Draft Dodgers and Volunteers: The Origins of Military Recruitment, 1919-1938

• In Event: Colonial Legacies in Africa

Abstract

Why was colonial policy implemented differently across space, and why did these policies meet varied responses from colonized populations? Can spatial variation in policy and policy outcomes be explained by geography and uneven access to economic opportunities, or did precolonial legacies influence policy implementation? This paper explores the origins of colonial policy, drawing from time-series, cross-sectional analyses of new data on responses to military recruitment in Francophone West Africa between 1919 and 1938. By examining the rate of volunteerism for military service, which relates to patterns of elite accommodation and social inequality; and variation in absenteeism or “draft dodging” as a measure of administrative control, this article examines not only the spatial dimensions of colonial policy, but also the channels through which precolonial legacies, alongside competing explanations, impacted policy development. The paper demonstrates that precolonial centralization had little impact on outcomes reflecting the reach of the colonial state and patterns of administrative control. Instead, the degree of control and state capacity reflected geographic factors and proximity to borders. Precolonial legacies can only be observed in rates of volunteerism, implying that these legacies were filtered, narrowly, through the influence of certain chiefs on policy implementation. However, these positive results are driven by outcomes in two types of regions: where local elites long avoided conquest in the Sahara, or in acephalous regions, where chiefs were imposed on African societies. Outside areas where elite influence fell at the most extreme ends of the political spectrum, precolonial centralization itself did not leave demonstrable marks on policy outcomes. This paper raises further questions about how and why long-lasting precolonial legacies were channeled through colonial policy, if at all.

Author

• Lindsey Pruett, Cornell University