Alibis of empire: Social theory and the ideologies of late imperial rule

This dissertation explores the intellectual origins and foundations of late imperial ideology of the latter half of the nineteenth century. One the central claims of this study is that the methodology and concepts of social theory as they developed in this period---namely the anthropological model of culture and the archetypical contrast between 'traditional' and 'modern' society---resonated in important ways with new forms of imperial rule that were taking shape with the rapid expansion of European empires throughout Asia and Africa. Late imperialism, in contrast to earlier liberal ideologies of colonial rule (i.e., ones in which the moral justification of rule was premised on the universalist project of civilization), was founded upon a deep skepticism about the possibility that native society could be radically transformed. In place of the transformative aspirations of liberal imperialism, which at its core believed in the possibility of assimilating and modernizing native peoples, a new emphasis on the potentially insurmountable difference between peoples came to the fore. In distancing itself from liberal imperialism, late imperial ideology relied instead upon social theoretic models of native society, both as the displaced site of imperial legitimation and the rubric through which to articulate distinct strategies of ruling native subjects. Social theoretic models of traditional society which emphasized the apolitical, custom-bound, static nature of native/primitive societies were incorporated into the governing logic of late imperial rule. Rather than modernized and assimilated, native cultures and societies would now be patronized under the paternalist hand of the colonial state as they became inserted into the dynamics of imperial power. Thus, social theory provided novel alibis of empire and in this manner came to structure the ideological framework of late imperial rule. The intimate connection between the social theoretic model of traditional society and late imperial ideology emerges in its clearest and most influential articulation in the social and political theory of Henry Maine and, thus, his work figures centrally in this study. And as the progenitor of a distinct and powerful line of imperial administrative philosophy, Maine emerges as a pivotal figure in the intellectual history of empire.