Political Theory

H09(a) - Colonialism and Empire in the History of Political Thought

Date: Jun 4 | Time: 08:30am to 10:00am | Location:

Chair/Président/Présidente : Maral Biabanpeima (Islamic Azad University)

Discussant/Commentateur/Commentatrice : Erik Cardona-Gomez (SOAS, University of London)

The March of God Through the World: Hegel, State Expansion, and the Postcolonial World: Erich Daniel Luna Jacobs (University of Toronto), Margaret Kohn (University of Toronto)
Abstract: In this paper I inquire into the contemporary plurality of political forms of life from a post-Hegelian perspective. I begin by briefly reconstructing some of the essential commitments of Hegel’s political theory of the modern state and of his philosophy of history, in order to outline a framework with heuristic intent. Such account starts from a conditional, based on Hegel’s international thought: if the modern state operates as a necessary condition to actualize freedom in the modern world, then I will argue that the last two centuries could be comprehended as an unprecedented Hegelian process. It is the story of the expansion and universalization of the modern state, in multiple waves, as it finally becomes the undisputed unit of a global international system. But unlike Hegel, and contra Eurocentric accounts, I also argue that in these waves of state expansion there is not just a mere imitation of a European or Western idea (as in diffusion models of Western norms). Instead, anti-colonial agents have also contributed normatively to the “concept” of the State and its “actualization”. These major “spiritual” contributions can be seen expressed especially in two major changes: the illegitimacy of empire and colonization, and the purpose of sovereignty and the modern state. Finally, I conclude by emphasizing that the main “division” in the postcolonial world is marked especially by the tragic contradiction between state sovereignty and individual rights, and by the difficulty to “actualize” the state in terms of strength and capacity that is responsible to its citizens.

John Stuart Mill as Administrator of Zomia: Chris Barker (The American University in Cairo)
Abstract: John Stuart Mill as Administrator of Zomia This paper redirects focus to criticisms of the rise of administrative power through empire in British India. It focuses not on the North-West Frontier and intelligence operations noted in Hannah Arendt’s Origins of Totalitarianism and Edward Said’s Culture and Imperialism, but liberal administrative practice and the metropolitan management of knowledge and power in JS Mill’s East India Company service in land that James Scott identifies as part of “Zomia” in The Art of Not Being Governed. Here, in what JS Mill calls the “wild hill districts bordering on Upper Assam,” there is an instructive and almost completely overlooked case study of JS Mill’s development of his thesis of imperial administrative power. For Mill, in Considerations on Representative Government, the worth of empire rests decisively on the character of its personnel. This article examines the evidence concerning the personal character and training of imperial officers, and the relations between supposedly ungovernable peoples and between these people and officers who pacify them for a further articulation of this theory of rule over the imagined entity Mill identifies as “India” in published writings such as On Liberty. Mill’s theory of empire is complicated in this article by reversing Mill’s metropolitan perspective. Mill does not seek and find resistant subjects in (as Scott calls the hill people) the “runaway, fugitive, maroon communities who have, over the course of two millennia, been fleeing the oppressions of state-making projects in the Valleys.” When Mill “sees” resistant subjects from his desk in India House, it is in their temporary resistance to misrule and not in justified, structural resistance to power. In terms of a “liberal” renegotiation of subjectivity, Mill is a man of the “valley.” He seeks to domesticate liberalism into a familiar, bourgeois preferemces for order, obedience, city, commerce; and, while Mill may reject the illegal, coercive, and excessive techniques practiced in the “valley” - slavery, conscription, taxes, epidemics, and warfare –he sees no justice in the resistance of the hills. Famously, Mill finds no claim of nationality in local tribal autonomy, and also famously rejects “sulking” Basque hill independence. For Mill, the fugitive status of hill tribes remains theoretically inert and does not call for a renegotiation of state power. This paper examines the presence of the absence of these arguments for indigeneity, difference, and challenges to state power in Mill’s writing to see how the recognition of fugitive statuses might have better achieved the theoretical commitment to diversity and liberty of On Liberty, thus providing a bottom-up retelling of the story of the just rule over civilized peoples over ostensibly uncivilized peoples.

Revisiting Locke and Colonialism: Racism, Capitalism and Decolonization: Barbara Arneil (University of British Columbia)
Abstract: Beginning in the early 90’s, there has been a reckoning amongst historians of political thought on the role played by colonialism and/or imperialism in John Locke’s political theory. In response to these claims, some scholars have countered that Locke’s larger liberal theory is inherently anti-colonialist/imperialist/anti-slavery and thus reject the colonial thesis. Other scholars have extended the analysis through Locke’s role as member of the Board of Trade in the 1690’s arguing he is an imperialist as well as a colonailist. The colonial thesis has also been challenged for not having said enough about capitalism and/or anti-black racism. Finally, recent scholarship on colonialism argues we must center the voices of the colonized in our analysis (Mantena, Getachew). In this paper I respond to these various challenges by revisiting Locke’s theories to reaffirm Locke as colonialist rather than imperialist, and discuss how we might fully incorporate African slavery/anti-black racism and the political economy of proto-capitalism into the original colonial thesis. Finally, in seeking to decolonize political theory and begin with the ideas of the colonized, I examine the life of Apochancana/Opechancanough who, contrary to Locke’s vision of him in the Essay Concerning Human Understanding of assimilation, was a living example of life long resistance to Spanish and English colonization in the Americas.

Montesquieu’s Liberal Empire: Conquest and Doux Commerce: Robert Spadidakis (McGill University), Catherine Lu (McGill University)
Abstract: In the Spirit of the Laws, Montesquieu envisions a peaceful world order in which nations engage in trade as an alternative to enriching themselves through war and conquest. As such, he has been interpreted by some as an anti-imperialist thinker insofar as he criticizes empires for being destructive and despotic. Yet, there is a tension underlying Montesquieu’s so-called anti-imperialism. He criticizes the Spanish for their violent treatment of Indigenous peoples but does not disavow European colonialism altogether. Instead, Montesquieu argues Spanish colonialism was a wasted opportunity to civilize the conquered. Despite his critique of empire, I argue Montesquieu’s aspirations to expand global commerce are interwoven with a defense of liberal imperialism. Montesquieu is less critical of imperialism than he is of empires treating the conquered in a manner that he deems illiberal. Thus, he is a proponent of conquests that he believes will spread civilization, freedom, and prosperity into the Global South; regions that, according to Montesquieu, are entrenched with anarchy and despotism. Insofar as he does not recognize Indigenous peoples as belonging to any recognizable political community, Montesquieu defends the colonization of their lands to spread civilization and expand global commerce. Additionally, he defends European nations engaging in the liberatory conquest of despotisms in the Global South to establish a peaceful global order, marked by international trade. By spreading commerce into these nations, he argues barbarous peoples will develop the gentle mores suitable for a liberal constitution.