Jack Snyder Empire: a blunt tool for democratization On its face, using military occupation this bandwagon. Historian Niall Fergu- as a tool to promote democratization is son, in a colorful collection of stories about as intuitive as forcing people to that ends with a paean to empire, con- take a self-improvement class to learn tends that “without the influence of how to be more spontaneous. And yet British imperial rule, it is hard to believe the two most recent U.S. administra- that the institutions of parliamentary tions, though on opposite ends of the democracy would have been adopted by political spectrum, have used America’s the majority of states in the world, as might to try to advance the cause of de- they are today.”2 Indeed, most of the mocracy in Iraq, Bosnia, Kosovo, and, at postcolonial states that have remained least nominally, Afghanistan. The Bush almost continuously democratic since administration’s major statement of its independence, such as India and some strategic policy, known mainly for its West Indian island states, are former justi½cation of preventive war, dwells British possessions. Still, as Ferguson on the need to “shift the balance of pow- acknowledges, many former British col- er in favor of freedom.”1 onies have failed to achieve democratic Scholars and public intellectuals have stability: Pakistan and Nigeria oscillate played a prominent role as drummers on between chaotic elected regimes and military dictatorships; Sri Lanka has held elections that stoked the ½res of Jack Snyder is the Robert and Renée Belfer Profes- ethnic conflict; Malaysia has averted sor of International Relations in the political sci- ethnic conflict only by limiting democ- ence department and the Institute of War and racy; Singapore is stuck in a pattern of Peace Studies at Columbia University. His books stable but noncompetitive electoral poli- include “The Ideology of the Offensive: Mili- tics; Kenya is emerging from a long in- tary Decision Making and the Disasters of 1914” terlude of one-party rule; and Iraq in the (1984), “Myths of Empire: Domestic Politics and late 1940s flirted with electoral politics International Ambition” (1991), and “From Vot- that played into the hands of violent rad- ing to Violence: Democratization and Nationalist Conflict” (2000). He has been a Fellow of the 1 Of½ce of the President, “National Security Strategy of the United States,” September 2002, American Academy since 1999. <www.whitehouse.gov/nsc/nss.html>. © 2005 by the American Academy of Arts 2 Niall Ferguson, Empire: How Britain Made the & Sciences Modern World (London: Allen Lane, 2003), 358. 58 Dædalus Spring 2005 Downloaded from http://www.mitpressjournals.org/doi/pdf/10.1162/0011526053887356 by guest on 03 October 2021 icals. The list continues with even more tion: a competent civil service; impartial Empire: a blunt parlous cases, from Burma to Zimbabwe. courts and police that can implement tool for Despite this mixed track record, it is the rule of law; independent, profession- democra- worth looking back on imperial Brit- alized news media; and the rest. Even tization ain’s strategies, successes, and failures when these institutions are well estab- in attempting to prepare its far-flung lished, outcomes may not conform to possessions for democratic self-govern- the empire’s wishes, because the self- ment. From the 1920s onward, the Brit- determining people may have their own ish undertook systematic efforts to write ideas and interests that diverge from the transitional democratic constitutions for empire’s. countries they expected would soon be When democratic institutions are on- self-governing. At the same time, they ly partially formed, as is commonly the devised political, economic, administra- case at the moment of decolonization, tive, and cultural strategies to facilitate the problem is much worse. Transition- this transition. al regimes typically face a gap between In other words, they attempted rough- high demand for mass political partici- ly what the United States and the United pation and weak institutions to integrate Nations have been trying to accomplish society’s conflicting needs.3 The imperi- on a shorter timetable in Iraq, Bosnia, al power may have put in place some of Kosovo, and East Timor. What problems the institutional window dressing of de- and trade-offs they faced in this enter- mocracy, but daily political maneuver- prise help illuminate, at least in a general ing, energized by the devolution of pow- way, the kind of troubles that the democ- er, is shaped more by ties of patronage racy-promoting empire still confronts and ethnicity, and by unregulated oppor- today. tunism, than by democratic processes. To illustrate these processes, I draw on This situation is ripe for the turbulent several examples, particularly those of politics of ethnic particularism, coups, Iraq in the late 1940s, India in the 1930s and rebellions. through the 1940s, Sri Lanka in the 1930s The imperial ruler sometimes imag- through the 1950s, and Malaysia in the ines that politics will take a holiday 1940s through the 1960s. while the democratic system is being es- tablished–that groups contending for Democratization by imperial ½at power will not exploit the weakness of sounds paradoxical, and it is. The impe- transitional arrangements. In Malaya rial power insists not only that the so- shortly after World War II, for example, ciety it rules should become democratic, the British hoped that a battery of social but also that the outcome of democrati- and economic reforms inspired by Fabi- zation should be one that it approves: an socialism would depoliticize class and namely, that the new democracy should ethnic conflicts during democratization. continue to abide by the rules laid down When it turned out that reform inten- by the departing imperial power, should si½ed the expression of competing de- be stable and peaceful, and should main- mands, the British temporarily reverted tain good relations with the former over- to their earlier reliance on indirect rule lord. This is dif½cult enough when the through undemocratic traditional elites empire has actually succeeded in install- 3 Samuel P. Huntington, Political Order in ing the full set of tools the postcolonial Changing Societies (New Haven, Conn.: Yale state will need to make democracy func- University Press, 1968). Dædalus Spring 2005 59 Downloaded from http://www.mitpressjournals.org/doi/pdf/10.1162/0011526053887356 by guest on 03 October 2021 Jack Snyder of the Malay ethnic group. “Colonial in British colonial policy, “one cheerful on 7 imperialism policy,” says historian T. N. Harper, thing in a depressing world.” “The fun- “lurched between authoritarianism and damental objectives [for 1948] in Africa a missionary adherence to the rule of are to foster the emergence of large-scale law.”4 societies, integrated for self-government Imperial strategists of the democratic by effective and democratic political and transition often thought of this simply as economic institutions both national a problem of the speed of reform. A 1960 and local, inspired by a common faith Foreign Of½ce memorandum, for exam- in progress and Western values and ple, stated that the task in East Africa equipped with ef½cient techniques of was “to regulate the pace of political de- production and betterment.”8 The velopment so that it was fast enough to problem, at least at this stage of impe- satisfy the African desire for self-govern- rial stewardship, was not primarily bad ment but not so fast as to jeopardize eco- intentions. Rather, it was the paradox of nomic progress or the security situa- promoting democracy by ½at, which tion.”5 Actually, the problem is far more often required the adoption of politically complex than this. Temporarily putting expedient methods of rule that undercut on the brake, as in the Malayan example, the achievement of the ultimate objec- often involved ruling undemocratically tive of democratic consolidation. through traditional elites or minority ethnic groups in the classic strategy of Attempted democratic transitions are divide and rule. This was not simply a likely to turn violent and to stall short of matter of “freezing colonial societies.”6 democratic consolidation when they are Rather, this process actively created new undertaken in a society that lacks the divisions, altered the political meaning institutions needed to make democracy of traditional identities, and distributed work. Such societies face a gap between power in ways that would complicate rising demands for broad participation subsequent efforts to install a sense of in politics and inadequate institutions to national unity. manage those popular demands. All of Both in public and private, of½cials of this happens at a time when new institu- the Colonial Of½ce sounded well mean- tions of democratic accountability have ing: “the present time [1947] is one of not yet been constructed to replace the unprecedented vigour and imagination” old, divested institutions of imperial authority or traditional rule. 4 T. N. Harper, The End of Empire and the Mak- ing of Malaya (Cambridge: Cambridge Univer- In the absence of routine institutional sity Press, 1999), 378; for other points, see 58, authority, political leaders ½nd they need 75, 82–83. to rule through ideological or charismat- ic appeals. Rallying popular support by 5 Ronald Hyam, “Bureaucracy and ‘Trustee- invoking threats from rival nations or ship’ in Colonial Empire,” in Judith M. Brown and Wm. Roger Louis, eds., The Oxford History ethnic groups is an attractive expedient of the British Empire: The Twentieth Century, vol. 7 Speech by A. Hilton Poynton at the United 4 (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1999), 278, Nations, October 3, 1947, quoted in Hyam, quoting a Foreign Of½ce memorandum by Wil- “Bureaucracy and ‘Trusteeship’ in Colonial liam Gorell Barnes. Empire,” 277. 6 John W. Cell, “Colonial Rule,” in Brown and 8 Colonial Of½ce paper, quoted in Hyam, Louis, eds., The Oxford History of the British Em- “Bureaucracy and ‘Trusteeship’ in Colonial pire: The Twentieth Century.