IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/eee/wdevel/v111y2018icp113-129.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Historical legacies of colonial indirect rule: Princely states and Maoist insurgency in central India

Author

Listed:
  • Mukherjee, Shivaji

Abstract

What are the long term effects of colonial institutions on insurgency? The literature on civil wars has not explored the historical legacies of colonial institutions for insurgency. I address this gap in the literature, by exploiting sub-national variation in the most important internal security threat in the world's largest democracy—the Maoist insurgency in India. Within India, I focus on the crucial case of the Maoist rebels in the tribal state of Chhattisgarh in central India which epitomizes the causal mechanism of indirect rule through native princely states creating enclaves of weak state capacity, low development and tribal grievances due to natural resource exploitation. I test my theory on a new dataset at the sub district level within Chhattisgarh, and use instrumental variable regression to address endogeneity due to selection bias, combined with historical analysis and interview data to demonstrate path dependence. This study demonstrates historical origins of weak state capacity and ethnic grievances due to natural resource exploitation, which are important explanations for civil war onset. It also sets the agenda for further research on other cases where colonial indirect rule creates conditions for insurgency, like the Taliban in FATA in Pakistan, the ethnic insurgencies in Burma's peripheries, and leftist insurgencies in Nepal, Peru and Colombia.

Suggested Citation

  • Mukherjee, Shivaji, 2018. "Historical legacies of colonial indirect rule: Princely states and Maoist insurgency in central India," World Development, Elsevier, vol. 111(C), pages 113-129.
  • Handle: RePEc:eee:wdevel:v:111:y:2018:i:c:p:113-129
    DOI: 10.1016/j.worlddev.2018.06.013
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0305750X18302043
    Download Restriction: Full text for ScienceDirect subscribers only

    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1016/j.worlddev.2018.06.013?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    As the access to this document is restricted, you may want to search for a different version of it.

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Jha, Saumitra & Wilkinson, Steven, 2012. "Does Combat Experience Foster Organizational Skill? Evidence from Ethnic Cleansing during the Partition of South Asia," American Political Science Review, Cambridge University Press, vol. 106(4), pages 883-907, November.
    2. Fearon, James D. & Laitin, David D., 2003. "Ethnicity, Insurgency, and Civil War," American Political Science Review, Cambridge University Press, vol. 97(1), pages 75-90, February.
    3. Lieberman, Evan S., 2005. "Nested Analysis as a Mixed-Method Strategy for Comparative Research," American Political Science Review, Cambridge University Press, vol. 99(3), pages 435-452, August.
    4. Salehyan, Idean & Gleditsch, Kristian Skrede, 2006. "Refugees and the Spread of Civil War," International Organization, Cambridge University Press, vol. 60(2), pages 335-366, April.
    5. Besley, Timothy & Reynal-Querol, Marta, 2014. "The Legacy of Historical Conflict: Evidence from Africa," American Political Science Review, Cambridge University Press, vol. 108(2), pages 319-336, May.
    6. Abhijit Banerjee & Lakshmi Iyer, 2005. "History, Institutions, and Economic Performance: The Legacy of Colonial Land Tenure Systems in India," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 95(4), pages 1190-1213, September.
    7. Sartori, Giovanni, 1970. "Concept Misformation in Comparative Politics," American Political Science Review, Cambridge University Press, vol. 64(4), pages 1033-1053, December.
    8. David M. Drukker & Hua Peng & Ingmar Prucha & Rafal Raciborski, 2013. "Creating and managing spatial-weighting matrices with the spmat command," Stata Journal, StataCorp LP, vol. 13(2), pages 242-286, June.
    9. Joshua D. Angrist & Jörn-Steffen Pischke, 2009. "Mostly Harmless Econometrics: An Empiricist's Companion," Economics Books, Princeton University Press, edition 1, number 8769.
    10. Banerjee, Abhijit & Somanathan, Rohini, 2007. "The political economy of public goods: Some evidence from India," Journal of Development Economics, Elsevier, vol. 82(2), pages 287-314, March.
    11. Stock, James H & Wright, Jonathan H & Yogo, Motohiro, 2002. "A Survey of Weak Instruments and Weak Identification in Generalized Method of Moments," Journal of Business & Economic Statistics, American Statistical Association, vol. 20(4), pages 518-529, October.
    12. Melissa Dell, 2010. "The Persistent Effects of Peru's Mining Mita," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 78(6), pages 1863-1903, November.
    13. Christopher F Baum & Mark E. Schaffer & Steven Stillman, 2007. "Enhanced routines for instrumental variables/generalized method of moments estimation and testing," Stata Journal, StataCorp LP, vol. 7(4), pages 465-506, December.
    14. Boone, Catherine, 2017. "Sons of the Soil Conflict in Africa: Institutional Determinants of Ethnic Conflict Over Land," World Development, Elsevier, vol. 96(C), pages 276-293.
    15. Kristian Hoelscher & Jason Miklian & Krishna Chaitanya Vadlamannati, 2012. "Hearts and mines: A district-level analysis of the Maoist conflict in India," International Area Studies Review, Center for International Area Studies, Hankuk University of Foreign Studies, vol. 15(2), pages 141-160, June.
    16. Lakshmi Iyer, 2010. "Direct versus Indirect Colonial Rule in India: Long-Term Consequences," The Review of Economics and Statistics, MIT Press, vol. 92(4), pages 693-713, November.
    17. Daron Acemoglu & Simon Johnson & James A. Robinson, 2001. "The Colonial Origins of Comparative Development: An Empirical Investigation," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 91(5), pages 1369-1401, December.
    18. Kristian Skrede Gleditsch, 2007. "Transnational Dimensions of Civil War," Journal of Peace Research, Peace Research Institute Oslo, vol. 44(3), pages 293-309, May.
    19. Lange, Matthew, 2009. "Lineages of Despotism and Development," University of Chicago Press Economics Books, University of Chicago Press, number 9780226470702, December.
    20. Lange, Matthew, 2009. "Lineages of Despotism and Development," University of Chicago Press Economics Books, University of Chicago Press, number 9780226470689, December.
    21. Dasgupta, Aditya & Gawande, Kishore & Kapur, Devesh, 2017. "(When) Do Antipoverty Programs Reduce Violence? India's Rural Employment Guarantee and Maoist Conflict," International Organization, Cambridge University Press, vol. 71(3), pages 605-632, July.
    22. Jha, Saumitra & Wilkinson, Steven, 2012. "Veterans, Organizational Skill and Ethnic Cleansing: Evidence from the Partition of South Asia," Research Papers 2092, Stanford University, Graduate School of Business.
    23. Boone, Catherine, 2017. "Sons of the soil conflict in Africa: institutional determinants of ethnic conflict over land," LSE Research Online Documents on Economics 69794, London School of Economics and Political Science, LSE Library.
    24. HÃ¥vard Hegre & Nicholas Sambanis, 2006. "Sensitivity Analysis of Empirical Results on Civil War Onset," Journal of Conflict Resolution, Peace Science Society (International), vol. 50(4), pages 508-535, August.
    25. Gomes, Joseph Flavian, 2015. "The Political Economy of the Maoist Conflict in India: An Empirical Analysis," World Development, Elsevier, vol. 68(C), pages 96-123.
    26. Stathis N. Kalyvas & Matthew Adam Kocher, 2009. "The Dynamics of Violence in Vietnam: An Analysis of the Hamlet Evaluation System (HES)," Journal of Peace Research, Peace Research Institute Oslo, vol. 46(3), pages 335-355, May.
    27. Alexander Lee, 2017. "Redistributive Colonialism: The Long Term Legacy of International Conflict in India," Politics & Society, , vol. 45(2), pages 173-224, June.
    28. Edward Miguel & Shanker Satyanath & Ernest Sergenti, 2004. "Economic Shocks and Civil Conflict: An Instrumental Variables Approach," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 112(4), pages 725-753, August.
    29. David M. Drukker & Ingmar Prucha & Rafal Raciborski, 2013. "A command for estimating spatial-autoregressive models with spatial-autoregressive disturbances and additional endogenous variables," Stata Journal, StataCorp LP, vol. 13(2), pages 287-301, June.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Zhong, Yuchen, 2023. "Does electing criminally accused politicians affect the constituency level Maoist incidents? Evidence from India," Warwick-Monash Economics Student Papers 65, Warwick Monash Economics Student Papers.

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Stelios Michalopoulos & Elias Papaioannou, 2020. "Historical Legacies and African Development," Journal of Economic Literature, American Economic Association, vol. 58(1), pages 53-128, March.
    2. Shivaji Mukherjee, 2018. "Colonial Origins of Maoist Insurgency in India," Journal of Conflict Resolution, Peace Science Society (International), vol. 62(10), pages 2232-2274, November.
    3. Stelios Michalopoulos & Elias Papaioannou, 2016. "The Long-Run Effects of the Scramble for Africa," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 106(7), pages 1802-1848, July.
    4. Christopher Blattman & Edward Miguel, 2010. "Civil War," Journal of Economic Literature, American Economic Association, vol. 48(1), pages 3-57, March.
    5. Christopher Blattman, 2009. "Civil War: A Review of Fifty Years of Research," Working Papers id:2231, eSocialSciences.
    6. Gomes, Joseph Flavian, 2015. "The Political Economy of the Maoist Conflict in India: An Empirical Analysis," World Development, Elsevier, vol. 68(C), pages 96-123.
    7. Silve, Arthur & Verdier, Thierry, 2018. "A theory of regional conflict complexes," Journal of Development Economics, Elsevier, vol. 133(C), pages 434-447.
    8. Depetris-Chauvin, Emilio & Özak, Ömer, 2023. "(De facto) Historical Ethnic Borders and Contemporary Conflict in Africa," MPRA Paper 116868, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    9. Bharadwaj, Prashant & Ali Mirza, Rinchan, 2019. "Displacement and development: Long term impacts of population transfer in India," Explorations in Economic History, Elsevier, vol. 73(C), pages 1-1.
    10. Lee, Alexander & Paine, Jack, 2019. "British colonialism and democracy: Divergent inheritances and diminishing legacies," Journal of Comparative Economics, Elsevier, vol. 47(3), pages 487-503.
    11. Fuchs-Schündeln, N. & Hassan, T.A., 2016. "Natural Experiments in Macroeconomics," Handbook of Macroeconomics, in: J. B. Taylor & Harald Uhlig (ed.), Handbook of Macroeconomics, edition 1, volume 2, chapter 0, pages 923-1012, Elsevier.
    12. Fetzer, Thiemo, 2019. "Can Workfare Programs Moderate Conflict? Evidence from India," The Warwick Economics Research Paper Series (TWERPS) 1220, University of Warwick, Department of Economics.
    13. Thiemo Fetzer, 2020. "Can Workfare Programs Moderate Conflict? Evidence from India," Journal of the European Economic Association, European Economic Association, vol. 18(6), pages 3337-3375.
    14. Martínez, Luis R., 2017. "Transnational insurgents: Evidence from Colombia's FARC at the border with Chávez's Venezuela," Journal of Development Economics, Elsevier, vol. 126(C), pages 138-153.
    15. McNamee, Lachlan, 2019. "Indirect colonial rule and the salience of ethnicity," World Development, Elsevier, vol. 122(C), pages 142-156.
    16. Cemal Eren Arbatlı & Quamrul H. Ashraf & Oded Galor & Marc Klemp, 2020. "Diversity and Conflict," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 88(2), pages 727-797, March.
    17. Carmignani, Fabrizio & Kler, Parvinder, 2016. "The geographical spillover of armed conflict in Sub-Saharan Africa," Economic Systems, Elsevier, vol. 40(1), pages 109-119.
    18. Thiemo Fetzer & Pedro C. L. Souza & Oliver Vanden Eynde & Austin L. Wright, 2021. "Security Transitions," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 111(7), pages 2275-2308, July.
    19. Roberto Ezcurra & Andrés Rodríguez-Pose, 2017. "Does ethnic segregation matter for spatial inequality?," Journal of Economic Geography, Oxford University Press, vol. 17(6), pages 1149-1178.
    20. Focacci, Chiara Natalie & Kovac, Mitja & Spruk, Rok, 2023. "Ethnolinguistic diversity, quality of local public institutions, and firm-level innovation," International Review of Law and Economics, Elsevier, vol. 75(C).

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:eee:wdevel:v:111:y:2018:i:c:p:113-129. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Catherine Liu (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://www.elsevier.com/locate/worlddev .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.