Nation-building following colonisation: does the existence of “sibling” nation-states matter?

As discussed by Anderson (1991), (de)colonisation sometimes leads to one unique successor nation-state (as for Dutch Indonesia) or sometimes instead to several of them (as for British India or French Indochina). According to historians, it is not necessarily the case that the existence of a common pre-colonial past or a smaller level of heterogeneity of the colony explain why the colony becomes a single nation-state following decolonisation, instead of more than one. For instance, Henley (1995) argues that while both Dutch Indonesia and French Indochina were heterogeneous and neither of them had a pre-colonial unified history, the extent to which Javanese and Vietnamese nationalism developed in respectively Indonesia and Indochina was different partly due to the different colonisation strategies of the Dutch and the French.

Instead, alternative mechanisms explaining the outcome have been proposed, such as the interaction of the coloniser with the different local elites, whose importance has been underlined by for instance Breuilly (1993) and Tudor (2013) for British India. Following Hauk and Ortega (2022)’s modelling of Gellner (1984)’s theory relating education and nation-building, Hauk and Ortega (2024) develop a mathematical model that relates the coloniser’s choice of the elite(s) that get educated to the observed outcome in terms of the likelihood for decolonisation to take place and the existence of one or several successor nation-states.

The PhD project will be focused in understanding if, how and the extent to which nation-states born out of a unique colony (such as for instance Indonesia) differ from those who are born together with a series “sibling” nation-states (such as for instance Pakistan, Bangladesh and India), while recognising at the same time the importance of historical contexts and trying to avoid a Eurocentric definition of the origins and characteristics of nationalism –see for instance Ichijo (2020). The methodology for conducting this PhD is flexible and can be a combination of mathematical modelling, cross-country analysis and/or comparative qualitative analysis depending on the background of the PhD student.

Funding

The faculty has been committed to supporting all postgraduate research students, for example by helping to fund conference attendance. We hope to continue with such funding initiatives in the future.

Applications

Applications accepted all year round. Intakes are in October 2024 and March 2025

How to apply for a research degree (PhD, Professional Doctorate, MPhil, MA/MSc by Research) – Kingston University London