Hostname: page-component-78c5997874-lj6df Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-11-19T20:47:47.813Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

Continuity or Change? (In)direct Rule in British and French Colonial Africa

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  19 June 2020

Carl Müller-Crepon
Get access

Abstract

Current political order in Africa is often linked to legacies of colonialism, in particular to legacies of indirect colonial rule. However, evidence about the application of indirect rule is scarce. In this paper I argue that empire-level characteristics interacted with precolonial institutions in shaping the indirectness of local rule. First, British governments ruled more indirectly than French administrations, which followed a comparatively centralized administrative blueprint, came with a transformative republican ideology, and had more administrative resources. Empirically, I find that French colonization led to the demise of the lines of succession of seven out of ten precolonial polities, twice as many as under British rule. Second, precolonial centralization was a crucial prerequisite for indirect rule. Local administrative data from eight British colonies show that British colonizers employed less administrative effort and devolved more power to native authorities where centralized institutions existed. Such a pattern did not exist in French colonies. Together, these findings improve our understanding of the long-term effects of precolonial institutions and draw attention to the interaction of characteristics of dominant and subordinate units in shaping local governance arrangements.

Keywords

Colonialismindirect ruleprecolonial institutionsAfrica
Type
Research Article
Information
International Organization , Volume 74 , Issue 4 , Fall 2020 , pp. 707 - 741
Copyright
Copyright © The IO Foundation 2020

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

Acemoglu, Daron, Chaves, Isaías N., Osafo-Kwaako, Philip, and Robinson, James A.. 2014. Indirect Rule and State Weakness in Africa: Sierra Leone in Comparative Perspective. NBER Working Paper 20092.Google Scholar
Acemoglu, Daron, Reed, Tristan, and Robinson, James A.. 2014. Chiefs: Economic Development and Elite Control of Civil Society in Sierra Leone. Journal of Political Economy 122 (2):319–68.Google Scholar
Achebe, Chinua. 1958. Things Fall Apart. W.W. Norton and Company.Google Scholar
Afigbo, Adiele Eberechukwu. 1972. The Warrant Chiefs: Indirect Rule in Southeastern Nigeria 1891–1929. Longman.Google Scholar
Ali, Merima, Fjeldstad, Odd-Helge, Jiang, Boqian, and Shifa, Abdulaziz B.. 2018. Colonial Legacy, State-building and the Salience of Ethnicity in Sub-saharan Africa. Economic Journal. doi:10.1111/ecoj.12595.Google Scholar
Asiwaju, Anthony I. 1970. The Aleketu of Ketu and the Onimek of Meko: The Changing Status of Two Yoruba Rulers Under French and British Rule. In West African Chiefs. Their Changing Status Under Colonial Rule and Independence, edited by Crowder, Michael and Ikime, Obaro, 134–61. University of Ife Press.Google Scholar
Austin, Gareth. 2008. The “Reversal of Fortune” Thesis and the Compression of History: Perspectives from African and Comparative Economic History. Journal of International Development 20:996–1027.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Baldwin, Kate. 2013. Why Vote with the Chief? Political Connections and Public Goods Provision in Zambia. American Journal of Political Science 57 (4):794–809.Google Scholar
Baldwin, Kate. 2014. When Politicians Cede Control of Resources: Land, Chiefs and Coalition-Building in Africa. Comparative Politics 46 (3):253–71.Google Scholar
Baldwin, Kate. 2016. The Paradox of Traditional Chiefs in Democratic Africa. Cambridge University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Berry, Sara. 1992. Hegemony on a Shoestring: Indirect Rule and Access to Agricultural Land. Africa: Journal of the International African Institute 62 (3):327–55.Google Scholar
Bogdanor, Vernon. 2001. Devolution in the United Kingdom. Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Bolt, Jutta, and Gardner, Leigh. 2018. Tax Compliance Under Indirect Rule in British Africa. AEHN Working Paper 40.Google Scholar
Boone, Catherine. 2003. Political Topographies of the African State. Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Brownlie, Ian. 1979. African Boundaries: A Legal and Diplomatic Encyclopedia. University of California Press.Google Scholar
Bruhn, Miriam, and Gallego, Francisco A.. 2012. Good, Bad, and Ugly Colonial Activities: Do They Matter for Economic Development? Review of Economics and Statistics 94 (2):433–61.Google Scholar
Burbank, Jane, and Cooper, Frederick. 2010. Empires in World History: Power and the Politics of Difference. Princeton University Press.Google Scholar
Cederman, Lars-Erik, Gleditsch, Kristian Skrede, and Buhaug, Halvard. 2013. Inequality, Grievances, and Civil War. Cambridge University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Cogneau, Denis, and Moradi, Alexander. 2014. Borders that Divide: Education and Religion in Ghana and Togo Since Colonial Times. Journal of Economic History 74 (3):694–729.Google Scholar
Cohen, William B. 1971a. Rulers of Empire: the French Colonial Service in Africa. Hoover Institution Press.Google Scholar
Cohen, William B. 1971b. The French Colonial Service in West Africa. In France and Britain in Africa: Imperial Rivalry and Colonial Rule, edited by Gifford, Prosser and Roger Louis, WM., 491–514. Yale University Press.Google Scholar
Conklin, Alice L. 1997. A Mission to Civilize: The Republican Idea of Empire in France and West Africa, 1895–1930. Stanford University Press.Google Scholar
Cooley, Alexander. 2005. Logics of Hierarchy: The Organization of Empires, States, and Military Occupation. Cornell University Press.Google Scholar
Crowder, Michael. 1968. West Africa Under Colonial Rule. Hutchinson.Google Scholar
Crowder, Michael. 1971a. The White Chiefs of Tropical Africa. In Colonialism in Africa, 1870–1960. Volume 2, edited by Duignan, Peter and Gann, L.H., 320–50. Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Crowder, Michael, ed. 1971b. West African Resistance. Hutchinson.Google Scholar
Crowder, Michael, and Ikime, Obaro, eds. 1970. West African Chiefs: Their Changing Status Under Colonial Rule and Independence. University of Ife Press.Google Scholar
De Kadt, Daniel, and Larreguy, Horacio. 2018. Agents of the Regime? Traditional Leaders and Electoral Behavior in South Africa. Journal of Politics 80 (2):382–99.Google Scholar
Depetris-Chauvin, Emilio. 2014. State History and Contemporary Conflict: Evidence from Sub-Saharan Africa. Documentos de Trabajo 475, Instituto de Economia. Pontificia Universidad Católica de Chile.Google Scholar
Englebert, Pierre, Tarango, Stacy, and Carter, Matthew. 2002. Dismemberment and Suffocation: A Contribution to the Debate on African Boundaries. Comparative Political Studies 35 (10):1093–118.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Firmin-Sellers, Kathryn. 2000. Institutions, Context, and Outcomes: Explaining French and British Rule in West Africa. Comparative Politics 32 (3):253–72.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Fisher, Michael H. 1984. Indirect Rule in the British Empire: The Foundations of the Residency System in India (1764–1858). Modern Asian Studies 18 (3):393–428.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO). 2015. Global Agro-Ecological Zones: Crop Suitability Index. Available at Available at <http://gaez.fao.org>..>Google Scholar
Fortes, Meyer, and Evans-Pritchard, Edward E., eds. 1940. African Political Systems. Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Gennaioli, Nicola, and Rainer, Ilia. 2007. The Modern Impact of Precolonial Centralization in Africa. Journal of Economic Growth 12 (3):185–234.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Gerring, John, Ziblatt, Daniel, van Gorp, Johan, and Arévalo, Julián. 2011. An Institutional Theory of Direct and Indirect Rule. World Politics 63 (3):377–433.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Goldewijk, Kees Klein, Beusen, Arthur, and Janssen, Peter. 2010. Long-term Dynamic Modeling of Global Population and Built-up Area in a Spatially Explicit Way: HYDE 3.1. The Holocene 2010 (1):1–9.Google Scholar
Griffiths, Ieuan. 1986. The Scramble for Africa: Inherited Political Boundaries. The Geographical Journal 152 (2):204–16.Google Scholar
Grossman, Guy, and Lewis, Janet I.. 2014. Administrative Unit Proliferation. American Political Science Review 108 (01):196–217.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Grossman, Guy, Pierskalla, Jan H., and Dean, Emma Boswell. 2017. Government Fragmentation and Public Goods Provision. Journal of Politics 79 (3):823–39.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Hailey, William Malcom. 1945. An African Survey: A Study of Problems Arising in Africa South of the Sahara. Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Hechter, Michael. 1975. Internal Colonialism: The Celtic Fringe in British National Development, 1536–1966. Routledge and Kegan Paul.Google Scholar
Hechter, Michael. 2000. Containing Nationalism. Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Henn, Sören. 2018. Complements or Substitutes: State Presence and the Power of Traditional Leaders. Unpublished Working Paper.Google Scholar
Herbst, Jeffrey. 2000. States and Power in Africa. Princeton University Press.Google Scholar
Hicks, Ursula K. 1961. Development from Below: Local Government and Finance in Developing Countries of the Commonwealth. Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Hobson, John M., and Sharman, Jason C.. 2005. The Enduring Place of Hierarchy in World Politics: Tracing the Social Logics of Hierarchy and Political Change. European Journal of International Relations 11 (1):63–98.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Honig, Lauren. 2017. Selecting the State or Choosing the Chief? The Political Determinants of Smallholder Land Titling. World Development 100:94–107.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Hopkins, Anthony G. 1973. An Economic History of West Africa. Longman.Google Scholar
Huillery, Elise. 2009. History Matters: The Long-term Impact of Colonial Public Investments in French West Africa. American Economic Journal: Applied Economics 1 (2):176–215.Google Scholar
Huillery, Elise. 2010. The Impact of European Settlement Within French West Africa: Did Precolonial Prosperous Areas Fall Behind? Journal of African Economies 20 (2):263–311.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Iyer, Lakshmi. 2010. Direct Vs. Indirect Colonial Rule in India: Long-Term Consequences. Review of Economics and Statistics 92 (4):693–713.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Jedwab, Remi, and Moradi, Alexander. 2016. The Permanent Effects of Transportation Revolutions in Poor Countries: Evidence from Africa. Review of Economics and Statistics 98 (2):268–84.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Katzman, Kenneth. 2010. Afghanistan: Post-Taliban Governance, Security, and US Policy. Congressional Research Service.Google Scholar
Kirk-Greene, Anthony Hamilton Millard. 1980. The Thin White Line: The Size of the British Colonial Service in Africa. African Affairs 79 (314):25–44.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Lake, David A. 2009. Hierarchy in International Relations. Cornell University Press.Google Scholar
Lake, David A. 2011. The Domestic Politics of International Hierarchy: Indirect Rule in the American System. SSRN Working Paper 1903565.Google Scholar
Lange, Matthew K. 2009. Lineages of Despotism and Development: British Colonialism and State Power. University of Chicago Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Lange, Matthew, Mahoney, James, and vom Hau, Matthias. 2006. Colonialism and Development: A Comparative Analysis of Spanish and British Colonies. American Journal of Sociology 111 (5):1412–62.Google Scholar
Lankina, Tomila, and Getachew, Lullit. 2012. Mission or Empire, Word or Sword? The Human Capital Legacy in Postcolonial Democratic Development. American Journal of Political Science 56 (2):465–83.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Levi, Margaret. 1988. Of Rule and Revenue. University of California Press.Google Scholar
Lewis, Martin Deming. 1962. One Hundred Million Frenchmen: The “Assimilation” Theory in French Colonial Policy. Comparative Studies in Society and History 4 (2):129–53.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Lugard, Frederick. 1965. The Dual Mandate in British Tropical Africa. Frank Cass.Google Scholar
Mair, Lucy. 1977. Primitive Government: A Study of Traditional Political Systems in Eastern Africa. Scolar Press.Google Scholar
Mamdani, Mahmood. 1996. Citizen and Subject: Contemporary Africa and the Legacy of Late Colonialism. James Currey.Google Scholar
Mattern, Janice Bially, and Zarakol, Ayşe. 2016. Hierarchies in World Politics. International Organization 70 (3):623–54.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
McCauley, John F., and Posner, Daniel N.. 2015. African Borders as Sources of Natural Experiments Promise and Pitfalls. Political Science Research and Methods 3 (2):409–18.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
McNamee, Lachlan. 2019. Indirect Colonial Rule and the Salience of Ethnicity. World Development 122:142–56.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Michalopoulos, Stelios, and Papaioannou, Elias. 2013. Pre-Colonial Ethnic Institutions and Contemporary African Development. Econometrica 81 (1):113–52.Google ScholarPubMed
Miles, William F. S. 1994. Hausaland Divided: Colonialism and Independence in Nigeria and Niger. Cornell University Press.Google Scholar
Monten, Jonathan. 2014. Intervention and State-building: Comparative Lessons from Japan, Iraq, and Afghanistan. The Annals of the American Academy of Political and Social Science 656 (1):173–91.Google Scholar
Murdock, George Peter. 1959. Africa: Its Peoples and Their Culture History. McGraw-Hill Book Company.Google Scholar
Murdock, George Peter. 1967. Ethnographic Atlas. University of Pittsburgh Press.Google Scholar
Nathan, Noah L. 2019. Electoral Consequences of Colonial Invention: Brokers, Chiefs, and Distribution in Northern Ghana. World Politics 71 (3):417–56.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Nexon, Daniel H. 2009. The Struggle for Power in Early Modern Europe: Religious Conflict, Dynastic Empires, and International Change. Princeton University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Nunn, Nathan, and Wantchekon, Leonard. 2011. The Slave Trade and the Origins of Mistrust in Africa. American Economic Review 101 (7):3221–52.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Paine, Jack. 2019. Ethnic Violence in Africa: Destructive Legacies of Pre-Colonial States. International Organization 73 (3):645–83.Google Scholar
Perham, Margery. 1937. Native Administration in Nigeria. Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Ramankutty, Navin, Foley, Jonathan A., Norman, John, and McSweeney, Kevin. 2002. The Global Distribution of Cultivable Lands: Current Patterns and Sensitivity to Possible Climate Change. Global Ecology and Biogeography 11 (5):377–92.Google Scholar
Ranger, Terence. 1997. The Invention of Tradition in Colonial Africa. In Perspectives on Africa: A Reader in Culture, History, and Representation, edited by Grinker, Roy Richard, Lubkemann, Stephen C., and Steiner, Christopher B., 597–612. Wiley-Blackwell.Google Scholar
Reid, Richard J. 2002. Political Power in Pre-colonial Buganda: Economy, Society and Warfare in the Nineteenth Century. James Currey.Google Scholar
Roberts, Stephen H. 1929. The History of French Colonial Policy 1870–1925. Frank Cass.Google Scholar
Roessler, Philip, Pengl, Yannick, Titlow, Kyle, and Marty, Rob. 2018. The Empty Panorama: The Colonial Origins of Spatial Inequality in Africa. Unpublished Working Paper.Google Scholar
Scott, James C. 2017. Against the Grain: A Deep History of the Earliest States. Yale University Press.Google Scholar
Skinner, Elliott P. 1970. The Changing Status of the “Emperor of the Mossi” Under Colonial Rule and Since Independence. In West African Chiefs: Their Changing Status Under Colonial Rule and Independence, edited by Crowder, Michael and Ikime, Obaro, 98–123. University of Ife Press.Google Scholar
Stewart, John. 2006. African States and Rulers. McFarland.Google Scholar
Suret-Canale, Jean. 1988. Essays on African History: From the Slave Trade to Neocolonialism. C. Hurst.Google Scholar
Tignor, Robert L. 1971. Colonial Chiefs in Chiefless Societies. The Journal of Modern African Studies 9 (3):339–59.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Tilly, Charles, ed. 1975. The Formation of Nation States in Western Europe. Princeton University Press.Google Scholar
Tordoff, William. 1968. The Dismemberment and Revival of the Ashanti Confederacy. Journal of British Studies 7 (2):151–68.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
United Kingdom War Office. 1929. Military Report on Nigeria. Volume I. (General). War Office.Google Scholar
Weber, Eugen. 1977. Peasant into Frenchmen. The Modernization of Rural France 1870–1914. Chatto and Windus.Google Scholar
Weber, Max. 1958. The Three Types of Legitimate Rule. Publications in Society and Institutions 4 (1):1–11.Google Scholar
Weiskel, Timothy C. 1980. French Colonial Rule and the Baule People: Resistance and Collaboration, 1889–1911. Clarendon Press.Google Scholar
Wesseling, Hendrik Lodewijk. 1996. Divide and Rule: The Partition of Africa, 1880–1914. Praeger.Google Scholar
Wig, Tore. 2016. Peace from the Past: Pre-colonial Political Institutions and Civil Wars in Africa. Journal of Peace Research 53 (4):509–24.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Wilks, Ivor. 1975. Asante in the Ninetheenth Century: The Structure and Evolution of Political Order. Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Wucherpfennig, Julian, Hunziker, Philipp M., and Cederman, Lars-Erik. 2016. Who Inherits the State? Colonial Rule and Post-Colonial Conflict. American Journal of Political Science 60 (4):882–98.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Young, Crawford. 1994. The African Colonial State in Comparative Perspective. Yale University Press.Google Scholar
Supplementary material: Link

Müller-Crepon Dataset

Dataset

https://doi.org/10.7910/DVN/5DX7DP
Link
Supplementary material: PDF

Müller-Crepon supplementary material

Online Appendix

Download Müller-Crepon supplementary material(PDF)
PDF 10.9 MB