Direct rule

Abstract: This paper compares economic outcomes across areas in India that were under direct British colonial rule with areas that were under indirect colonial rule. Controlling for selective annexation using a specific policy rule, I find that areas that experienced direct rule have significantly lower levels of access to schools, health centers, and roads in the postcolonial period. I find evidence that the quality of governance in the colonial period has a significant and persistent effect on postcolonial outcomes.

Abstract: n their article 'The Imperialism of Free Trade' 1 Mr Gallagher and Dr Robinson have argued that the British empire of the nineteenth century should be interpreted, not so much in terms of political or constitutional status, as in terms of 'overseas trade, investment, migration and culture', and especially of the first two. Where, and in so far as it was avoidable, Great Britain did not bring the areas which 'received' this expansion under direct rule. 'The usual summing up of the policy of the free trade empire as "trade not rule" should read "trade with informal control if possible; trade with rule where necessary".' But whether or not Great Britain was forced to pass from indirect to direct rule was merely a matter of expedience. There was no difference in kind between 'formal' and 'informal' sway, only a difference of tactics. This economic aggression was the steadfast imperial policy of the nineteenth century, no matter what persons or parties were in office; and the whole process, so far as the middle decades of the nineteenth century at least are concerned, should be named 'The Imperialism of Free Trade'. Such is the argument in substance. All this is a most useful corrective to excessive formalism and constitutionality in imperial studies. But (the present paper argues) it carries us too far in the opposite direction. The assertion that the formal and informal empires constituted 'but variable political functions' and were 'to some extent interchangeable' 2 merely replaces the old conceptual difficulties with new.3 Again, the universality and depersonalization of the thesis is excessive. It did matter from time to time which parties and persons were in power in Britain.

Abstract: This chapter is in three sections; first, an outline of the development of the Irish conflict; second, brief descriptions of the main contemporary parties and interests in conflict; and third, an overview of approaches to managing or resolving the conflict.

Abstract: Introduction - nationality, myth and identity. Part 1 The United Kingdom - crisis and national identity in the 1880s Home Rule, Ulster Unionism and the integrity of the nation 1886-1910 National crisis and the Ulster problem 1910-14 Ulster, war and British nationality 1914-1921 projecting the province - Home Rule, Northern Ireland and Britishness 1921-39 war and national identity - Ulster and Britain 1939-45 Labour, Ulster and British nationality 1945-51 Nationality, modernity and political crisis 1952-72 direct rule - integration and diversity 1972-85 Northern Ireland and the Anglo-Irish Agreement - a question of national integrity 1985-present.