Skip to main content Accessibility help
×
Hostname: page-component-848d4c4894-pjpqr Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-07-07T00:34:09.172Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false

17 - The Unintended Consequences of Bureaucratic ‘Modernization’ in Post–World War II British Africa

from Part IV - From the Age of European Expansion to the End of Empires

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  05 August 2016

Timothy H. Parsons
Affiliation:
Washington University in St Louis
Peter Crooks
Affiliation:
Trinity College, Dublin
Timothy H. Parsons
Affiliation:
Washington University, St Louis
Get access

Summary

Look, young man, if you're going to understand colonial administration, there are two words you will instantly excise from your vocabulary. The first word is ‘bureaucracy’ and the second word is ‘theory’. Without them you'll get on much better.

—J. J. Tawney (Director, Oxford Colonial Records Project) to Bruce Berman

J. J. Tawney's seemingly dismissive statement about administration in British Africa, which he made to a young academic in 1975, was actually quite telling. In offering this blunt advice, Tawney – a former member of the colonial civil service – acknowledged that imperial systems of rule were fundamentally different from the bureaucratic institutions of Western nation states, and he made it clear that the men who ran British Africa did not see themselves as bureaucrats. Max Weber's ideal-type bureaucracy was depersonalized, rational and ordered precisely by regulation. Social scientists often list this kind of efficient bureaucracy as a central characteristic of ‘modernity’, but the administrative systems that the architects of the ‘new’ empires of the 1880s used to govern their African territories met few of Weber's criteria. Until World War II, the primary inspiration for British systems of imperial rule in Africa were the chartered companies of the early modern era, not the Western nation state. Most significantly, the post-war Labour government's attempt to revitalize Britain's African empire by making it more rational and efficient actually accelerated its unexpectedly rapid demise a decade later.

Empire, by strict definition, was the formal, permanent and authoritarian rule of one group of people over another. In hindsight, the great empires of the past appeared omnipotent and stable because they were long lived, but they actually lacked the capacity to govern directly at the local level. This meant that conquerors needed allies from subject populations to assert authority and extract revenue. They had to share power to exert power. Contrary to Weber, bureaucratic inefficiency was thus a virtue in that it made imperial rule more stable by forcing foreign rulers to temper their demands for tribute and labour.

The system of indirect rule, which British administrators developed in India, was an inexpensive pragmatic innovation that allowed a small handful of field officers to govern colonial majorities by enlisting some of them in their own subjugation.

Type
Chapter
Information
Empires and Bureaucracy in World History
From Late Antiquity to the Twentieth Century
, pp. 412 - 434
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Print publication year: 2016

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.)

Save book to Kindle

To save this book to your Kindle, first ensure coreplatform@cambridge.org is added to your Approved Personal Document E-mail List under your Personal Document Settings on the Manage Your Content and Devices page of your Amazon account. Then enter the ‘name’ part of your Kindle email address below. Find out more about saving to your Kindle.

Note you can select to save to either the @free.kindle.com or @kindle.com variations. ‘@free.kindle.com’ emails are free but can only be saved to your device when it is connected to wi-fi. ‘@kindle.com’ emails can be delivered even when you are not connected to wi-fi, but note that service fees apply.

Find out more about the Kindle Personal Document Service.

Available formats
×

Save book to Dropbox

To save content items to your account, please confirm that you agree to abide by our usage policies. If this is the first time you use this feature, you will be asked to authorise Cambridge Core to connect with your account. Find out more about saving content to Dropbox.

Available formats
×

Save book to Google Drive

To save content items to your account, please confirm that you agree to abide by our usage policies. If this is the first time you use this feature, you will be asked to authorise Cambridge Core to connect with your account. Find out more about saving content to Google Drive.

Available formats
×