Establishing expansion as a legal right: an analysis of French colonial discourse surrounding protectorate treaties

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Abstract

This essay analyses French literature on protectorates that was published in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. Firstly, I examine French understanding of protectorates with a focus on contrasting views about whether or not a protectorate treaty warrants the intervention of the protector in the internal affairs of the protected. In doing so, I attempt to delineate specific ways legal scholarship engaged with the ideological construction of a supposedly uncivilized other. Then I move on to trace the development of a type of argument employed by the French to justify their colonialism that had to do with protectorate treaties. In the discussion, I explain the particular role the ‘violation’ argument played within French colonial discourse, both in the absence of the ‘territorium nullius’ argument, and in the face of critics of empire. Lastly, I place under scrutiny the relationship between the ‘violation’ argument and the distinction of two kinds of coercion–coercion of a state, and coercion of its representative.

Original languageEnglish
Pages (from-to)811-826
Number of pages16
JournalHistory of European Ideas
Volume46
Issue number6
DOIs
StatePublished - 17 Aug 2020

Keywords

  • coercion
  • excessive contextualization
  • French colonialism
  • Orientalism
  • Protectorate treaties
  • ‘violation’ argument

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