The inner incompatibility of empire and nation: popular sovereignty and decolonization

ABSTRACT: This paper argues that metropolitan political theories and institutions grounded in popular sovereignty help to produce decoloniza-tion. Radical distinctions between metropolis and dependency only arise when communities, and not rulers, are the theoretical source of political authority. Metropoles organized around popular sovereignty tend to legiti-mate peripheral claims to autonomy, and to construct political institutions (most importantly colonial egislatures) that voice such claims. An analysis of Western empires hows that, where political models were based on popu-lar sovereignty (Great Britain, the United States, and France), decoloniza-tion resulted from internal tensions between theory and practice. Where empire was organized around dynastic principles (Spain and Portugal), empires dissolved as a result of external pressures. Dominant global mod-els have additional effects, blurring differences between empires when popu-lar sovereignty iswidely accepted. Along with imperialism, decolonization is one of the most common and basic processes in the Western state system. From Britain's thirteen continental col-onies in 1783 to the Cocos Islands in 1984, most formal dependencies of Western states have become sovereign. Most current member states of the United Na-tions are past dependencies of fellow members. Yet, despite its centrality in the Western world system, decolonization has received little theoretical attention. This inattention is largely due to the tendency to treat Western imperialism as primarily economic, and decolonization as an economically motivated transition from direct exploitation to more veiled dependency. An alternative view of decolonization as a political process is underscored in Strang's (1990) recent cross-national research. That study indicated that arguments drawn from a vari-ety of theoretical perspectives help explain the timing of decolonization. How