Chartering Empire: Private Authority and the Birth of the International System

• In Event: The Emergence and Continuity of Colonialisms: Agency and Domination

Abstract

International relations (IR) scholars often tell generic story about the origins of the European expansion: the Westphalian sovereign state dominated rival polities in Europe and then amassed large empires in Africa, America, and Asia. Yet, these empires were usually built by non-state actors, not by sovereign states. Intercontinental trading companies (ITCs) like the Dutch East India Trading Company, Hudson Bay Company, and German East Africa Company established vast empires in Africa, America, and Asia, and ruled over these empires, not as appendages of sovereign states, but rather as independent political actors—what historians refer to as “company-states.” This article challenge the conventional wisdom that the sovereign state drove European expansion by examining how four ITCs built and maintained their empires: the English East India Company, the Dutch East India company, the North Borneo Company, and the Lüderitz Company.

Understanding the how ITCs established and maintained their empires is of historical and theoretical significance. ITCs were fundamental to the creation of the modern international system. They often served as Europe’s “first-contact” with distant regions, forging diplomatic and commercial relations that transformed the world from a system of disconnected regions into a truly global international system for the first time. Therefore, exploring how ITCs established their empires deepens our understanding of the origins of the modern international system, as well as the historical legacy of colonialism. It also helps inform broader scholarly interest in the emergence of private authority. Early discussions of private authority claimed that globalization expanded private, non-state power in the world, as manifested by the growth in the size and number of private firms, multinational corporations, associations, foundations, transnational advocacy networks, and other non-state actors in the international system. The prevailing view within this literature attributed the emergence of private authority to functional concerns, like the lack of expertise under conditions of increased technological complexity; and to ideological change, namely, the rise of neoliberal economic ideas that undercut the public provision of governance.

The history of ITCs casts doubt on these explanations, suggesting that scholars should also reexamine how the structure of the international system facilitates the emergence of private authority. In particular, I argue that structural holes between regions—gaps in political and economic networks—provided opportunities for ITCs’ authority. As brokers of information and resources, the companies were able to establish and maintain their colonies by acquiring local treaties to colonize peripheral territories, and royal charters that recognized their sovereignty over these colonies. In this way, ITC were able to claim final jurisdiction over vast populations and territories, across every major continent in the world.

In making this argument, I contribute to fundamental questions about the past, present, and future of the modern state system. First, the findings challenge the Westphalian myth that the modern international system emerged in 1648, contributing to critiques that the emergence of this system was long and contested process. However, where previous critiques tend to focus on the slow emergence of territoriality as the basis for political authority in the nineteenth century, I find that the public/private divide was just as important, if not the defining debate of the time. Second, I deepen our understanding of the present-day consequences of empire by distinguishing colonies governed by ITCs from colonies governed by states. The transition from company- to state-rule may help explain differences in colonial and post-colonial socio-political development and ethnic conflict. Finally, I contribute a structural theory of the emergence of private authority. Earlier scholarship identified a relationship between the globalization and private authority, but this research never specified produced testable hypotheses. Nor did it specify the mechanisms linking the expansion of global markets to private, non-state authority. In contrast, I draw on insights from social network analysis to show that companies who fill structural holes—gaps in economic and political networks—have access and control advantages in securing private authority. This framework adds to debates about how new forms of political entrepreneurship, such as private cities and the corporate “colonization” of outer space and cyber space, are redefining political authority in the 21st century.

Author

• Miles Evers, University of Connecticut