Indirect Rule: The Making of US International Hierarchy

By David A. Lake

Indirect Rule examines how states indirectly exercise authority over others and how this mode of rule affects domestic and international politics.

Indirect rule has long characterized interstate relationships and US foreign relations. A key mechanism of international hierarchy, indirect rule involves an allied group within a client state adopting policies preferred by a dominant state in exchange for the dominant state's support. Drawing on the history of US involvement in the Caribbean and Central America, Western Europe, and the Arab Middle East, David A. Lake shows that indirect rule is more likely to occur when the specific assets at risk are large and governance costs are low.

Lake's conceptualization of indirect rule sharpens our understanding of how the United States came to occupy the pinnacle of world power. Yet the consequences of indirect rule he documents—including anti-Americanism—reveal its shortcomings. As US efforts at democracy promotion and other forms of intervention abroad face declining support at home, Indirect Rule compels us to consider whether this method of rule ultimately advances US interests.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Cornell University Press
• Release date: Feb 15, 2024
• ISBN: 9781501773761

Book preview

Indirect Rule

The Making of US International Hierarchy

David A. Lake

Cornell University Press

Ithaca and London

To Amily and Tammy,

who have brought so much joy into my life

Contents

Preface

Introduction

1. Indirect Rule

2. Indirect Rule in the Caribbean and Central America

3. Hierarchy in the Caribbean and Central America

4. Indirect Rule in Western Europe

5. Hierarchy in Western Europe

6. Indirect Rule in the Arab Middle East

7. Hierarchy in the Arab Middle East

Conclusion

Acknowledgments

References

Index

Preface

My earliest political memory is as a small boy of perhaps eight standing in my backyard and thinking of how lucky I was to be an American born in the mid-twentieth century, a citizen of a country that was prosperous beyond historical measure, free and democratic, and esteemed by many around the world. What triggered this thought is now lost, and I will leave to the reader to consider just what an odd child I must have been to be contemplating such things at that age. Nonetheless, the moment has stayed with me.

My next political memory is the Vietnam War protests, seared into my mind by the 1968 Democratic convention in Chicago. One year too young to be drafted, but fully aware of the conflict abroad and at home, I wrestled for the next few years with the harm done by my country in a vain intervention in a faraway land.

My third political memory is coming home from my family’s vacation in August 1971 and watching President Richard Nixon announce in a nationally televised address that the United States was officially ending the convertibility of the dollar into gold—closing the gold window, as it were—a move now interpreted as the beginning of the end of US international leadership.

I have lived almost my entire life, and certainly my entire professional life, with the contradiction between faith in America as a city on a hill, a beacon to others and a source of good in the world, and the knowledge that it has too often been on the wrong side of history, violating its ideals, supporting authoritarian rulers against their own people, and often acting in its narrow self-interest. I acknowledge this contradiction now out of an awareness I did not possess as an eight-year-old, including the privileges afforded me as a white male within American society. On the one hand, I admire the United States, reflected in my repeated scholarly efforts to understand its position and actions in the world through concepts like hegemony and, as here, international hierarchy. I fear the end of the Pax Americana or the liberal international order, as it is now sometimes called, constructed after World War II. On the other hand, I recognize that what we euphemistically call leadership can also manifest as domination and imperialism.

This book reflects my attempt to reconcile these two images of America that have long occupied my thoughts. The resolution I have reached is not particularly kind. It is that the United States and its people are neither inherently good nor bad, neither by nature promoters of democracy nor supporters of vicious dictators, neither by intent leaders nor imperialists. Rather, as a nation, we are opportunists who adapt to local conditions in pursuit of our self-interest through what I will call here indirect rule—our primary mechanism of international influence over the last 125 years. In some rare cases, indirect rule promotes democracy. In others, it sustains authoritarianism. Some might say this makes me a realist, a label that carries little meaning beyond the simple assertion that nations act in their self-interest. Yet, I remain convinced that we can do better for ourselves and others if we understand more fully why and how we conduct ourselves in the world. This is the liberal idealist in me and why I study international politics. We have the potential to do great things, but we can also do great harm to others and ourselves by failing to recognize the sometimes pernicious consequences of international hierarchy and, importantly, indirect rule.

This book does not aim to set a new course for US foreign policy. Indirect rule will long remain a tool of international power for the United States as well as other countries. Rather, I aspire only to excavate a persistent practice that has largely escaped attention by both scholars and policymakers in the United States—and induce a degree of caution in its future pursuit.

Introduction

International influence is frequently exercised indirectly by manipulating the domestic politics of other states. When carried out on a sustained basis, this practice constitutes a form of international hierarchy best described as indirect rule. This mechanism of rule has existed for millennia, from the earliest multicity polities of Mesopotamia to Russia’s near abroad today. It has also been a primary instrument of US international hierarchy for over a century, carried out in relations with countries in the Caribbean and Central America (CCA) in the early twentieth century, Western Europe in the mid-twentieth century, and the Arab Middle East (AME) in the late twentieth and early twenty-first centuries. Though the particulars differ across regions and countries and the political outcomes vary dramatically, the basic model of indirect rule remains similar. Through the lens of US history, this volume examines indirect rule as a method of international hierarchy, outlines its consequences for both domestic and international politics, and assesses how the costs and benefits of indirect rule condition the potential for international hierarchy in the first place.

In indirect rule, the dominant state forms an alliance with the group within the subordinate society whose interests are most closely aligned with its own: landed elites in the Caribbean, conservative parties in Western Europe, and monarchies and military regimes in the Middle East today. It then strengthens the political power of each group through regime guarantees, military and economic support, targeted policy concessions, or other forms of assistance. The now stronger group subsequently enacts foreign policies more favorable to itself and the dominant state—the United States in the cases here—in the face of greater resistance from other domestic groups. In short, the dominant state alters the balance of political power in the subordinate in favor of its like-minded ally at the expense of the domestic opposition. The aid provided to the allied group is not a bribe or bargaining concession. Rather, it is necessary to sustain the ally in power against resistance from the rest of society. In this way, the dominant state and the allied group enter a mutually beneficial, self-interested, and seemingly voluntary relationship. The dominant state depends on the allied group to enact policies it prefers. The allied group depends on the dominant state to keep it in power despite domestic opposition. This mutual dependence ensures that both parties will live up to their policy commitments, obviating problems of credible commitment often found in other types of state-to-state interactions.

Indirect rule, however, also creates incentives for the allied group to act opportunistically against the interests of the dominant state, either exploiting it or entrapping it into conflicts it might otherwise avoid. Especially if its security is guaranteed, the allied group may be willing to take greater political risks than it otherwise would, doing less for its own defense at home or abroad or making greater demands on others. For the United States, this means allies free riding on US defense efforts, a critique leveled against Western European states throughout the Cold War and after, or being drawn into unwanted conflicts, whether these be domestic insurrections in the Caribbean or regional conflicts in the Middle East. To offset these incentives, the dominant state must retain discretion over the aid it provides and impose additional rules on the subordinate, thereby constraining its behaviors and actions. Critical rules imposed by the United States across regions include prohibiting cooperation with other great powers and independent military operations, at least without prior approval from Washington. In the CCA, the rules also extended into financial receiverships. It is here that mutual interests in policy coordination spill over into or, indeed, require international hierarchy. These additional rules are enforced largely by the alternatives of domestic or direct rule. If opportunism becomes too severe, the dominant state can either walk away from the subordinate and allow domestic politics to play out on its own, forfeiting the policy preferred by both it and the allied group, or impose its own policy preferences on the subordinate directly through war and occupation. The more attractive these alternatives are to the dominant state, the less room there is for the subordinate to act opportunistically. Indirect rule thus forms an international hierarchy enforced more or less by the next best alternative.

Indirect rule differs from standard bargaining theories in international relations (IR) in which formally equal and sovereign states coerce or induce others to alter their policies or use institutions to facilitate cooperation under anarchy. It also differs from constructivist accounts of norms structuring the social purposes of states, which in the contemporary world almost always cut against relations of international hierarchy and intervention in the internal affairs of others.¹ Rather, indirect rule is a second face of power mechanism, an institutional or structural form of power that alters the incentives of actors and causes them to behave in ways they otherwise could not or would not choose.²

The Wrong Side of History

Although indirect rule is a common mechanism of international hierarchy used by many countries over many centuries, it has particular relevance for two perennial and related problems of US foreign policy. Indirect rule works, if you will, by inducing policy changes in the subordinate as desired by the dominant country, but it also produces two unintended by-products. These unintended consequences are inherent in all indirect rule. They are particularly problematic in the case of the United States.

First, while committed to democracy and pledged to its promotion abroad, through indirect rule the United States often ends up supporting authoritarian regimes and sometimes dreadful dictators. In all of the cases examined in this volume, the United States espoused support for democracy, but in the CCA (chapter 2) and AME (chapter 6) it has backed elite-based regimes that govern autocratically and repress the political and civil rights of their citizens. While democracy promotion is part of the American creed, practice often departs from principle.³ The theory and evidence presented here explain why.

Under indirect rule, the allied group is rendered better off than otherwise, getting a policy it prefers to all alternatives with the costs borne by the dominant state. All other groups within the subordinate society—as a shorthand, the domestic opposition—always suffer from policies now less favorable to their interests. In equilibrium, assistance from the dominant state allows the allied group to suppress the opposition successfully. Repression is, as programmers would say, not a bug but a feature of indirect rule, though it varies in extent. When the allied group is large relative to society but unsure of its ability to govern against determined minorities, indirect rule is compatible with democracy and regarded as relatively legitimate, as I argue was the case in postwar Western Europe (chapter 4). Key in such cases is helping the allied group win elections, wherein the opposition is then naturally suppressed at the ballot box. But in many other cases, the allied group is a relatively small elite in an already precarious political position. To assist that group in retaining power while adopting policies even more favorable to its interests requires authoritarian rule. When its allies are small elites, however much the dominant state might endorse the principle of democracy, it will acquiesce and even support its elite allies in repressing the majority of society, as in the CCA and AME. Authoritarian powers like Russia or China have fewer qualms about indirect rule than democracies do. If they end up backing small repressive elites, it does not necessarily challenge their own principles nor their legitimacy at home. But for a democratic country like the United States, indirect rule can render it complicit in authoritarian rule and the suppression of human rights. Though the United States can benefit from indirect rule, its backing of authoritarian elites conflicts with its values, opens it to charges of hypocrisy, and renders indirect rule illegitimate in the eyes of many both at home and abroad.

Second, as a result of indirect rule, and especially in those cases where it backs small elites, the United States faces broad-based anti-Americanism and, in extreme cases, violent attacks from terrorist groups. Anti-Americanism befuddles many. Americans, myself included, like to think of their country as a benevolent hegemon—a leader of the free world—that provides an international order that improves the welfare of all, or at least aspires to. That US efforts are not always welcomed or recognized as virtuous often puzzles Americans, as exemplified by President George W. Bush’s famous query after the attacks of 9/11: Why do they hate us? For President Bush, the answer lay in our freedoms.⁴ For others, the answer lies in cultural, religious, or ideological differences—a so-called clash of civilizations.⁵ Without necessarily dismissing these factors, the analysis here suggests an alternative explanation.

As indirect rule reduces its welfare relative to feasible political alternatives, the domestic opposition can be expected to resist not only the now stronger allied group but also the patron—the dominant state—that allows that group to retain power. That is, the opposition will resist not only the local regime, the near enemy, but also the dominant state, the far enemy, a distinction popularized by al-Qaeda to justify its attacks on the United States.⁶ Indeed, knowing that the regime stays in power and can adopt policies that render it worse off only with the support of the dominant state, the opposition will often turn its attention abroad. Even when the dominant state provides enough resources to suppress overt resistance, public attitudes will turn against the dominant state, creating in the case of the United States what is commonly known as anti-Americanism. Indirect rule may also provoke everyday acts of resistance—forms of opposition that are not sufficiently visible or acute to warrant repression but that eat away at the power of the elite and dominant state over time.⁷ In some cases, indirect rule may also force an opposition that sees little hope in addressing its grievances in the face of support from the dominant state to turn violent and direct its anger outward in transnational terrorism. Today, terrorist violence is a near constant threat to the United States because of its role in the AME. While indirect rule can work in the short run by shifting policy in the direction preferred by the United States, it also creates significant blowback in the form of anti-Americanism and, at an extreme, terrorism.⁸

Indirect rule is likely to remain a key mechanism of US international hierarchy now and into the future. A mechanism of rule that has endured for millennia is unlikely to be abandoned any time soon, even when it clashes with democratic values. A longer-term view that recognizes the inherent consequences of indirect rule, however, suggests that at least for some relationships, as Robert Jervis once wrote, the game may not be worth the candle.⁹ I take up this question in the conclusion.

Hierarchy and International Relations

In recent decades, theories of international hierarchy have gained new prominence in the discipline of IR. Hierarchy is an ongoing authority relationship in which a ruler or, in our case, a dominant state, sets and enforces rules for a subordinate society.¹⁰ To rule is to direct members of a subject community to alter their behavior on a continuing basis. Hierarchy is not just an occasional or one-off interaction but an enduring relationship of domination and subordination.

Since the founding of IR, the concept of international anarchy has played a central role in theories of world politics.¹¹ The construct was brought forward in Kenneth Waltz’s third image of international politics and elaborated in his later systemic theory.¹² Waltz did not deny the possibility of hierarchy between states, but in pursuit of parsimony and since it did not apply to relations between great powers he dismissed it as unnecessary or unimportant for a systemic theory of international relations.¹³ Following Waltz, the assumption of anarchy was given pride of place in IR by neoliberals and at least some constructivists, though with very different implications.¹⁴

The assumption that interstate relations are characterized by anarchy eventually came under challenge.¹⁵ To see international hierarchy, or the exercise of authority by one state over another, requires that we move outside theories of international politics as traditionally construed and broaden our understanding of the foundations of rule. The concept of anarchy in standard IR theory is typically rooted in a formal-legal conception of authority. As all states are assumed to possess equal status under international law, in Waltz’s well-known phrase, it follows that none is entitled to command; none is required to obey.¹⁶ Though owing much to Max Weber’s bureaucratic-rational conception of authority, law is only one possible foundation of rule. As Weber himself recognized, authority can be based on charisma (some exceptional quality of the leader), tradition (the way it always has been), or religion (divine right).¹⁷ In IR, some scholars mirror these distinctions in focusing on soft power, great power status and the privileges that are assumed to follow, or manifest destiny and other rights countries claim as inspired by providence.¹⁸ These are all ways of attempting to capture the essence of international hierarchy without violating the widely accepted assumption that relations between states are anarchic.

While departing from the formal-legal conception of anarchy, the emergent literature on international hierarchy is far from unified.¹⁹ Taking a broad conception of hierarchy as any ranked ordering, theorists have identified hierarchies of status (great, middle, and small powers), development (first, third, and fourth worlds), gender (masculinized and feminized states), race (often civilized and uncivilized or failed states), and more.²⁰ Other theorists take a longer view, probing historical systems of hierarchy and in some cases arguing that the post–Cold War international system is better conceptualized as one of US empire than as an anarchy.²¹ This literature posits entire systems of centralized authority, or systems in which one state sets rules and others are expected to comply.

My own contributions to the hierarchy turn in IR have explored how dyadic relations between states vary in levels and types of authority.²² This view acknowledges the current international system is anarchic—there is no world government—but argues that it is a fallacy of division to assume that all relations between states are also anarchic. In this conception and, I would argue, reality, sovereignty is often restricted with dominant states ruling subordinate states in whole or in part. Rather than being anarchic, some—not all, but some—relations between states are characterized by varying degrees of authority.

Without minimizing these alternative conceptions, I ground my understanding of international hierarchy in a relational conception of authority drawn from social contract theory. As a social contract, rule is a bargain between the ruler and ruled, negotiated and renegotiated under the shadow of power. The ruler provides a social order of some benefit to the subordinate society and that society follows the rules of the order. In short, order is exchanged for compliance. Social contract theories, including my prior versions of the theory of international hierarchy, have been criticized for relying on consent by a society to its own subordination.²³ The criticism is not entirely wrong. Yet, hierarchy as I conceive it does not require consent or positive affirmation but is merely an equilibrium in a complex bargaining game. Given appropriate circumstances, the dominant state has incentives to rule and the subordinate society has incentives to comply, and a stable relationship exists when neither has cause to deviate from this set of actions. An equilibrium does not mean that, in some ideal world, the subordinate would desire a hierarchy or that it wants to comply with the rules imposed by the dominant state. Rather, it only implies that given the position in which the parties find themselves, neither the dominant state nor the subordinate society has an incentive to alter its behavior and thus their relationship. They accept hierarchy as a structure—a social fact, some might say—even if they would never choose that relationship entirely on their own. As analysts, our task is to explain when, how, and why this equilibrium is reached.

Many social contract theories, including my own, gloss over the fact that the bargain at the heart of any contract often has strong distributional implications for members of the subordinate society.²⁴ The critique of the voluntarism implicit in social contract theories is (or should be) directed at this oversight. Perhaps escaping from a Hobbesian state of nature—a war of all against all—might benefit everyone, but beyond this rudimentary level the bargains that sustain rule typically benefit some groups in society more than others and may, indeed, harm the welfare of some.²⁵ Rules are always written by someone for some purpose, most often by and for the ruler’s supporters. Thus, rule creates winners and losers, with the former using their political power to support the system from which they benefit and the latter using their (often limited) power to resist, ensuring that rule is always contested and evolving. Although I minimized these distributional implications in my past work on international hierarchy, they form the core of the theory of indirect rule elaborated in this book.

What is missing from all these conceptions of hierarchy—again, including my own—is a theory of process or an understanding of the mechanism by which one state exercises authority over other polities or states. How is it that one state rules others? How is international hierarchy created and maintained? The exercise of international authority is particularly problematic in the modern era when the norm of sovereign equality conflicts with hierarchy in practice. So, the question is, how does the exercise of authority between states actually work? Building from a conception of hierarchy as interstate authority, the answer offered here is indirect rule. That is, dominant states build authority and ensure compliance by promoting allies within subordinate societies that share their interests. But in promoting those allies, dominant states must also aim to control their subsequent actions.

The Theory in Brief

International hierarchy emerges when the interests of the dominant and subordinate states diverge and the dominant state possesses assets that are specific to its relationship with the subordinate. In a condition of closely aligned interests or harmony, hierarchy is not necessary. Likewise, if there are no specific assets at risk, the dominant state has little incentive to pay the costs of governing the subordinate. When the interests of the dominant and subordinate states differ sufficiently, and the policies of the subordinate threaten to reduce the value of assets held by the dominant state, the dominant state has an incentive to rule the subordinate. To put this another way, the greater the divergence of interests and the greater the specific assets, the more the dominant state cares about the policies of the possible subordinate and the more it is willing to pay ensure a favorable outcome.

For simplicity, the theory in chapter 1 assumes there are two groups within the subordinate state, one whose policy interests are opposed to that of the dominant state—the opposition—and a second whose policy preferences are more closely aligned with those of the would-be dominant state—which I will call the allied group or client. When the opposition is powerful domestically, policy will reflect its interests rather than those of the allied group, creating an outcome that is relatively unfavorable to the dominant state. When the allied group is powerful and able to impose its preferences on society, policy will be closer to the preferences of the dominant state. In indirect rule, the dominant state offers the allied group political support in exchange for a more favorable policy. Key to the arrangement is the fact that the allied group cannot achieve its policy objectives on its own given domestic opposition, but with the aid of the dominant state it can successfully adopt a policy closer to its ideal. Aid from the dominant state, in essence, strengthens the political power of the allied group at home, allowing it to shift policy toward its ideal and, not coincidentally, toward that of the dominant state. Aid is most easily conceived as a bundle of resources transferred from the dominant to the subordinate state but can also include guarantees of political survival to the client in the face of resistance from the opposition or policy concessions on other issues. In whatever form, such aid constitutes a governance cost to the dominant state. The lower the governance costs, the more likely indirect rule is and the more favorable the policy adopted by the allied group will be.

The consequences of indirect rule, in turn, vary with the nature of the allied group. When the dominant state rules indirectly through a small elite, the allied group must govern autocratically and repress the rest of society. Both the elite and the dominant state, in this case, will be regarded by the majority of the public as illegitimate. In equilibrium, open revolt will be effectively suppressed, but relations will be plagued by everyday acts of resistance, manifested in the cases examined in this book as anti-Americanism. Conversely, when the majority of a society is more favorable to the policies desired by the dominant state but does not feel entirely confident in its ability to retain power—perhaps because of challenges from an extreme left or right—the dominant state not only can benefit from policies it prefers through indirect rule but can also support democracy at the same time. In so doing, it can earn a measure of legitimacy for its rule, mitigating any backlash and limiting anti-Americanism.

Indirect rule, however, also changes the incentives of the allied group in ways that may impose additional costs on the dominant state. Having strengthened the allied group, and especially if it has guaranteed the regime’s survival, the dominant state may be exploited or entrapped by its ally. Oliver Williamson pithily described such actions as opportunism, which he defined as self-interest seeking with guile.²⁶ The allied group may divert aid from the dominant state to purposes other than those for which it was intended. It may also accept greater risk in its relations with the domestic opposition or other states, confident that the dominant state will eventually have to come to its defense. Opportunism can be contained, in part, if the dominant state retains some discretion over the aid provided to the allied group, though this also weakens the efficacy of its aid in the first place. The dominant state can also impose additional rules on the allied group, such as limiting its ability to negotiate with other great powers, to conduct an independent foreign policy, or even to manage its own finances. These additional rules designed to limit opportunism can often be quite restrictive and may even cause otherwise dependent elites to rail against the domination of their patron. Nonetheless, the discretion retained by the dominant state and the additional rules it imposes transforms policy cooperation between that state and the allied group into international hierarchy. Hierarchy necessarily comes into play to control opportunism.

International hierarchy through indirect rule is enforced by the relative appeal of the alternatives of domestic and direct rule. In domestic rule, which I treat here as a baseline, policy in the potentially subordinate state is set strictly by the groups within it. Groups vary in their interests and the power they can bring to bear on politics, either as a function of their position in the economy, the country’s political institutions, or other factors. Importantly, in domestic rule the dominant state plays no role in setting policy. The subordinate adopts autonomously whatever policy its groups prefer and political structures allow, and the dominant state lives with the choice. At the same time, the dominant state also incurs no costs in attempting to govern the subordinate either directly or indirectly. As explained in chapter 1, domestic rule is likely preferred when the dominant state has few specific assets and does not care that much about policy, the allied group is both powerful and has policy preferences closely aligned with those of the dominant state, the costs of war and occupation in direct rule are high, or the governance costs of indirect rule are high.

Under direct rule, the dominant state imposes its own preferred policy on the subordinate. In governing directly, the imperial state enacts policy strictly according to its own interests rather than those of the subordinate population. Doing so, however, requires displacing any prior regime, often by force, and suppressing the entire society, which would otherwise resist the imposition of a policy that everyone prefers less than that adopted under domestic or indirect rule. In this way, direct rule is akin to war, which Carl von Clausewitz described more than a century and a half ago as an act of force to compel our enemy to do our will.²⁷ The dominant state imposes the policy it most desires on the subordinate but at some significant cost of fighting and then occupying the country on a sustained basis. That these costs of direct rule can be quite large is suggested by the United States’ occupation of Iraq (see chapter 7). Direct rule is most likely when domestic rule is extremely unattractive to the dominant state, for reasons just explained, or the costs of direct rule are unusually low. The power disparities that allowed European states to seize empires in ages past are now rare in international politics. Today, it is extremely difficult to impose alien rule and suppress the entirety of society for extended periods.²⁸ Given the costs of direct rule, this mode of hierarchy is most likely when the specific assets held by the dominant state are very large.

The alternatives of domestic and direct rule limit the scope of opportunism available to the subordinate state under indirect rule. While the allied group has incentives to adopt policies both it and the dominant state prefer, and thus has few incentives to defect from the arrangement, it still has incentives to act opportunistically. The additional rules imposed by the dominant state mitigate these incentives but are not self-enforcing. Rather, opportunism by the subordinate is limited by the dominant state’s willingness to abandon indirect rule, allowing domestic actors to set policy through internal struggle alone, or to impose its own ideal policy and eliminate the subordinate’s ability to act independently. The more attractive either domestic or direct rule is relative to indirect rule, the less range for opportunism the subordinate possesses. Indeed, if the expected returns for the dominant state from direct rule are nearly the same as those from indirect rule, for instance, the subordinate will be highly constrained and we should observe little opportunism. This was, I will argue, largely the case in the CCA in the early twentieth century (chapter 3). However, if domestic or direct rule is relatively unattractive, the subordinate has greater scope for opportunism and we should observe more behaviors that are unwanted but still tolerated by the dominant state, as appears to be the case in the AME (chapter 7). At an extreme, the subordinate may act in a sufficiently opportunistic fashion that the dominant state becomes nearly indifferent between indirect rule and the next best alternative.

When rule is indirect, international hierarchy is sometimes hard to distinguish from anarchy, and thus scholars and analysts may have underestimated its extent and importance in world politics. Under the imperial extreme, as in the European overseas empires, direct rule is obvious. A subject territory is claimed or seized, control established, governors and magistrates appointed, and edicts issued by the capital. Although there might be some powers delegated to local intermediaries, the power to determine those authorities as well as major questions of policy are reserved to the center. When Britain went to war in 1914 and 1939, for example, its empire and all its peoples and resources automatically went to war as well. When subordinates retain their sovereignty, however, and more or less comply with the wishes of the dominant state even in the absence of any explicit threat of coercion, we often assume we are observing voluntary cooperation in relations of anarchy, when in fact it may be hierarchy through indirect rule in action. When conditions align under indirect rule, allied groups appear to adopt policies preferred by the dominant state of their own volition. With the dominant state paying the governance costs of suppressing resistance by their domestic opponents, the allied group will actually encourage the external assistance that allows it to increase its political power and serve its interests. Finally, facing a now strengthened allied group, the opposition will choose not to revolt openly. In equilibrium, all of this looks like cooperation. Somewhat ironically, the more attractive this arrangement is to the dominant state, the more opportunism or defection by the subordinate we may observe, suggesting that international cooperation in general is problematic or fragile. In such cases, the lack of compliance is evidence not of a lack of hierarchy but of how attractive indirect rule is relative to the alternatives, and how much opportunism the dominant state is willing to accept to gain the policy of concern. Only by recognizing its subtle nature and how external support bolsters the political position of groups with sympathetic policy preferences can international hierarchy through indirect rule be seen and understood.

Summary of Cases

Indirect rule was first expressed as a coherent system of rule by Frederick Lugard based on his experience as a British colonial governor in Nigeria.²⁹ With typically small numbers of merchants limited to coastal entrepots protected by equally small numbers of troops, Britain could not hope to govern directly all of the colonial territories it claimed. Even before Lugard theorized the practice, Britain had long governed indirectly through local elites—sometimes manufacturing such leaders as traditional rulers.³⁰ Profiting from their positions as intermediaries between metropole and colony, these indigenous leaders maintained internal order while more or less complying with the dictates of the distant metropole. This was true even in India, the jewel of the British empire. Here the crown governed through the private British East India Company, which in turn ruled indirectly through local princes,