantage. Simultaneously, economic development leads to a secular decline in payoffs for appropriating land, minerals and capital. Once conquest no longer pays great powers, the systemic imperative to integrate production vertically also becomes archaic.

Type
Research Article
Information
British Journal of Political Science , Volume 41 , Issue 3 , July 2011 , pp. 525 - 556
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 2011

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79 All appendices are available online at: http://www.journals.cambridge.org/jps.

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86 All appendices are available online at: http://www.journals.cambridge.org/jps.

87 See, for example, Kahler, Decolonization in Britain and France; Snyder, Myths of Empire; Strang, David, ‘The Inner Incompatibility of Empire and Nation: Popular Sovereignty and Decolonization’, Sociological Perspectives, 35 (1992), 367–384CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

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93 Economic development results in higher values of αEN, αPN, ρEN, ρPN, which increases xEN, xPN, yEN, yPN, though not necessarily at the same rate. The net effect of democracy thus varies with time and development.

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96 These simplifying assumptions are not critical to the main results of the model.

97 We again focus on the unique interior Nash Equilibrium with , .

98 The following parameter values are used for the solid lines (they are symmetrical for both players): A = 0.16, B = 0.8, KS = 1, ψ = 0.4, , λ = 0.5, DS = 0. For the dotted lines we have A = 0.24.

99 With γ in the denominator, the reaction function (14′) is undefined when γ = 0. It makes sense to treat free trade as an absolute that is only approximated empirically (after multiple World Trade Organization rounds, trade is still not ‘free’).

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108 COW provides military expenditure agues in nominal (current year) British pounds (1816–1913) and US dollars (1914–2000). We used GDP deflators available at EH.net (URL: http://eh.net/hmit/) to obtain constant (2000) dollars. See Johnston, Louis D. and Williamson, Samuel H., Economic History Services (Chicago, 2005)Google Scholar; Officer, Lawrence H., Exchange Rate Between the United States Dollar and the British Pound, 1791–2004 (Chicago, 2004)Google Scholar; Officer, Lawrence H., The Annual Real and Nominal GDP for the United Kingdom, 1086–2004 (Chicago, 2005)Google Scholar. These documents and additional information are available at: http://www.measuringworth.com/index.php.

109 A lowess regression and scatter plot of the military technology variable on GDP per capita reveals the declining marginal relationship that is assumed by the model (plot available from the authors).

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112 Beck, Katz and Tucker, ‘Taking Time Seriously’.

113 We also examined a regression in which we added a quadratic term for fighting technology. Both the linear (−) and exponential (+) fighting technology variables are statistically significant, but the overall effect of the two variables is negative for most values, with coefficients and means as follows: (−58.098 × 0.0190) + (149.924 × 0.0025) = −0.7346.

114 Energy Cons./Pop. and Fighting Technology are moderately correlated (r ≈ 0.3). While linear and squared terms are highly correlated, multicollinearity is not indicated, as the linear terms are statistically insignificant by themselves, the non-linear variables are significant, other variables are unaffected, and theory dictates this specification.

115 A variable coded for the proportion of territories that are colonies (colonies/(colonies + countries)) yields equivalent results.

116 We drop the Colonies variables that are highly collinear with the systemic/hegemonic development variables.

117 All models presented in this analysis have been replicated using iron and steel production in place of the energy consumption variables. In most cases, the iron and steel production variables provide an even better fit than energy consumption. However, the interaction term between iron and steel production and military technology is generally not statistically significant. All results are available from the authors.

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