Political Theory of Empire and Imperialism

Pitts, Jennifer

doi:10.1146/annurev.polisci.051508.214538

Cited by 112 publications

(5 citation statements)

References 112 publications

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“…3.Whereas I do not make a systematic distinction between the ‘imperial’ and the ‘colonial’, I take into consideration the expansionist character of the empire as defined by Calhoun et al (2006: 3): ‘a political unit that is large and expansionist (or with memories of an expansionist past) reproducing differentiation and inequity among people it incorporates’ and usually having a ruling centre and a dominated periphery. Another possible term to describe some of these territories/colonies may be ‘annexes’, ‘since failure to incorporate is characteristic of empires’ (Pitts, 2010: 213). To Muldoon (1999: 139, 149), ‘empire’ also suggests ‘a great territorial expanse, inhabited by a wide variety of people’, noting that it was only in the 19th century that the word ‘came into official use in Western Europe’.…”

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confidence: 99%

Redefining the Russian Empire: The turn to liberal imperialism through the letters of Prince Nikolay A. Orlov at the height of the Great Reforms

Filipe

2022

New Perspectives

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Prince Nikolay Alexeyevich Orlov (1827–1885) was an aristocrat, a war hero and a prominent diplomat of the Russian Empire who enjoyed a prestigious position from a very young age. In his correspondence with Grand Duke Nicholas Alexandrovich in the early 1860s, Prince Orlov expounded his views on Russian politics, putting forward his liberal outlook of what the empire ought to be. His most crucial proposals were (i) revising Russian foreign policy and redefining imperial borders (which included solving the ‘Polish Question’); (ii) adopting federalism with local representative institutions based on a notion of ‘legitimate power’; (iii) introducing bottom-up reforms; (iv) abolishing ‘backwards practices’ (in particular, corporal punishment) and (v) guaranteeing civil rights and equality before the law. Based on letters and other writings that remain vastly under-researched in Russia and practically unknown to English-speaking audiences, I analyse Prince Orlov’s correspondence as illustrative of a broader ideological turn to liberal imperialism and contextualise it from Russian and European perspectives. By positing that Russian liberalism was strongly impacted by the successes and shortcomings of the liberal imperialism of the 1860s, I invite the reader to rethink some ideological and chronological boundaries that are routinely taken for granted in discussions regarding liberalism, imperialism and their interconnectedness.

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Redefining the Russian Empire: The turn to liberal imperialism through the letters of Prince Nikolay A. Orlov at the height of the Great Reforms

Filipe

2022

New Perspectives

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“…As the uses of the idea of colonialism multiplied, the theoretical contentions and historical diagnoses that led to its rise became opaque, leading to a protracted uncertainty about its conceptual scope. Insofar as the history of the idea of colonialism has received attention from political theorists and historians, it stemmed from a long-standing debate over its difference from another salient category of modern political life: imperialism (Bell 2016, 211-36;Kumar 2021;Pitts 2010;Said 1993, 9-10). It is usual now to describe the history of European rule over (a great deal of) Asian and African territories as colonial and the movements opposing it as anticolonial.…”

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What Is Colonialism? The Dual Claims of a Twentieth-Century Political Category

SULTAN

2024

Am Polit Sci Rev

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Although a master category of contemporary social and political thought, the conceptual import of colonialism has long been contested. Turning to the political thought of Jawaharlal Nehru, this article reconstructs the surprising, and often surreptitious, intellectual transformations that rendered colonialism into a generic name for European rule over Asia and Africa. It demonstrates how the dual claims of colonialism—a historical reference for the global event of European expansion and a threadbare analytical definition for a particular form of rule—generated a powerful framework in the anticolonial age. While the expanded juridical uses of colonialism in the Cold War era undermined its historical claims, the priority would reverse with its postcolonial re-signification as a shorthand for studying the paradoxes of global modernity. Reframing these debates, this article argues that reflexive navigation between the dual claims of colonialism is key to a capacious appreciation of its historical and normative contentions.

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“…For an excellent overview, seePitts (2010).3 I would like to thank David A. Bateman for helping formulate this point.…”

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An Empire of Development: American Political Thought in Transnational Perspective

ADALET

2024

Am Polit Sci Rev

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This article offers a reconceptualization of US empire by foregrounding a central concept of its theory and practice: development, an ideology and attendant set of material practices that purport to uplift a defined population through political, economic, and social interventions. Because developmental ideology promises benefits and allocates specific roles to different groups, it has worked as a racializing technology, not only defining and assigning clusters of people to hierarchies of different stages but also establishing possibilities, however limited, for movement between these stages. The article demonstrates how developmental ideas and practices have been persistent, if flexible, features across the racialized government of formerly enslaved persons and Native Americans after the Civil War, overseas expansion to the Philippines at the turn of the nineteenth century, and US participation in transnational debates about empire in the early twentieth century and its pursuit of global hegemony after World War II.

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Political Theory of Empire and Imperialism

Cited by 112 publications

References 112 publications

Redefining the Russian Empire: The turn to liberal imperialism through the letters of Prince Nikolay A. Orlov at the height of the Great Reforms

Redefining the Russian Empire: The turn to liberal imperialism through the letters of Prince Nikolay A. Orlov at the height of the Great Reforms

What Is Colonialism? The Dual Claims of a Twentieth-Century Political Category

An Empire of Development: American Political Thought in Transnational Perspective

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