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Political Demand Channels in the Processes of American and British Imperial Expansion, 1870–1913

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  18 July 2011

Stephen Cooney
Stephen Cooney
Affiliation:
London School of Economics
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Abstract

Before one can make conclusive statements about the causes of western imperialism, one must comprehend the network of political processes and administrative relations by which expansionist demands were fed into the political systems of imperial powers. The channels followed by demands which led to British and American imperial expansion are mapped through reference to historical studies based on a wide range of primary source materials. Expansionist demand channels are studied within the framework of Easton's concept of the political system, and of linkage theories concerning the relation of national political systems to the extra-societal environment. The British and American systems provide contrasting examples of simple and complex linkage. American expansion can be studied within the simple domestic-international linkage framework developed by contemporary authors; to comprehend the process of British expansion, one must consider the complicating factor of local imperial demands.

Type
Research Article
Information
World Politics , Volume 27 , Issue 2 , January 1975 , pp. 227 - 255
Copyright
Copyright © Trustees of Princeton University 1975

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References

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19 Munro (fn. n), 20–23, contains a good general description of the State Department in this period, from which several of the subsequent points are drawn.

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26 Cf. Bailey (fn. 5), chaps. 26–27.

27 The only presidential election in which imperial expansion was declared a major issue was that of 1900, but it does not appear to have played a decisive role on the outcome. See Bailey, Thomas A., “Was the Presidential Election of 1900 a Mandate on Imperialism?” Mississippi Valley Historical Review, xxiv (June 1937), 43–52CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Tweton, D. Jerome, “Imperialism versus Prosperity in the Election of 1900,” North Dakota Quarterly, xxx (Spring 1962), 50–55Google Scholar; Tompkins, E. Berkeley, Anti-Imperialism in the United States: The Great Debate, 1890–1920 (Philadelphia 1970CrossRefGoogle Scholar), chap. 14; Baron, Harold, “Anti-Imperialism and the Democrats,” Science & Society, xxi (1957), 227Google Scholar–36; Harrington, Fred H., “The Anti-Imperialist Movement in the United States, 1898–1900,” Mississippi Valley Historical Review, xxii (September 1935), 220Google Scholar–30; Welch, Richard E. Jr., “Senator George Frisbie Hoar and the Defeat of Anti-Imperialism, 1898–1900,” Historian, xxvi (May 1964), 370Google Scholar–80.

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44 May (fn. 6), chap. 8. Theodore Roosevelt, incidentally, was a special admirer of the proconsular British administrator and would have liked, above all, to have held such a position himself. H e remained intensely interested in the problems of foreign colonial administrations and aspired to have the United States share in what he considered an uplifting and ennobling endeavor. Burton, David H., “Theodore Roosevelt: Confident Imperialist,” Review of Politics, xxiii (July 1961), 356CrossRefGoogle Scholar–77.

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