Precolonial elites and colonial redistribution of political power

Spencer Hartnett, Allison and Saleh, Mohamed ORCID: 0000-0002-2403-9300 (2024) Precolonial elites and colonial redistribution of political power. American Political Science Review. ISSN 1537-5943 (In Press)

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Abstract

Studies of colonialism often associate indirect colonial rule with continuity of the precolonial institutions. Yet, we know less about how colonialism affected the distribution of power between precolonial domestic elites within nominally continuous institutions. We argue that colonial authorities will redistribute power toward elites that are the most congruent with the colonizer’s objectives. We test our theory on the British occupation of Egypt in 1882. Using an original dataset on members of the Egyptian parliament and a difference-in-differences empirical strategy, we show that the colonial authorities shifted parliamentary representation toward the (congruent) landed elite and away from the (oppositional) rural middle class. This shift was greater in cotton-producing provinces which were more exposed to colonial economic interest. Our results demonstrate that the colonial redistribution of power within precolonial institutions can re-engineer the socialstructural fabric of colonized societies.

Item Type:	Article
Additional Information:	© 2024
Divisions:	Economic History
Subjects:	J Political Science D History General and Old World > D History (General)
Date Deposited:	07 Nov 2024 11:06
Last Modified:	07 Nov 2024 11:06
URI:	http://eprints.lse.ac.uk/id/eprint/125972

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