An Institutional Theory of Direct and Indirect Rule
Author(s)
Gerring, John
Abstract
Most governance arrangements involve spatial units with highly unequal powers, e.g., a feudal monarchy and its principalities, an empire and its colonies, a formal empire and an informal empire or sphere of influence; a national government and its subnational entities, or a regional government and its local entities. In this situation, the dominant unit :A; usually enjoys some choice about how to institutionalize its authority over the subordinate unit :B;. Perhaps the most important element of this choice concerns how much authority should be delegated to the weaker unit. We shall simplify this dimension of governance as a choice between “direct” and “indirect” styles of rule. Why, in some cases, do we find a relatively direct centralized; system of rule and in others a relatively indirect decentralized; system of rule? While many factors impinge upon this choice, we argue that an important and highly persistent factor is the prior level of centralization existing within the subordinate unit. Greater centralization in B is likely to lead to a more indirect form of rule between A and B, all other things being equal. We refer to this as an institutional theory of direct indirect rule. An empirical analysis of this hypothesis is applied to patterns of direct and indirect rule across the British Empire. The paper concludes by discussing additional instances of the phenomena in a variety of settings, illustrating the potential broader applicability of the argument.
