Jack Harrington | Chatham House (original) (raw)
Books by Jack Harrington
Modern citizenship in the west has been shaped by the history of empire as much as that of the na... more Modern citizenship in the west has been shaped by the history of empire as much as that of the nation state. So much of what citizenship involves in national contexts such as those of Britain and France can only be fully understood through histories that fully integrate colonial experience. Many features of citizenship as an institution owe their formation to colonial government. These include the designation of certain groups within a state as minorities; the assertion of citizenship rights by new migrant populations; the recurrent withdrawal of fundamental rights from particular groups; the conferral of supranational citizenship rights and the history of ‘western liberalism’ in postcolonial nations. These complex phenomena are central to contemporary citizenship. Yet, normative models of citizenship still rely largely on national histories and on a repertoire of rights, obligations and actions derived from a narrowly rendered Euro-American historical experience. This is true of much scholarship about the history of such ‘western’ institutions in post-colonial societies. To describe citizenship, for example, as a kind of import or imposition is to underplay the extent to which aspects of citizenship owe their origins to colonial rule. European colonial domination was an integral aspect of the formation of citizenship as understood in the west.
The half century between 1783 and 1833 witnessed the creation of British India. Through his writi... more The half century between 1783 and 1833 witnessed the creation of British India. Through his writings, the leading East India Company servant, Sir John Malcolm helped to shape the historical thought of British empire-building in India. Comparing Malcolm with contemporaries such as James Mill, this book uses his works to examine the intellectual history of British expansion in South Asia, shedding light upon the history of orientalism, the origins of indirect rule and the formation of British power in southern and western India. It presents Malcolm as one of the most prolific and influential imperial ideologues of the century before the Indian Uprising of 1857.
Articles by Jack Harrington
Citizenship after Orientalism, 2015
This chapter explores empire as a historical context for understanding what activities are deemed... more This chapter explores empire as a historical context for understanding what activities are deemed to constitute citizenship and by what characteristics or identities it is supposed to be conferred. It broadly examines the ways in which such ideas were applied through the government of societies under imperial rule with reference to British India and French Algeria between the 1830s and mid-twentieth-century independence. These are not simply sig-nificant examples. They represent the most widely discussed and theorized sites of British and French imperial control. The historical contingency of these two sites has shaped differences and similarities between Anglophone and Francophone critiques of the effects of colonialism and orientalism on the postcolonial subject. The problem of inclusion and exclusion inherent to political theory of citizenship must therefore be analysed in terms of the complex and conflicting interplay between national and imperial histories rather than treating them as separate or even opposite trajectories. The apparent novelty of the concept of imperial rather than national citizenship is simply one example of the way mainstream Western political theory has both been shaped in the context of extra-European expansion and, at the same time, failed to acknowledge the extent or full consequences of this connection. This chapter is intended as a historical contribution to the question of what the political theory of citizenship after orientalism might look like.
Modern citizenship, with its exclusions and disaggregated freedoms, has a distinct genealogy in t... more Modern citizenship, with its exclusions and disaggregated freedoms, has a distinct genealogy in the state-formation of settler societies. Ethnic tensions and indigenous rights-claiming in many Anglophone states are frequently traced to their beginnings as settler societies. This is not only a legacy of the rights-claiming discourses of settlers, traced in individual national histories. It owes much to the formal body of literature that justified settler states not primarily as the embodiment of a nation but for the government of transnational populations. Using the writings of Edward Gibbon Wakefield and his contemporaries, this article examines the settler as a problem in British liberal thought. Wakefield’s unease about the settler as a political subject drew together three contemporary discourses, the critique of American society, post-Malthus thinking on poverty and the systematic colonization movement. For Wakefield, settler societies could only prosper through central planning, surveillance, and land price fixing, leading to class formation.
Routledge Handbook of Global Citizenship Studies
Nineteenth-Century Prose, Vol. 33, No. 2 , 2006
The half-century after 1780 witnessed profound changes in British thought about the political sub... more The half-century after 1780 witnessed profound changes in British thought about the political subject, the non-European world and empire. The French and American revolutions and the steady growth of imperial power in India provided the British contexts for the formation of what can be called ‘political orientalism’. Using the example of James Mill (1773–1836), a prominent radical reformer and theorist of empire, this article explores how political orientalism developed within a liberal framework as a means of advocating imperial dominion as a tool of social and political improvement.
Recorded Seminar Presentations by Jack Harrington
Book Reviews by Jack Harrington
The Journal of Imperial and Commonwealth History
Thesis by Jack Harrington
Modern citizenship in the west has been shaped by the history of empire as much as that of the na... more Modern citizenship in the west has been shaped by the history of empire as much as that of the nation state. So much of what citizenship involves in national contexts such as those of Britain and France can only be fully understood through histories that fully integrate colonial experience. Many features of citizenship as an institution owe their formation to colonial government. These include the designation of certain groups within a state as minorities; the assertion of citizenship rights by new migrant populations; the recurrent withdrawal of fundamental rights from particular groups; the conferral of supranational citizenship rights and the history of ‘western liberalism’ in postcolonial nations. These complex phenomena are central to contemporary citizenship. Yet, normative models of citizenship still rely largely on national histories and on a repertoire of rights, obligations and actions derived from a narrowly rendered Euro-American historical experience. This is true of much scholarship about the history of such ‘western’ institutions in post-colonial societies. To describe citizenship, for example, as a kind of import or imposition is to underplay the extent to which aspects of citizenship owe their origins to colonial rule. European colonial domination was an integral aspect of the formation of citizenship as understood in the west.
The half century between 1783 and 1833 witnessed the creation of British India. Through his writi... more The half century between 1783 and 1833 witnessed the creation of British India. Through his writings, the leading East India Company servant, Sir John Malcolm helped to shape the historical thought of British empire-building in India. Comparing Malcolm with contemporaries such as James Mill, this book uses his works to examine the intellectual history of British expansion in South Asia, shedding light upon the history of orientalism, the origins of indirect rule and the formation of British power in southern and western India. It presents Malcolm as one of the most prolific and influential imperial ideologues of the century before the Indian Uprising of 1857.
Citizenship after Orientalism, 2015
This chapter explores empire as a historical context for understanding what activities are deemed... more This chapter explores empire as a historical context for understanding what activities are deemed to constitute citizenship and by what characteristics or identities it is supposed to be conferred. It broadly examines the ways in which such ideas were applied through the government of societies under imperial rule with reference to British India and French Algeria between the 1830s and mid-twentieth-century independence. These are not simply sig-nificant examples. They represent the most widely discussed and theorized sites of British and French imperial control. The historical contingency of these two sites has shaped differences and similarities between Anglophone and Francophone critiques of the effects of colonialism and orientalism on the postcolonial subject. The problem of inclusion and exclusion inherent to political theory of citizenship must therefore be analysed in terms of the complex and conflicting interplay between national and imperial histories rather than treating them as separate or even opposite trajectories. The apparent novelty of the concept of imperial rather than national citizenship is simply one example of the way mainstream Western political theory has both been shaped in the context of extra-European expansion and, at the same time, failed to acknowledge the extent or full consequences of this connection. This chapter is intended as a historical contribution to the question of what the political theory of citizenship after orientalism might look like.
Modern citizenship, with its exclusions and disaggregated freedoms, has a distinct genealogy in t... more Modern citizenship, with its exclusions and disaggregated freedoms, has a distinct genealogy in the state-formation of settler societies. Ethnic tensions and indigenous rights-claiming in many Anglophone states are frequently traced to their beginnings as settler societies. This is not only a legacy of the rights-claiming discourses of settlers, traced in individual national histories. It owes much to the formal body of literature that justified settler states not primarily as the embodiment of a nation but for the government of transnational populations. Using the writings of Edward Gibbon Wakefield and his contemporaries, this article examines the settler as a problem in British liberal thought. Wakefield’s unease about the settler as a political subject drew together three contemporary discourses, the critique of American society, post-Malthus thinking on poverty and the systematic colonization movement. For Wakefield, settler societies could only prosper through central planning, surveillance, and land price fixing, leading to class formation.
Routledge Handbook of Global Citizenship Studies
Nineteenth-Century Prose, Vol. 33, No. 2 , 2006
The half-century after 1780 witnessed profound changes in British thought about the political sub... more The half-century after 1780 witnessed profound changes in British thought about the political subject, the non-European world and empire. The French and American revolutions and the steady growth of imperial power in India provided the British contexts for the formation of what can be called ‘political orientalism’. Using the example of James Mill (1773–1836), a prominent radical reformer and theorist of empire, this article explores how political orientalism developed within a liberal framework as a means of advocating imperial dominion as a tool of social and political improvement.
The Journal of Imperial and Commonwealth History