Liberalism and the problem of colonial rule : three-stages in Anglo-American thought

• Main Author: Campbell, Craig Grant
• Other Authors: Nash, Andrew
• Format: Dissertation
• Language: English
• Published: University of Cape Town 2015
• Subjects: International Relations
• Online Access: http://hdl.handle.net/11427/11861

Includes bibliographical references (leaves 57-61). === From as early as the 15th century when European explorers rounded the tip of Africa in search of trade routes to the East, until the early twentieth century, the West, through the territorial expansion of empire, established itself as the dominant authority within the global political order. Ideologically inspired conflicts in the first half of the twentieth century, Cold War tensions and the process of decolonization, however, resulted in a fundamental change in the nature of this power and global influence, and led to the construction of a new global order that had never existed before. After centuries of being structured around the power of a few European countries with colonial subjects, the post-colonial order was based on formal equality between states, where the notion of territorial expansion and paternal rule were no longer accepted practices. Instead, power within the international system was determined by economic competition and the notion of 'civilization' was replaced by the ideal of economic development, predominantly through the forces of the international capitalist system. The aim of the following chapters is to highlight the dominant discourse of the AngloAmerican liberal tradition within the context of the changing global order, and argue, more specifically, that the process of decolonization can be used as a lens through which changes reflecting how the 'liberal task' was conceived within Anglo-American political thought, can be traced. Furthermore, it aims to show that Anglo-American political philosophy in the postcolonial era can understood as a part of a larger historical process. dating back to the work John Stuart Mill in the early nineteenth century. By contrasting the liberalisms of Mill, the British Idealists and Isaiah Berlin, and their responses to the question of colonial rule, this history sheds light on the fundamental impulses of the liberal tradition between the colonial and post-colonial periods. It is widely known that Mill was employed by the East India Company and that the subject of colonial rule, to some extent, informed his liberalism.