Something in this week’s chapter caught my attention
and led me on a train of thought:
“The decentralized structure of the polity (as in
India and the United States, both of which are federal systems) encourages a
dispersion of responsibility. In these cases, lower-level, local state agents (for
example, the municipal authorities) may engage in repression even when
higher-level authorities do not sanction it (consider, for example, police
violence in the USA).”
It reminded me of something mentioned in one of my
other courses, a history course in which we’ve been recently looking at citizenship
and race in Federation Australia and the ‘white Australia policy’. My lecturer
mentioned that citizenship exclusions (based on voting rights etc) in colonies
caused tension as the British government had to keep reminding colonial
governments that regardless of race these people were all British subjects and in
theory were to be given equal rights. Granted, Britain wasn’t itself a
democracy during this period, but my question is if it had been would it
still be able to be considered one when ‘state agents’ like the colonial
governments were engaging in repression and exclusion? We talk in this course a
lot about ‘states’ and I guess I’m just wondering where the boundaries are when
discussing empire instead.
Good point, Kayla - empire does often work in the way you indicate, with wide variation in how component parts treat their populations etc.
ReplyDeleteIn terms of a Britain being considered a democracy while colonies act in contravention of democratic principles, the case of Rhodesia crossed my mind. Britain applied quite heavy pressure to the government of what was then the self-governing colony of Southern Rhodesia to transition to a multi racial democracy in the 1960s. The government of Ian Smith unilaterally declared independence because they didn't want to be forced by Britain to transition. Britain campaigned to make sure Rhodesian was never diplomatically recognized and remained isolated under the Smith government.
ReplyDeleteSo I suppose for me it comes down to action. If a states agents engage in repression then it is a matter of whether the state takes action to support or hinder those agents. Britain was never going to arm groups like ZANLA and ZIPRA but it worked to ensure Rhodesia was almost permanently embargoed.
Nice example, Urien!
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